The Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability Campaign (CBRPAC) in Rivers State, southern Nigeria, has faulted the absence of police operatives from the streets.

Secretary, Board of Trustees of CBRPAC, Prince Wiro, said criminals in Rivers State were now having a field day in perpetrating crimes.

Development Diaries understands that policemen withdrew from the streets following attacks on them and other public and private properties by hoodlums, who hijacked the #EndSARS protests.

Armed thugs attacked protesters and police operatives in many states, including Lagos and Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, with the police accusing people ‘posing’ as protesters of looting weapons, and torching police buildings.

‘Except the police return to their duty posts, crimes are bound to increase; already, we have started noticing an increase in crime in the state’, Punch quoted Wiro as saying.

‘Some days ago, criminals waylaid innocent passersby in parts of Diobu in broad daylight because the police were not there. Before now, such atrocities were happening, but not as frequently as it is now’.

Protests, with hashtag #EndSARS, were triggered by the killing of a young man by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Lagos on 03 October.

The police unit, which has been disbanded by the Nigerian government, had long been accused of harassment, unlawful arrests, torture and killings.

Source: Punch

Photo source: AMISOM Public Information