By CHARLES IWUOHA

Hundreds of Ebonyi youths on Tuesday joined others Nigerians took over major roads and streets of Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital to demand an end to the alleged brutality and extortion by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police.

The protesters who were mostly students carried placards with different inscriptions.

Some of the placards read “End SARS brutality now", “SARS must go", "No to SARS".

The Protesters which blocked the old Government House Gate Abakaliki, insisted on not just ending SARS but police brutality.

One of the protesters who gave her name simply as Chiamaka said: "We gathered together to protest for end of police brutality, not just Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). In 2017 we heard that SARS was scrapped, 2018 we heard it was reformed, 2020 they are still brutalizing people.

"We heard the story of a 20 years old boy that was killed, we are not only asking for the scrapping of SARS but to end police brutality. Most importantly the reform of the whole police force, I know that police is under-funded but the truth is that we cannot implement policies if we don't want to inject money into the police force, the police are under paid they have little or nothing to work with, how many police van do we have here in Ebonyi State, does the government even fuel the police van? If you go to them to make an arrest they will tell you they don't have fuel that you should fuel their car.

“There is a need for overhaul in the system.”

Also, Ekoh Chibueze Samuel narrated: "We are advocating for our rights, and our rights is very simple, we want an end to police brutality, the armed robbers we are talking about are men in uniform, they do a lot of things, they say you did something when you have not done any and it is affecting youths in this state, enough is enough.

"We want the government to look into this, we are not asking for redeployment of SARS into another department that is still pollution, we are saying that those found guilty should be dismissed. We are agitating for police reformation, we are asking for the ability for our people to go round the world, even the country without any atom of embarrassment.

“We want every policeman that has pulled trigger on innocent Nigerian to be persecuted".

The protesters however insisted on seeing Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State or his Deputy as according to them, they wanted to hear from them especially as they complained of connived extortion by the police and the security outfit of Ebonyi State Government (Neighborhood watch).

Addressing the protesters at the old government house, the Commissioner for Internal security and Border Peace, Ebonyi State, Stanley Okoro-Emegha, called for a round table discussion, between them and the government.

He, however, doubted the connivance between the state security outfit and police to extort Ebonyians, as according to him, "the Neighborhood watch outfit are well trained to engage in such activity".

"But if you see any such thing call me I will in my capacity handle it, we have discipline mechanism for our people.”

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