Fulani Kwajafa, a retired Commissioner of Police, has regretted establishing the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, a unit of the Nigeria Police Force, in 1984.
Fulani expressed his regrets during an interview with BBC Hausa, over the excesses of the unit, notorious for alleged human rights violations.
Activities of SARS operatives have sparked protests across the country for almost two weeks now.
Nigerians are demanding a total scrap of the unit and reformation of the entire police force but Kwajafa said the unit completely derailed from its founding objectives.
He said, “My name is Fulani Kwajafa. I entered the Nigeria Police Force in 1984. Then robbery was prevalent, this was while Buhari was the Head of State,” he said.
According to him, Maj. General Muhammadu Buhari received a lot of complaints that armed robbery and other forms of robbery were on the increase giving the people sleepless nights and him(Kwajafa) and the then Inspector-General of Police, Mr Inyang, said they must do something about it or be fired.
Kwajafa explained that the IGP then mandated him to come up with an idea to rescue the country from thieves, a task he, Kwajafa, accepted.
He said after four months of creating the police unit, peace returned to the country as criminals who were not caught ran, and those who were caught were sent to prison.
“This thing frustrates me, there is no reason why because someone commits a crime that the person should be killed. There are laws and no one will give an order that if you see armed robbers kill the person,” he said.
