Police predation and violence in urban Nigeria: The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS)

ABSTRACT

Police are omnipresent in Nigerian cities. The existence and actions of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF) in cities such as Lagos, Ibadan, and Abuja are intended like elsewhere in the urban world to deter, reduce, and solve crime. This is true of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the NPF, created to combat armed robberies, car-snatchings, kidnappings, and cattle rustling. Its methods of seeking greater public security, however, raises questions about the fairness and efficacy of urban policing in Nigeria. Its reported police predation and violence during its stops, searches, detentions, and custody of urban denizens exacerbate socio-spatial injustices in Nigerian cities. We draw on the concept of the right to the city and qualitative data, including key informant interviews with Nigerian police, lawyers, and common city residents, including self-identified victims of SARS brutality, to describe how SARS helps us understand the context and characteristics of urban policing in Nigeria.

KEYWORDS:

• Nigeria
• police
• right to the city
• SARS
• urban social movements

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Králové, Czechia. The authors thank Jean Qian and Michael Leo Owens for their scholarly assistance, including proofreading and copyediting the penultimate version of this manuscript. They also thank the anonymous reviewers and editors of the Journal of Urban Affairs for their comments and support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Nigeria is a federation of 36 states with a Federal Capital Territory that includes the capital city of Abuja.

2. Protests also occurred in a set of cities in the Global North, including Dublin, Paris, Toronto, and Washington, DC (De de, 2020).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chijioke Egwu Ekumaoko

Chijioke Egwu Ekumaoko is currently an independent scholar and a researcher whose research interest cuts across African history, international politics, security studies, migration and urban studies. He holds a PhD in History and International Relations from Ebonyi State University, Abakaliki. He has published widely and many of his articles have appeared in journals indexed in Clarivate and Scimago. Dr. Ekumaoko, is open to collaboration and exchange of knowledge in the areas of his interest.

Kingsley Emeka Ezemenaka

Kingsley Emeka Ezemenaka is a research affiliate of the Department of Political Science (African Studies Section) at the University of Hradec Králové, Czech Republic, where he also attended and graduated with a PhD in Political Science, (African Studies Section). His research interests focus on human security, youth, violence, and conflict in Africa. He has published articles on the Responsibility to Protect (R2P); migration, security, state separatism issues, and challenges of security operationalization in the Global South. Ezemenaka’s work has been published in reputable journal such as Security Journal, Journal of Black Studies, among many others. Recently, he engages with the fusion of social sciences and information technology approach to provide practical and well-informed research output that aid in addressing security challenges in the society. He is open to research opportunities in international think-tank organizations.