“SARS Officers Do Not Have The Mandate To Stop And Search Anybody’s Phone” – Nigeria Police Force

The Nigerian Police Force, via it’s twitter account, held a question and answer session and an interesting question was asked..

The Nigeria police force stated that SARS officers do not have the mandate to stop and

search anyone as their job description is to tackle robbery, cattle rustling, kidnapping, violent crimes and others.

A user @bsleeves007 tweeted:

SARS officers really need to tell us our crime as citizens…
Is it a crime to use an IPhone?
Is it a crime to dress good?
Is it a crime to own a decent car?
If I get stopped and I clearly not committed any crime,,why must I pay before I can go free?

Is it even the job of SARS to arrest yahoo boys?
They don’t even arrest to prosecute them…they arrest and give tell them to pay heavy sum as bail..

The Nigeria Police Force then answered:

In investigating cyber crimes, you find out that perpetrators can be violent, then members of the FSARS are invited when there is element of violence It is not within the (SOP) of the FSARS to dwell into indiscriminate arrest of innocent Nigerians.