About Yomi Shogunle’s shamelessness, SARS, and Nigerian citizens’ fates

There is fear in the land. Millions of Nigerian youths now live in trepidation, courtesy of the men that should ensure their safety.

Operatives of the Special Anti Robbery Squad, a sensitive arm of the Nigeria Police Force, run rampage on vulnerable youths daily, harassing and extorting their victims of huge sums. Sadly, they enjoy a level of immunity, due to unidentifiable jackets and a level of irresponsibility on their bosses’ parts.

The cries, complaints, and evidences of brutality are brushed aside daily, mostly by the head of the Police Complaints Rapid Response Unit (PCRRU), ACP Abayomi Shogunle.

Shogunle has, for long, displayed a level of brashness towards citizens’ plights, a trait which shouldn’t be synonymous with the head of such a sensitive unit of the police force.

And even by his standards, he reached a new low on Friday, displaying a level of irresponsibility unworthy of an Assistant Commissioner of Police, as he attempted to exonerate rampaging SARS operatives.

A video of a nursing mother who was assaulted by a police officer in Ghana had gone viral, and Shogunle thought it the best moment to display his now regular insensitivity towards citizens’ plights.

“WE WILL NEVER DO THIS IN NIGERIA!,” he said, with a level of confidence that threatened to overshadow his shamelessness.

He wasn’t done with his garbage, as he ended his tweet with “Hope #EndSARS people can see the real police brutality.”

This thoughtless and insensitive statement, in a country where sanity prevails, would be enough for the man to be relieved of his position as head of PCRRU – or even worse, his job. Not when there have been hundreds of video and pictorial evidences against the SARS operatives he so desperately aims to defend daily.

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But it’ll never happen, because the Police Inspector General is just as ignorant and dismissive of the plight of Nigerian citizens at the hands of these overzealous SARS operatives.

IGP Ibrahim Idris had, on Friday, responded to a question by journalists about the state of SARS and allegations against them by boldly saying they “are doing a wonderful job”.

Sadly, there lies law abiding citizens’ hope of being treated as humans that they are, in a country that offers them no real opportunities.

Until officers like Shogunle are not deemed worthy of heading sensitive positions within the police force, the fates of Nigerian youths at the hands of rampaging officers remain in precarious state.