A former commander of the now defunct special anti-robbery squad (SARS), Vandefan Tersugh, has claimed that it is normal for suspicions to be raised when a young man drives certain range of luxury cars.
This disclosure was made by Tersugh during an African Independent Television (AIT) programme on Monday where the activities of the special police unit came under interrogation.
It was his views that police officers including former operatives of SARS cannot detect crime casually but they have to interrogate such persons to find out the source of their income.
The retired police superintendent spoke in the light of the recent nationwide protests against the anti-robbery squad accused of excessive use of force, arbitrary arrests and extrajudicial killing of several young Nigerians.
Tersugh revealed that while working as a police officer, he would suspect a Nigerian aged between 20 and 30 who was driving an expensive car and would probe deeper to dig into the individual’s means of livelihood and other information that may help in identifying if the person is a criminal or not.
According to him, “The mandate of the policeman is to detect crime and you can detect crime also through most of these technologies coming on board.”
“We were not trained during our manuals to talk about cybersecurity and cybercrime, but today cybercrime has become something very endemic in our society. And this can be done by asking questions and examining some of these things physically.”
He argued that police officers do not need a search warrant in such occasions, stating that the manner the individual replies the security operatives will determine what follows.
“If I stop you on the road and I want to have a look at your phone, I want to see your Facebook, I don’t think I have committed any crime because I am only asking you a simple question,” he said.
“It is your answer that will lead me to go beyond where I have started. I can’t detect crime by mere seeing you but by asking you questions. I have seen you with a car, and now I have assessed your age, and I know in Nigeria how difficult it is for someone who is 20, 30 to start having a car worth N7 million.
“I cannot, as a policeman, see you there and assume something is not wrong with the way you are with the car, except I am able to ask you a question and I know your background, your family background, where you are working and where you got money to buy this car.”
Many Nigerians have reacted harshly to the views expressed by the retired police officer, arguing that the methods adopted by SARS is subject to abuse by its men who cut deals with the criminals and continue to extort them without actually charging them for crimes.
