By Femi Falana
For several years, the human rights
community had called for the prosecution of the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad (SARS) over incessant arrests, detention, torture and extrajudicial
killing of citizens. As such calls were ignored by the authorities the SARS
intensified the brutalization of citizens particularly young people. The video
of the reckless killing of an unarmed young man in Delta State sometime in the
first week of October 2020 by trigger happy SARS officials went viral and led
to spontaneous street protests in many states of the Federation and the
Federal Capital Territory. In its initial reaction to the protests the Federal
Government announced that SARS would undergo some reforms.