Politicians behind #EndSARS campaign, says police spokesman

Jimoh Moshood, force public relations officer, says “mischievous” politicians are behind the #EndSARS campaign.

Over the weekend, Nigerians took to the social media to condemn the “careless” disregard for human lives by the operatives of the special anti-robbery squad (SARS).

But speaking on Sunrise Daily, a Channels Television programme, Moshood said Jega Awosanya Segun, the alleged originator of the hashtag, is under investigation.

He alleged that Segun had links to some unnamed politicians.

“Somebody who had an ulterior motive put up #EndSARS, Nigerians should be mindful because the social media is very porous,” Moshood.

“We traced the hashtag and traced it to mischievous politicians that are trying to create problem in the system that SARS is a stumbling block for them to achieve objective in the election and we are investigating this.

“The owner of the hashtag is being investigated. We know freedom of expression is the right of every Nigerian and we are taking people up because of that.

“It is quite unfortunate, I’m not mentioning any name but this same Jega Awosanya Segun is the owner of the hastag and we have seen his picture with various crop of politicians and we are investigating that for Nigerians to know the reason why.”

He said SARS “is not a killing machine” as “it was created to deal with cases of robbery and any other case the offender carries firearm”.

Moshood said: “SARS is been doing very very well. We are not saying that there is no infraction, if there is an infrcation, not only on SARS personnel but conventional policemen – people should report to us.

“We want to disabuse their minds that SARS should be ended. But when you have complain, complain to us. For a lot of people pushing their remarks on social media, most of them are not correct.”