“Police officers kidnapped and robbed me. They roughed me up mercilessly in a land cruiser. They kept asking me where I got the money to purchase a car. If I didn’t tell them they were going to use the fake notes they had with them as evidence against me. They would say I printed fake money and there would be nothing I would do about it.” Gideon Akali recounts.
“After making away with a considerable amount of money and other valuables, they left me in the Yala market at 9 pm. If I had been killed, they would simply have said that I was a dangerous criminal and people would have believed it,” he narrates.
Mr. Akali’s story is one of the many cases of police entrusted with protecting lives using their position to rob and mishandle citizens.
Many cases of Kenyan’s having to deal with rogue police officers. From forcing Kenyans to bribe them for them to be helped, which is annoying because one goes to the police to seek help, but what they get is more problems instead of help coming forth, to arresting and killing innocent Kenyans.
Most of these cases go unnoticed and completely ignored. While details are taken and recorded upon reporting to various places thought to be better placed to highlight such issues, nothing is done about it.
The question that keeps lingering in many Kenyans minds being, ‘until when shall we endure this mischief and what will it take for the government to protect its people?’
The most recent case of armed police storming business premises in Nairobi’s Eastleigh area and robbing two men of 6 million shillings should be a wakeup call.
This is one of the few cases that have gotten the attention of the media and Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI), thanks to the Eastleigh police who responded to an alarm and got them arrested and recovered part of the stolen money.
Kenyans need to feel safe in the presence of police and any other members of the forces tasked to protect them but the happenings of the last few days and those witnessed by other Kenyans would cause some feeling of doubt among us.
Currently, there are about 625 cases reported within the last 10 months of police involved in criminal activities according to statistics from the police headquarters, Vigilance House and the Internal Affairs unit.
The number shoots up from at least 488 cases reported in 2018 within the same period, making the number of police-reported to have been involved in crime two per day, and 62 every month.
While the Inspector General of Police Hillary Mutyambai announces a 377 billion shillings budget to be channeled towards improving security and fight crime, it is such an irony that with more investment in security, crimes continue to increase.
According to a survey conducted in 2016, it was found that of the 72,490 cases reported in the year 2015, 34 percent involved the police themselves.
The survey revealed that apart from economic crimes such as the recent 72 million shilling Standard Chartered Bank ATM cash theft, police also engage in drug trafficking and criminal damage.
Police Spokesman Charles Owino said that to do away with crimes involving the police, police commanders have been instructed to supervise their juniors.
“I am so shocked at the rate at which incidents linking police to crimes are reported lately. For this reason, we want to condemn this in the strongest terms possible and deal with it firmly by sacking any officer found wanting,” said Owino