How & Why I Started SARS, The Founder Speaks

Now in his eighties, Mr. Fulani Kwajafa, who worked for twenty six years at the Police CID, gently reminisces over countless tough encounters with armed robbers across the federation. Revisiting his experience as head of the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), he asserts that Nigeria is in big trouble already, saying that some form of drug is being consumed in virtually all towns and villages across the country. According to him, there is no state where black leg law enforcement agents are not involved in the consumption and distribution of hard drugs.
As for the Police Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which he was saddled with the responsibility to set up during the Buhari/Idiagbon military era, he thinks that societal corruption and politicians have facilitated its degeneration, adding that a deep reform is the only logical consideration for SARS to regain its steam. In 2004 his people in Biu, Borno State conferred him with the title Sarki Yaki Biu while former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005 honoured with the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), in recognition of his service to the nation. He spoke with Assistant Editor, Jide Babalola in Abuja. Excerpts:

SIR, you spent decades in the Nigeria Police Force, you started the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and as a Commissioner of Police, you headed the Nigerian Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA). Now, how has life been in retirement?

It has been quite challenging, full of funny things in the sense that when I retired in 1989, there was no politics. But gradually, politics has become the order of the day; what we never used to see in those days, we started seeing it during politics. Thankfully, since I am not involved in politics, I won’t say life has been much challenging because only those who got themselves involved in politics after retirement have certain problems. After retirement, if you don’t have money and you run into politics, you will be overwhelmed because politics in this country is a matter of money.

Life in retirement is interesting and quite challenging but we thank God that we are still alive to be seeing what is happening now and make comparisons with our time in those days.

You headed the NDLEA from March 1991 to October 1993; what has been achieved and what are the problems you see with curbing illegal drugs now?

For NDLEA, in those days, drug fighting was not as tough as it is because not everyone knew about drugs and the scope for us to fight was very minimal but now, too many young men have now realized that it is a pot of money so, too many people are now involved in some aspect of drug dealing. Once the dealers are more, the consumers increase in number because people don’t buy to throw away, they buy to consume. People made so much fortune; amassed illegal wealth as drug traffickers who operate at a different level from the drug barons. The drug barons are the fathers, they operate underground, and they get the source of the drugs, import the drugs in big quantity and employ people to sell for them.

When I took over the mantle of drug fighting, I had my network to identify drug barons and we identified quite a few whose ranks were growing. At that time, illegal drugs were not as prevalent as it is now; drug barons were very few but I was able to identify some of them. There was one called Ugochukwu, he was one of the big barons, he shuttled between Nigeria, Taiwan, Germany and other places and he had networks everywhere. Some of them even go to Colombia which was a major source of drugs like cocaine since the 90’s.

At that time, Pablo Escobar was booming and later became a government unto himself because he was richer than the Colombian government. Gradually, Nigerians got into it as well and Gregory Odilibe was arrested (during the time of Fidelis Oyakhilome, a predecessor at NDLEA). When I took over, his vehicles were impounded.

Odilibe had associates who ran global errands and took quantities of cocaine from Columbia to Nigeria, to America. Before I came in, two· of Gregory Odilibe’s suspected associates, Emeka Chukwuedo Emmanuel and Chike Onwuazor were nabbed, and detained.

There was another Ugochukwu also, he was more or less like a house boy of Odilibe, running drug errands from Colombia to Nigeria but unfortunately, he was arrested as at the time that I was at NDLEA and put into custody. Later, he was released on bail and he took off !

How complex is the challenge of fighting illegal drugs in Nigeria today?

Drug fighting is very queer and peculiar. If you are not careful, they will kill you. Once they see you as a stumbling block to their business, then your days are numbered, except God is with you. We that fought here have only been fighting it on the surface; we never went deeply to uproot them!

I can tell you that Indian hemp is now being grown in more than fifteen states. There are North Western states where Indian hemp is being grown en masse and the selling point is up North, with increasing consumers in the North and then they cross over to Niger, Chad and so on. Now, the consumption is spread all over Nigeria. Now, the pattern of consumption is such that there is almost no village in this country now where hemp or some other form of drugs are not being consumed. That is why violent crime is very rampant because drug influence is a motivator for violent crime.

So, drug-fighting is very volatile. Unfortunately, after a while, we discovered that law enforcement agents were also being gradually involved in consumption of illegal drugs and as at now, there is no state where no law enforcement agent is involved in drug consumption. Some are now involved in consumption and distribution (of hard, illegal drugs). That is why there is wide spread of drugs all over states and all the violent crimes we hear about are offshoots of drug consumption. Once you are a criminal and you are consuming certain hard drugs, you don’t even see your family members as anything significant anymore.

