16th October, 2020
The Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership, CACOL, has dissociated the members of its Osun State Chapter of Good Governance, Accountability and Transparency Education (CGATE) from the recent violent protests that rocked the State.
In a release issued by the anti-corruption boss, Mr. Debo Adeniran through the organization’s Director of Administration and Programmes, Mr. Tola Oresanwo, he noted, “we want to use this medium to dissociate the members of our Good Governance, Accountability and Transparency Education (CGATE) Osun State Chapter from the recent violent protests that rocked the State of Osun.
The Anti-corruption organization boss said “It is a known fact that over the past few days, there have been renewed calls for the scrapping of the special anti-robbery squad (SARS) of the Nigeria police force over reports of brutality and extrajudicial killings. Following the protests, Mohammed Adamu, Inspector-General of Police (IGP), had disbanded the SARS unit. President Muhammadu Buhari had also issued a directive, calling for a reform of the police force”.
However, the protests have continued, with activists issuing a five-point demand which include release of all persons arrested and justice for victims of police brutality. Other demands are “setting up an independent body to oversee the investigation and prosecution of all reports of police misconduct; psychological evaluation of all disbanded SARS officers before they can be redeployed, and increase police salary so that they can be adequately compensated for protecting lives and property of citizens”. Though the government of the day has acceded to these demands but the protesters are still on the streets while some of them have taken the protests too far by turning it to violence, unruly behaviours and wanton destruction of properties.
“In as much as we believe that the Nigeria Police in its entirety needs total reform in order to improve on its service delivery and to bring their operations at par with international best practices, we do not subscribe to the use of violence and any act of brigandage”.
“To this end, we want to state unequivocally that members of our Good Governance, Accountability and Transparency Education (CGATE) Osun State Chapter are peace-loving, law-abiding, courteous and good mannered people, hence they cannot and will not involve themselves in any acts that would jettison the peaceful coexistence of the residents of Osun State”.
“We also want to use this medium to call on the government at all levels to address other socioeconomic problems the country is facing especially youth unemployment as this has given more impetus to the protest coming at a time when the nation and indeed the whole world is just coming out of the lockdown imposed on us by the sudden breakout of COVID-19 Pandemic. Many have lost their source of livelihood while many others are just managing to survive. This may induce violent tendencies in these youth if not addressed”