Some youth in Rivers, South-south part of Nigeria have accused the police of committing all manners of crimes in the state as they protested peacefully.
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Scores of youths took to the streets on Friday in protest of extrajudicial killings allegedly perpetrated by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of Nigeria Police in Rivers State.
The youths, who gathered under the aegis of the Niger Delta Non-Violence Youth Leaders Assembly converged on the popular Moscow Road in Port Harcourt, displaying placards with various inscriptions.
Some of the inscriptions on the placards read, ‘IGP, rise up to the occasion, Akin Fakorede must go’, ‘The activities of Akin Fakorede is creating bad image for the Nigerian Police’, SARS, Rivers people say no to extrajudicial killings’, ‘SARS has become something else in Rivers State’, among others.
Describing some of the activities of SARS in the state as unacceptable, the protesters explained that innocent persons had been sent to their early graves as a result of the unprofessional behaviour of the security outfit.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after their protest, the Coordinator of the group, Mr. Michael Omachi, maintained that the head of SARS in the state, Mr. Akin Fokorede, had shown that he was not capable of handling operatives under him.
“We want to state that the SARS Commander, Akin Fakorede is incapable of handling his men. We are being humiliated; our people are being killed. Our people have been r*ped and at the end of the day, they will come back and say it is our people that r*ped our people.
“Meanwhile, it is SARS people that are r*ping our people. They go with different kinds of drugs in their pockets and go to search people’s houses. At the end of the day, they plant the drugs in people’s houses.
“They will plant those exhibits and arrest those people. They will deal with those people and at the end of the day, you bail yourself N100,000 in our state. We will no longer allow it.
“For the sake of time, what we are saying today is that let the Federal Government, especially the President (Muhammadu) Buhari, to come to our aid; let the Inspector-General of Police come to our aid,” Omachi pleaded.