Nigerian musician, Azeez Fashola, widely known as Naira Marley, has said that the agitation to end police brutality in the country was fuelled by armed robbers and that there was no need to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the police.
SARS is notorious for arbitrary killings and other rights violations of innocent civilians in a bid to extort them.
Naira Marley made the comments in an Instagram Live session monitored by SaharaReporters on Tuesday.
He added that concerns around COVID-19 also led to the cancellation of the protest earlier billed for Tuesday morning.
He said, “We need to reform SARS. Let’s be reasonable, are you an armed robber? Why will you say they should end SARS. If you end SARS, it means they should end EFCC and other agencies. All we have to do is get them off the road.
“Nobody threatened me, I know my rights. What stopped me was thinking of the safety of everybody and I saw that the police issued a statement.”
Reporters At Large had earlier reported the popular singer as making a u-turn on his decision to organise a peaceful protest against police brutality in Nigeria.
The singer stated via his verified Twitter account that he cancelled the planned protest because ‘a lot of changes are being made right now.’
