This charge was made by Fatherland, a group of Nigerian professionals at home and abroad with its head office in London.

In a statement issued on Thursday by its president, Mr. Dele Ogun, Fatherland said in addition, there should be a comprehensive, citizen-led reform of policing arrangements in the country to give the people proper protection from criminals, in or out of uniform.

“The IG should have resigned. There is a stream of innocent blood flowing across the land under his feet. The proper thing is for him to quit. If he fails, he should be sacked,” the group said.

The group applauded protesting youths for their exceptional display of bravery and resilience in the on-going struggle against police brutality.

The group said by the protest the youths had made it clear that they would not tolerate being treated less than citizens, and indeed less than humans, by their own government.

“It is in this same spirit of defending their fundamental rights to human dignity that they have joined others across the world as part of the worldwide Black Lives Matters movement,” the group added.

Fatherland which recently held an inter-continental conference on the future of Nigeria said it was concerned about reports that government had been making public announcements of the disbandment of SARS units within the Nigerian Police Force only to allow them to resurface each time.

Fatherland said it was troubled by images of men of the Nigeria Police Force shooting, with live ammunition, and in some cases killing, unarmed protesters calling for an end to SARS.

There are reports of hundreds missing, usually from police custody.

Fatherland condemned the violent attacks on protesters by the men of the Nigeria Police Force, and their hired thugs, intended to deprive citizens of their right to hold peaceful protests.

Fatherland said it believed that the events of the last week had shown that the relationship of trust and confidence that needed to exist between citizens, communities and security agencies had completely broken down.

“This is especially poignant and troubling, against the backdrop of President Buhari’s Independence Day address, in which he called for the citizenry to support government by providing the necessary community level intelligence.”

Fatherland said Buhari’s 60th anniversary celebratory speech stated amongst other things that as a government, he remained committed to Nigeria’s constitutional oath of securing the lives and properties of the citizenry calling on the citizenry to also support the government by providing the necessary community level intelligence in addressing the challenges.

Fatherland regretted that two days later, on 3rd of October 2020, officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) murdered a 20 year old singer, Daniel Chibuike Ikeaguchi, popularly known as Sleek adding that in another outrage, Ifeoma Abugu, a 20 year old lady, who had just graduated and was performing her mandatory National Youth Service, was arrested in place of her fiance at his residence in Lokogoma, Abuja.

Ifeoma was sexually assaulted and later died in SARS custody.

The group recalled that the EndSARS protests commenced after the video of the musician’s corpse, lying on the road, in Elelenwo, in Rivers State, and a subsequent video of his father crying and seeking justice, went viral.

“The latest round of protests were sparked by a video recording of SARS officers dragging two young men out of a hotel in Lagos and shooting one of them. The call to protest has been answered by Nigerian youths in several states of the federation and echoed by young Nigerians abroad and members of the international community, including many celebrities.”

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The Nigeria professionals under the aegis of Fatherland said it was time Nigerians came together for constructive national dialogue to deal with the growing ethnic suspicion and other socio-political problems afflicting in the country.

Fatherland is a network of Nigerian professionals largely living abroad.

The group said it welcome the call by a key Northern leader, Dr Usman Bugaje, a leading intellectual in the North who late last year called for a National Dialogue on the future of the country.

“In our view it is always good to talk. We share Dr Bugaje’s view on the urgent need for us to find a way forward out of the present morass for the benefit of all of our peoples and so we are pleased to accept his call. However, there are some errors and misconceptions in the lecture that he delivered which need to be corrected. When making the call he identified three things which he said “becloud our vision” and which, he says, we must unshackle ourselves from “before we can arrive at a national consensus,” the statement signed by the Group Chairman, Mr Dele Ogun, a lawyer who lives in the UK noted.

Ogun, on behalf of the group said Fatherland supported Bugaje’s argument, but pointed out some misconceptions in his theory.

The group said while Bugaje cites Somalia as an example of a failed state despite being people of the same language, faith and culture, it was not the whole story because he must also be aware of the peace and prosperity that multi-ethnic Switzerland had enjoyed despite the nationalities of which he said were made up having fought each other in two bloody World Wars.

“This feat has been possible because the country faces up to and embraces its diversity in its constitutional arrangements. The post-Apartheid, Rainbow Nation of South Africa offers even better example in how diversity should be embraced,” Fatherland said.

Ogun said the focal points of Bugaje were  Demystification of Ethnicity, Knowledge Driven Discourse and Appreciation of the Future.

The group said in relation to the “Demystification of Ethnicity” Bugaje complained that “we seem to have allowed the ignorant to lead the national discourse on ethnicity or better still those who know better looked the other way when the ignorant and the manipulators were using the ethnic card to score their cheap points”.

He is wrong in this, the group said.

The group added that “far from the discourse on the need for constitutional arrangements to take account of the reality of our differences having been led by the ignorant it has, in fact, been led by those who have refused to play the Ostrich by burying their heads in the sands of denial. These are the ones who have opened their eyes and minds to the obvious fact that skin colour alone does not make us one.”

It said in an effort to support his claim that those who had faced up to the realities had been scoring “cheap points” he pointed to England and said “Today the Turkish roots of the current British Prime Minister are very well known and acknowledged, but it did not make him any less British”.

“He fails to realise that the four remaining fingers of his hand are pointing home to Abuja where no Southerner has been allowed to occupy the office of Minister for the Federal Capital Territory even though we are all Nigerians. England is in fact a bad example for him to point to because, in the same way, no practising Roman Catholic has ever occupied the office of Prime Minister of England.”

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