The Police Community Relations Committee in Ogun State has kicked against the campaigns and protests embarked upon by some Nigerians to end the operations of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad across the country.
The PCRC, which argued that SARS in the state had been up to the task of checking crime, especially in the fight against kidnapping, accused those calling for the scrapping of the squad as patrons of criminals.
The state Chairman of PCRC, Alhaji Ibrahim Olaniyan, said this shortly after the foundation laying ceremony of a security tower and an administrative block donated to SARS operatives in the state by the Warewa unit of the PCRC.
Olaniyan, who alleged that some politicians were sponsoring the protests to end SARS because of the forthcoming 2019 elections, said that the donations were made to aid SARS operations in the fight against crime and criminality on the Long Bridges of the Lagos/Ibadan Express Way and the creeks.
He said, “Well, I see them as criminals because in Ogun State, the SARS is performing well under the instruction of CP Ahmed Iliyasu. In another state, you can find out we have a lot of unresolved kidnapping cases. Those protesting in support of the scrapping of SARS are criminals and they are patrons of criminals, they have hidden agenda
“Some people are alleging that the politicians are sponsoring them. Any politician sponsoring them, I see him or her as a criminal; Politicians that have a hidden agenda know that if SARS operatives know, for instance, that they have guns without licence, they will go after them.” he added.
Speaking on the occasion, the state Commissioner of Police, Ahmed Iliyasu, also said that the blocks and tower donated to the SARS was to check the menace of criminals along the Lagos/Ibadan Express way and the
creeks.
“We have decided to commit ourselves into carrying out this programme to a tower that is meant to critically check the menace of any intending or migrating criminals along this axis. That is our vision, to push the activities of any intending criminals that come through this way because of the critical nature of the area,” he said.
