Northern Governors have rejected the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad by the Federal Government.
The position of the Governors was made known by the Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and Plateau State Governor, Simon Lalong, after a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa on Thursday.
Lalong said: “We had a meeting yesterday (Wednesday) with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
“I’m sure my chairman addressed the press.
“When we see issues like this, because most of the complaints vary from one state to the other, in one aspect, some people said they don’t want SARS, some said they want SARS but a reformed SARS.
“They want a reformed SARS because as far as they are concerned, some of these SARS operatives helped them in addressing insecurity.
“If there are bad ones under, holistically, bring them together and reform them.
“Then, you work for them.
“So, our opinion and conclusion at that stage was that let us not just say we are throwing away the baby with bath water.
“If there are good ones, you don’t chase them away.
“So, as SARS is banned, we are now looking forward to…because most of the states in the North said no.
“They want SARS because SARS helps them.
“Borno said without SARS, he would not have been surviving today.
“Niger also wants SARS.
“So, if you are addressing this issue of SARS, you need to know what is wrong in some places.
“Is it the process of recruitment?
“Is it the character of the people?
“You can’t say because somebody is wrong, everybody is wrong in the country.
“These are some of the issues we concluded yesterday.
“And it’s for the chairman to go and meet Mr. President to still look at this issue holistically and critically so that we understand where we are going.
“On a whole, we all agreed that there must be general reform within the police.
“But you can’t do general reform without proper funding.
“You must address the issue of proper funding so that they don’t say government is responsible for lack of funding and we attack them for non-performance of their duties.”