#EndSARS: Respect Protesters’ Rights, UK Warns Nigeria

The British Government has called on Nigerian authorities to respect the rights of #EndSARS protesters.
The United Kingdom said this in reaction to several cases of assaults at different protest locations.
On the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the UK observed the promise by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on rights violations.
The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, gave her country’s position, in a statement, yesterday.
“We welcome the government’s announcement on the future of #SARS – an important first step. The IGP’s commitment to ensure accountability for human rights violations is essential to restoring public confidence in @PoliceNG
“Hearing reports of violence affecting ongoing protests. Urge authorities to respect the right to protest and protestors to remain peaceful. @UKinNigeria.”
Protests are continuing in different states amid reports of live bullets against demonstrators.
Similarly, the prominent civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has demanded that President Muhammadu Buhari immediately constitutes several judicial commissions of investigations on the activities of the now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and make recommendations on those to be prosecuted for crimes against humanity.
The rights group said that the statement that the members of disbanded SARS would be redeployed to other units of the police, and then, a team set up to investigate allegations of human rights violations by the operatives of the disbanded SARS should be taken as deception since nothing good will come from an adjudication process instituted by the same institution of the Nigerian Police Force accused of gross human rights violations.
HURIWA said it was inconceivable that the police wants to be both the prosecutor and the judge in the case of extensive use of extralegal killing tactics against suspects by the operatives of SARS.
HURIWA spoke, yesterday, against the backdrop of the announcement by the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on the so-called disbandment of SARS after millions of Nigerian youths spent days on the streets of cities across the country to denounce the criminal activities of the men and officers of the dreaded SPECIAL ANTI-ROBBERY SQUAD otherwise known as SARS.
The rights group dismissed the announcement as an after-thought and a subterranean attempt by the IGP to set up another SPECIAL ANTI-ROBBERY SQUAD through deceptive approaches even as HURIWA asked the protesters to remain vigilant in case the police hierarchy simply re-baptises the now disbanded SARS.
The HURIWA National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, who jointly endorsed the media statement, said it would be cosmetic and simplistic to just announce that SARS has been disbanded and that the members would be redeployed to other policing units across the country.
The rights group complained that “this step is not far reaching enough since it will amount to mixing up rotten eggs with semi-rotten and fairly good eggs in the larger Nigerian Police Force”.