Exactly when did you start the Special Anti-Robbery Squad and how did it begin its operations?

In the wake of the January 1983 coup that brought in General Muhammadu Buhari as Head of State, I had just been promoted to the position of Acting Commissioner of Police. At that time, just before Buhari and Idiagbon came in, robbery had become extremely rampant like common stealing, especially in Lagos which was Nigeria’s capital at the time. There was no day that we did not record several cases of robbery in Lagos  sometimes, up to ten or twenty in one day.

Then, the late Inspector-General of Police, Etim Inyang who had Mohammed Gambo as his deputy, during one of the morning briefings of senior officers, from AIGs upwards which usually met to discuss the government and crime, brought serious message from the highest level of government. The IGP was a member of the Supreme Military Council and he attended their weekly meetings. IGP Inyang came back and said “I had a serious bashing today on the rampancy of robbery and violent crimes in the country, which is threatening the peace of the nation. So, unless we do something urgently, the military boys will throw the police leadership out of our jobs.”

He said: “They warned me at Dodan Barracks to either sit up or bring the situation down or your job is on the line. Gentlemen, let’s do something; what can we do?” Then, one of the senior officers suggested that we must carve out a crack squad to deal with the situation and they said ‘whom do we get to take charge of this terrible situation’? There was a senior officer at the meeting who used to be a Commissioner of Police in Borno, my home state. There was a serious armed robbery in my state and they sent me from Lagos to go and investigate the robbery and I succeeded in arresting all the armed robbers involved. Some of them came from the South-South, South-East. Luckily for us, during the robbery operation in Borno State, one suspect was arrested and they asked me to go and handle the case. I went there and they handed over the suspect to me and gave me logistics – money, vehicle and so on. I swung into action and in two weeks, all the nine robbers who had scattered all over the South West and South East, I got them arrested and took them to Maiduguri. There was a fiat or judicial instruction of a time limit and when they were charged to court, the judge was given the instruction to seat from day to day till the case was disposed of and all of them were found guilty except one out of the nine and they were executed publicly.

So, that former Commissioner of Police was a very senior officer and part of the conference at police headquarters and he said that as far as he was concerned, the officer that can deal with the situation is Officer Kwajafa. Then, they summoned me from our CID office at Alagbon Close.

I met the IGP (Inyang) and he said: “With the situation we are in now, we are very uncomfortable with the crime spread in Lagos and the military are on my neck; unless we do something fast, the job of senior officers will be at stake and somebody suggested that you can begin and lead a crack squad that will not only shake Lagos but Nigeria and bring the spread of violent crimes to a minimum level.”

He also said that : “Somebody was opposed to it and said that you are an illiterate and not educated, that you finished only Primary Four; so,  how can we assign this to you?” So I told Mr. Inyang: “Sir, if you want to give me an assignment, give it to me, there should be no condition attached to it, even though I am an illiterate, I rose from the rank of a constable in the CID over twenty-six years and today, I am a Commissioner of Police, I am no longer an illiterate; trust me with the assignment sir.”

Your maximum academic qualification at the time was only Primary Four?

Yes. But I improved my education in the service.

So, Mr. Inyang said: Ok, the situation in Lagos is chaos, we want someone that will deal with the armed robbery incidents in Lagos decisively and someone suggested you.”

Then I said to him that as for the area of me being an illiterate, how many armed robbers speak English? The language between armed robbers and the police is the gun; they carry guns, we carry guns and we meet at the middle, so the question of literacy or illiteracy does not arise. At least I had been in the CID for 26 years, I even investigated cases in my language and I prosecuted cases in English, so we set sentiments aside.

So the IGP said, “Go and give me a list of your logistics requirement.”

Thus, I went and listed the names of the gallant boys I had worked with before and I got the names of about 80 officers, spread all over the country. He gave me the mandate to choose officers from any state and we swapped them with officers in Lagos and we provided accommodation for them. Signals were sent out and they resumed in Lagos within seven days.

I also gave him the list of thirty-one vehicles. At that time, the prices of vehicles ranged from two to forty thousand Naira for a brand new Land Rover. Then, Obalende (Police Hq) was littered with vehicles. I gave him the list that included lorries, Land Rovers, Peugeot station wagon cars and others required for surveillance tasks. In my presence he minuted on it, giving instructions to the Transport Officer to release the vehicles and transfer police drivers of equal number from all the states, including Lagos to report within seven days, they all reported and I went somewhere in Ikeja and trained them to my satisfaction. It was extremely rigorous and some even collapsed, they couldn’t endure because the training was too rigorous for them to withstand. We anticipated the rigours of SARS operation.

