Rose Ejembi Makurdi
A Retired Commissioner of Police, Aghanya Ibezimako has disagreed with the former Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mike Okiro for saying that men of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) were trained to combat Armed Robbery.
CP Aghanya who stated this following the ENDSARS protest rocking parts of the country maintained that there is no police training institution in the country where police are trained to combat armed robbery.
“I respectfully disagree with him (Mike Okiro). There is no Police training Institution in the country that trains any Policeman on how to combat Robbery. Men in SARS are selected based on courage and other unknown qualifications from serving members of the force at the discretion of the head of SARS.”
The retired Police Commissioner who noted that SARS men derailed due to lack of supervision maintained that, “it is not practicable to supervise FSARS men effectively by a Commissioner of Police based in Abuja, if they are deployed permanently to State Commands.
“The CP of each Command is capable of supervising every arms of Police force within his command. It is his responsibility in accordance with the constitution and 2020 Police act.”
Aghanya therefore suggested that FSARS should be collapsed into State CID as a sqaud under the Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) State CID for close monitoring and Supervision while the IGP can retain DCP Abba Kyari who is doing a fantastic job as a special Squad under his control.
“The DCP State CID reports to the Command’s Commissioner of Police. They should be equipped with all kinds of security gadgets, vehicles and best arms on earth. They will have a beautiful barracks in Abuja and regularly train on how to combat Robbery and kidnapping. They should not be more than 100 men in strength.
“These men will be sent to Commands on the request of CP Command. It will be the responsibility of the Governor of such State to provide for logistics such as allowance and comfortable temporary accommodation.
Aghanya identified lack of allowance and logistics like fuel for operational vehicles as well as greed as some of the factors causing SARS operatives to detail from their duty.
“If a CP knows his worth, before requesting for such deployment from IGP, he must have discussed the detailed plans at the state Security council meeting or personally with the Governor like I do as a CP in times of emergency situation in the three states where I served as CP.
“There is no Governor that will not accept such idea because they are more disturbed if there is increase in crime within the state. As soon as the special Squad combats the crime they report back to base in Abuja.
He opined that centralisation of SARS under a Commissiomer of Police in Abuja is duplication of duty stressing thay since there are an anti Robbery sections in all State CID in the commands, they should be allowed to handle such responibility.
He recalled that even though he had no SARS in Kogi when he was Police Commissioner in 2008, he had to send the team sent from Force CID Abuja to flush out deadly Armed Robbers between Okpella-Okenne-Lokoja road back when he discovered they were derailing.
“I did my best with my PMF men, State CID and CIB. The Governor then, Mohammed Idris and the entire Kogi Indigene appreciated the efforts of the Command,” Aghanya noted.