The Nigeria Police Force (NPF) is set to launch the Special Intervention Squad (SIS) operations in 10 pilot states of the nation, according to the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Kayode Egebetokun. He made this known on Monday during the opening ceremony of the Conference and Retreat for Senior Police Officers which was held in Imo State.
The IGP said, “The Squad will be deployed in each command to deal with the state’s salient security challenges. Concrete steps have already been taken to facilitate the smooth take-off of the SIS in 10 pilot states, already identified based on the recent violent crime assessment carried out in all the 36 states of the Federation and the FCT, while the other 27 states will immediately follow.”
According to reports, SIS will be deployed exclusively to combat violent crimes nationwide, a mandate which sounds similar to that of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS); which was dissolved in 2020 due to several allegations levelled against the Squad such as harassment, extortion and extra-judicial killings.