Calls for President Muhammadu Buhari to address the nation have taken centre stage on social media shortly after the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, announced the immediate disbandment of the special anti-robbery squad (SARS), TheCable has reported.
The announcement came on the back of the #EndSARS protests across the country and some parts of the world.
Force spokesman, Frank Mba said, on behalf of the IGP, “He assures that a new policing arrangement to address anticipated policing gaps the dissolution of SARS would cause has been evolved and shall be announced in due course.
”Meanwhile, as part of measures to prevent a re-occurrence of events that gave rise to the dissolution of SARS, a Citizens’ and Strategic Stakeholders’ Forum is being formed to regularly interface with Police leadership at all levels and advise on police activities as they affect the general public.”
Quite a number of Nigerians have taken to Twitter to express their doubts about the disbandment of the police unit, TheCable has reported.
The users seemed not to be satisfied owing to similar promises of reforming the police department in the past which failed.
In September 2018, TheCable had reported how the former IGP, Ibrahim Idris, had issued a similar directive due to the public outcry over SARS brutality.
A month earlier, the then Acting-President Yemi Osinbajo had also directed Idris to overhaul SARS.
Owing to the fact that nothing has changed since then, some Nigerians expressed their dissatisfaction with the disbandment — using the tag “audio dissolving” — while calling on the president to address the nation on the matter.
In Nigeria, the term “audio” is used to describe a promise that is not guaranteed, with “audio money” popularly used for people who show off wealth and material possessions which might not belong to them or with unknown origin.
“They’ve said these lies before! Audio dissolving, do not believe any of it. #EndSARS,” a user wrote.
“Not until we see the president on Live TV saying that SARS has been Dissolved & they have been redeployed into Forces that fight against Terrorists we will not believe anything. No more Audio Promises in 2020,” another user wrote.
On his part, Yahoo banker wrote: “We refuse to accept this #Audio #dissolving Buhari himself should address us tonight if it’s real, We no wan hear from police. The whole world is aware of the #endsars movement. The best way to feed them back is hearing from our president himself. And proper actions are taken.”