The Minister of Police Affairs, Mohammad Dingyadi, has confirmed the deployment of the new Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) operatives to state commands across the country.
Dingyadi disclosed this while featuring on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Friday
The minister was asked about the status of the deployment of the Special Weapons (SWAT) and Tactics set up to replace the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
“Yes, they have ended their training, and they have been posted to the state police commands that brought them for training.
“They are there with them, and they are performing the functions of the SWAT,” he said.
Dingyadi also spoke about what the government was doing to improve the capacity of the police to adequately tackle the security challenges in the land.
“Mr President has given us the go-ahead to recruit 10,000 police personnel every year, and this is in addition to the ones we are recruiting through the Police Academy which is about 1,000 annually.
“You can see that we are having about 11,000 and we are also thinking of employing police personnel through short-service courses and by the time we get this approval, we will be recruiting more,” said the minister.
Following the nationwide #EndSARS protests last October, the immediate past Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, disbanded the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) over allegations of human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings.
Adamu also announced the formation of SWAT operatives to replace the disbanded SARS.
About 1,850 members of SWAT were later trained at the Police Mobile Force Training School, Ila Oragun, Osun State and the PMF Training School, Ende Hills, Nasarawa State.
