#EndSARS: How DSS held Coalition of Northern Groups’ leaders for 5 hours

KANO— The leaders of Coalition of Northern Groups, CNG, leading the #EndInsecurityNow protest to demand for end and lasting solution to insecurity in the northern Nigeria, were held at the Department of State Services, DSS, from 10p.m on Friday, till 3a.m. on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the Coalition, on Saturday, eased down its protest in Kano State.

One of the conveners of Coalition of Northern Groups, Dr. Muhammad Nawaila, said the group decided to ease down the protest after a short walk from Daula roundabout to Bompai, where it successfully handed over its letter to the Kano State Commissioner of Police, CP Habu Sani, who promised to follow up on the matter.

According to him, “Initially, on Friday during a briefing, we insisted that we will go ahead with our protest today (Saturday) and to converge at Kofar Gidan Sarki Juma’at Mosque to proceed to Kofar Nassarawa under the bridge until our demands were met.

“Later, we received a call from the security operatives that we can’t protest that the place is not secured.

“We entered a long meeting. We were held for hours between 10pm to 3am.

“Similarly, our colleagues in Yobe and Gombe were also held for hours.

“They kept insisting that we cannot protest that the place was not safe. We have to just bear.

“At the tail end, it was difficult for us to be allowed to stage a short walk from Daula roundabout to Bompai, where we tabled our issues to the state Commissioner of Police.

“We staged the protest and issued our demand to the Command and he promised to follow up. So in Kano here, we will ease down the protest and see what they would do.

“They ask for some time, two months time frame like they did sometimes back, but we won’t wait for that long this time around. If they have not done anything we will continue.”

A copy of the letter issued to the Commissioner of Police and signed by CNG Chairman, Balarabe Rufai, demanded that the newly-formed SWAT be adequately empowered and sufficiently incentivised for effective and efficient discharge of its primary duty of securing the nation and restoring law, order and public peace, particularly in the distressed communities of northern Nigeria;

The immediate activation and deployment of a strong police formation to assume the disrupted duties of the disbanded SARS of securing the now vulnerable communities of northern Nigeria;

A comprehensive review of the wage packages and harzard allowances of all military, police and other security personnel exposed to the frontlines.

The National Assembly to urgently provide the enabling legislative environment for the mandatory extension of guarantee of social security to families of slain personnel in the form of access to free education, healthcare and shelter in addition to financial packages for starting over.

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