The Minister of Youths and Sports, Sunday Dare has on Monday visited the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Adamu for further discussions on the activities of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, F-SARS operatives.
Dare said he talked to the IGP on the need to end the harassment, profiling and dehumanization of Nigerian youths by some bad officers. He added that the IGP gave strong assurances on deep reforms, sanctioning of officers and protection of the youths.
The Minister said the strict enforcement and implementation of the recent ban of F-SARS and similar squads alongside the need to allow the youths to go about their legitimate activities formed the core of his discussion with the IGP.
According to him, it was agreed that a Youth-Police Townhall meeting series across the country should commence soon under the watch of the Ministry of Youths and Sports (MYSD). He opined that the meetings will serve as a check on the relationship between the two parties before things deteriorate.
The Minister reiterated that Government is unequivocal that the police brutalities against Nigerian youths must stop. He, however, expressed delight over the commitment of the IGP to ridding the force of bad eggs and to stop the painting of innocent youths as Cyber-criminals, popularly known as Yahoo boys.
You will recall that the IGP has issued an order banning the F-SARS, and other Tactical Police Squads operating at Federal, Zonal, and Command levels from carrying out routine patrols and other conventional low-risk duties including stop and search duties at checkpoints, roadblocks, traffic checks among others with immediate effect.
The IGP in a statement signed by Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Frank Mba announced that the Special Tactical Squad, Intelligence Response Team, Anti-Cultism squad and other Tactical Squads are banned from routine patrols ( read more here).
In the meantime, the Nigerian Police Force, NPF has announced how members of the general public could reach out to the Complaint Response Unit.
The numbers announced by the NPF are 08057000001 (calls Only), 08057000002 (Calls Only), 08057000003 (SMS & WhatsApp only), 07056792065 (Calls/SMS/whatsapp) and 08088450152 for Calls,SMS and whatsapp.
