If you have lived long enough in Nigeria and are conversant with happenings on microblogging platform Twitter, then you would have come across the name, Abayomi Shogunle, at one point.
Shogunle, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, the Head of the Public Complaint Rapid Response Unit of the Nigeria Police Force has carved a reputation for trolling and disdaining the continuous complaints of Nigerian youth against the police in general, and the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) in particular.
On Thursday, Shogunle posted an inane tweet calling for “186 million retweets to #EndSARS.”
186 million Retweets to #EndSARS.
Oya let’s go!— Abayomi Shogunle (@YomiShogunle) July 26, 2018
There’s no denying the fact that Shogunle has a reputation of being silly on social media, but this tweet is the height of how low he is willing to go.
Nigerian youth have since the end of 2017 repeatedly called for an end to SARS. These calls have been consistent due to the harassment, kidnapping, assault, robbery, brutality allegedly perpetrated by SARS operatives. These brazen actions carried out many times in broad daylight has received a slap on the wrist from the police hierarchy.
Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, when asked a few days ago on what he intends to do on the clamour on social media for the end of SARS, said, “Social media is a technology available to people that are criminally minded”.
A sharp contrast from his Ghanaian counterpart, David Asante-Apeatu, who suspended a police officer, who was videod brutalising a pregnant woman in a banking hall, a video shared by Shogunle with a caption, “We (Nigeria Police) will never do this in Nigeria”.
A big lie.
Nigerians are shot at random and killed like chickens because a policeman is angry and was refused a N20 bribe at an illegal police checkpoint.
Ghanaian president, Nana Akufo-Addo responded immediately to the video backing the decision of his IGP to suspend the erring officer.
But in Nigeria, President Muhammadu Buhari will rather release a press statement on the defection of members of his party than call erring policemen to order.
Instead of Shogunle, who is meant to be the face of the Police’s response to the plights of Nigerians to seek honest and serious conversations on how best to solve the issues and investigate why everyone is calling for #EndSARS, he has chosen to continuously spit on the face of the youth who have had terrible experiences from his men.
With that, rather silly, inciting tweet, he has invariably pissed on the graves of the many people who have lost their lives at the hands of policemen, to say the least, the indiscretions of #SARS officials.
Yemi Shogunle lacks the wherewithal to handle a sensitive position as the Head of a Police Public Complaint Response Unit. He spends his time taunting Nigerians who have complained, and there are many such complaints, of the worse than terrible behaviour of #SARS officials in particular and the entire Nigerian police force in general.
Dolapo is a writer and journalist who works with YNaija. He has interests in Christianity, politics and sports.
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