EndSARS Protest : Dayo Faduyile calls on Police to end brutality, charges the protesters not to overreach themselves.
– Steve Ovirih.
Prof.Francis Adedayo Faduyile, the immediate past President, Nigerian Medical Association ( NMA) has called on the Nigerian Police to put an end to every likelihood of brutality and infringement of human rights against innocent Nigerians. He made this appeal in an exclusive telephone chat with thepolity.net . The Associate Professor of Pathology and Forensic Medicine condemned the high handedness of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) who openly denigrate on the fine rules of police engagement in their operations and their relationship with the members of the public.
Prof. Faduyile who is in Abia State to deliver the Keynote address in the year 2020 Physician’s week at the Michael Okpara University, while speaking with thepolity.net noted that the Special Anti Robbery Squad has openly indulged in series of abuses of human rights which have eventually culminated in the EndSARS Protest.
Faduyile maintained that nobody is asking SARS not to arrest robbers and kidnappers but when innocent youths are arrested and manhandled in broad daylight , whisked away to God knows where for crime they never committed, it puts a question mark on the desirability of the squad in our society.
” There is freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of movement, freedom to own and acquire property and other rights enshrined in the global human rights chatter.
” Once SARS lay hold on you, all these rights are suspended whether you are guilty or not. This is not right in the 21st century. The mantra still subsists that one is deemed innocent until a court of competent jurisdiction finds one guilty, but in the modus operandi of SARS one wonders if such exists as the brutality meted out to whoever is luckless to fall their victim would have already condemned such as guilty of crime,” Faduyile said.
He noted with delight that due to the resilience of the protesters and the proactive way they have sustained the protest, Government speaking through the Inspector General of Police, Idris Adamu has announced the proscription of SARS, congratulating the protesters for ensuring that the menace of SARS no longer haunts Nigerians. He however noted that while ending SARS is a good thing, it will be noteworthy for the management of the Nigerian police to ensure that there is a better and more civil approach of dealing with members of the public in a way that will not open up the sore wound of Police brutality against members of the public.
Prof. Faduyile however called on the protesters, majority of who are youths, not to overreach themselves in the protests going on almost in all the major cities of Nigeria. He asked them to comport themselves by only expressing their views without going violent, lest they are tagged as heady and excessive and misguided youths.
He appealed to them to know when to draw a conclusion on their protests so that they will not eventually constitute nuisance to the smooth running of the transport system in the major cities.
