Civil rights advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has blamed the rampant shootings and extra-legal killings of citizens by armed Police operatives, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), on President Muhammadu Buhari.

The group accused the President for having a long history of impunity and crass misuse of the armed security forces to quell otherwise peaceful protests since 2015 thereby leading to the killings of dozens of Nigerians.

It noted that the current administration has “stifled the Independence of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) by refusing to constitute its Governing Council thereby denying Nigeria the opportunity of the institutionalization of any form of accountability for the conducts of the security forces.”

The rights group condemned the widespread mass killings of citizens by security forces and tasked the Federal Government to deal with this menacing virus of police extra-legal execution of the citizens before anarchy sets in because, according to it, “sooner rather than later, the citizens may revolt and take the law into their hands in their attempts for self preservation.”

Said HURIWA: “It is legitimate for the citizens to safeguard the protection of their fundamental human right to life by any means possible because the right to life, if taken away, can never be restored.

“This is why it is imperative that President Buhari takes concrete steps to first and foremost, stop the deployment of armed squads to crush peaceful protests and then deal with killer tendencies within the police force urgently.”

HURIWA said its call was against the background of the reported gunning to death at the weekend of some youths by a team of SARS in front of Wetland Hotel, Ughelli in Delta State. The operatives allegedly shot the citizen and left the scene.

HURIWA said it is aware of a trending footage which shows the killer police operatives speeding off in the victim’s vehicle – a white Lexus SUV.

It maintained that the government seems to be deriving some kind of satisfaction from the activities of the dreaded Police unit that has repeatedly harassed and killed Nigerians stating that if the contrary is the case, the Federal Government, which is the direct employer of these operatives, could have reined in the killers.

“Some persons in government seems to be gaining by the bloody violence targeting mostly young Nigerians in most cases, the culprits within the ranks of the Nigerian Police Force under the authority of its Inspector General Mohammed Adamu and the command and control of the Commander-in-Chief and the President are never arrested or prosecuted.

“Their activities have triggered off protests and there have been extensive social media campaigns tagged #EndSARS, with many Nigerians clamouring for a scrap of the department.

“We recalled that in August 2018, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, as the Acting President, made a lame attempt at checking the killer instincts of these dare-devil policemen when he ordered then IGP Ibrahim Idris to overhaul SARS management and activities. Osinbajo ordered that the unit that will emerge from the process, must be intelligence-driven and restricted to the prevention and detection of armed robbery and kidnapping, and apprehension of offenders linked to the stated offences, ordering that all operatives in the emerging unit should conduct their operations in strict adherence to the rule of law and with due regard to International Human Rights Law and the constitutionally guaranteed rights of suspects. The operatives should also bear proper identification anytime they are on duty.

“Sadly, these lofty ambitions have remained mere illusions because the government benefit from the rot.”

HURIWA however said the Federal Government lacks the will to check the excesses of “these brutes” in police uniform “because the government has the unholy history and antecedents of deploying operatives of the security forces to kill citizens at will and these licensed mass killers in Police uniform often get away with these heinous crimes and so the rest of the killer police operatives embedded within the system are emboldened to continue to unleash bloody violence targeting mostly young Nigerians in the guise of chasing after fraudsters.”

It also urged Nigerians to begin mass demonstrations against the illegal activities of the Nigerian Police Force.

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