The Presidential Panel on the Reform of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force was constituted on 15 August 2018 by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, following escalating public outcry—particularly on social media under the #EndSARS hashtag—over documented extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary detention, and extortion by SARS operatives across the country. The panel was constituted through the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and chaired by its Executive Secretary, Tony Ojukwu, Esq. Justice Suleiman Galadima, a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, served as a senior legal member of the panel providing judicial gravitas to its proceedings. The panel had a three-month mandate to investigate SARS abuses, receive petitions from victims, and advise the federal government on structural reforms to the unit and to the Nigeria Police Force broadly.
The panel held hearings across geopolitical zones, received hundreds of petitions documenting extrajudicial killings, sexual violence by SARS operatives, extortion of motorists and young professionals, and prolonged detention without charge. It found systemic command-and-control failures: SARS operatives operated largely without oversight from divisional police officers; there was no effective internal accountability mechanism; officers indicted for abuse faced inadequate sanction. The panel recommended that 37 SARS officers be dismissed from service and 24 others be criminally prosecuted. It also recommended the creation of a dedicated Police Accountability Directorate, mandatory body cameras, an independent civilian oversight mechanism, state police as a constitutional arrangement, and the immediate de-escalation of SARS from plainclothes urban stop-and-search operations.
The panel submitted its report to President Buhari in June 2019. Buhari directed the Inspector-General of Police to act on the state police recommendation and approved the dismissal of 37 SARS officers and prosecution of 24 others. In practice, the Police Service Commission moved slowly on dismissals and only a fraction of recommended prosecutions were initiated. The structural reforms—civilian oversight, body cameras, de-escalation of SARS—were not implemented. By October 2020, SARS had returned to its former patterns, precipitating the far larger #EndSARS uprising that required another round of panels to address.