Nigeria abolishes special police squad after nationwide protests

The police officers accused him of speeding, but Dare Olaitan felt that wasn’t true. The 29-year-old filmmaker in Nigeria’s biggest city, Lagos, says he requested proof.

“Then they slapped me, yanked away my phone and keys and said, ‘We are going to an ATM,’ ” Olaitan said.

The men, who’d pulled him over in an unmarked van, identified themselves as part of the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, a Nigerian police unit that has been tasked over the past three decades with fighting violent crime, including banditry and kidnapping.