IGP Inyang assured me of his full support and anytime I was lacking logistics, I go to him directly.

Which countries did you get trainers or instructors from, to begin the SARS training?

No thought was given to that. It was a Nigerian problem and nobody came from anywhere other than the Nigerians doing the training. Nigerians conducted the trainings, no foreigner. I was in the CID for about twenty-six years, I knew what was required, how to handle almost all sorts of cases.  I got some of the people whom we worked together in the CID transferred and I christened the squad, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The day we resumed, I divided the personnel into four sections – Crack Squad Number One, two and three. Each was to work by covering at least eight hours – three shifts. The fourth squad was solely for investigations. We converted a building in Adeniji Adele and camped there.

I gave very specific instructions that in the event that we go for operations against armed robbers and there is any incident that involves shooting, killing; don’t be too concerned about catching and bringing the armed robbers shooting at you to me; just finish them there and bring the dead bodies.

We did this from two weeks to one month in an atmosphere that deeply frightened very notorious gangsters in Lagos so most of the robbers in their gangs ran away to other states. They said that a mad man has come who doesn’t want to see armed robbers alive, only dead. So, within one to two months, Lagos became quiet and so peaceful for law-abiding citizens who now felt freer to enjoy their lives in peace.

Consequently, armed robbers fled and some other states in the federation were getting infested with armed robbers. So, occasionally, I will take a squad to go and cool down the situation in some particular states. Eventually, within six months, Lagos and some other states became as quiet as a wilderness. People were free to celebrate and even have night travels and parties without molestation by robbers. Before we started SARS, only God knew how many people the armed robbers had killed in Lagos alone but within the period of our first six months, only God knows how many armed robbers that we jailed or killed.

SARS’ war against armed robbers was so intense that instead of being arrested or taken to Adeniji Adele where we had our office, some armed robbers will rather jump into the lagoon than come there. We kept that place hot for them; if not, the society would have succumbed to the evil minds of armed villains.

A lot has changed over the years but between those who campaign for the scrapping of SARS and those on the opposite side, whom do you see as being right or justified?

You can’t blame those who are calling for the scrapping of SARS, because of the situation they see; corruption is now prevalent in the entire society which includes every group, including SARS operatives and some people in power are using SARS just to achieve their selfish desires either for vengeance or to oppress and suppress other people.

To protect Nigerian citizens from the illegal guns being wielded by armed robbers and kidnappers, we need a reformed SARS, an upgraded and highly improved SARS which cannot be manipulated or tempted from its sole duty of protecting citizens with their lives and firepower.

In my time, I gave specific instructions: It was I that will assign people to go and see to complaints and write reports for operation. But nowadays, some people will go to SARS and frame allegations against one another, just to suppress them. I understood that long after I left, it became so bad that even domestic affairs were being judged by some SARS operatives who arrest people and harass them. It is terrible that when some people suspect someone of chasing their wives, they take the person to SARS and brand him as an armed robber. Such nonsense is not what SARS was meant for; SARS was meant to fight violent crime, especially armed robbery.

In our time, kidnapping was not a pronounced issue at all. In those days, we knew it only by definition and the emergence of kidnapping is not more than ten years. It is a strange and sad thing against any citizen. SARS was established by me under the directive of the then IG, Mr. Inyang expressly to fight violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnapping, anything violent. We never went for burglary cases, we didn’t go in for pick pocketing, market theft and such things, we don’t go there, it never belonged to us, local police stations are around, they handle that.

It was only crimes that involved killing, maiming; that was what SARS was established to handle. SARS is being misused now; they are misused for selfish interests, especially by politicians, but anyone calling for the scrapping of SARS doesn’t want this country to be in peace because SARS wherever it is, is supposed to operate in ways that instil fear into those violent criminals that terrorize law-abiding Nigerians. So, I am surprised that people say that even if you go somewhere and steal someone’s goat, they will go and report you to SARS for the thief to confess, just because everyone knows that SARS is not a playground. SARS was not established for that, SARS is meant for countering violent crimes, armed robbery and now, kidnapping and murder.

Sometimes we blame policemen, but we should ask ourselves and ask our government, whether enough is being done or provided to ensure an efficient and effective police force by global standards. When we established SARS, nobody was corrupt! When they give you information money N5,000, it is sufficient for one week. Petrol was N7 to fill a car’s tank so when you are going on operation and you are given N200, with three vehicles, it is sufficient. You get N300 for one week; you go on operation and come back with your independent mind. But the economic recession is forcing people to do all sorts, enabling some people to even buy the services of SARS, so the operation of SARS is misconstrued! People are taking undue advantage and black leg policemen sometimes submit themselves to carry out unlawful activities in the name of SARS.