of the abuses of SARS have been young male Nigerians. Background The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was a branch of the Nigeria Police Force under the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID). It was founded in late 1992 as one of the 14 units in the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, which was established to detain, investigate, and prosecute people involved in crimes like armed robbery, kidnapping, and other violent crimes. The squad was created as a masked police unit to perform undercover operations against violent crimes like armed robbery, car snatching, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and the bearing and use of illegal firearms. SARS had been accused of several human rights violations, illegal "stop and searches", illegal arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, sexual harassment of women and brutalising of young male Nigerians. The human rights abuses were documented in trending videos on social media. In 2017, Nigerian activists, youth and celebrities across the nation took to the streets in a peaceful protest to spread awareness of SARS brutality and extortions and to demand its disbanding. The protests also moved to social media using the hashtag #EndSARS. A 2016 report by Amnesty International, indicted SARS maintaining that the squad was responsible for human rights abuses, cruelty, degrading treatment of Nigerians in their custody, and other widespread torture. Some of the human rights abuses by SARS include the shooting of their detainees in the leg, mock executions and threats of execution, hanging and physical assault. A 2020 publication by the organisation documented 82 cases of abuses and extra judicial killings by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020. Initial protests and reaction Amnesty International accused the SARS officials of regularly detaining young male Nigerians illegally and extorting money from their relatives. In 2018, Nigerian rapper Michael Ugochukwu Stephens professionally known Ruggedman joined the campaign to end police brutality by releasing a single titled, Is Police Your Friend? In 2017, a petition signed by 10,195 people was submitted to Nigeria's National Assembly calling for a total disbandment of SARS. A few Senators backed the call for total disbandment of the unit. Consideration was given to reforming the force, rather than full disbandment due to the number of cases falling. The campaigners moved from social media using the #EndSARS hashtag to an organized, peaceful protests in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Osun, Benin, Ughelli, Warri, Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Owerri, Jos, Kaduna, Calabar and other Nigerian