This archive report was first published on 9 October 2019.
Rise of Rogue Police Officers in Nairobi ¶
Published on October 9, 2019
Benjamin Ogeto's encounter with two plainclothes police officers in July 2019 is a stark reminder of the growing problem of rogue police officers in Nairobi. The officers, who were not in uniform, accosted Ogeto near Mathari Hospital and handcuffed him, claiming he was walking alone at night.
Despite Ogeto's attempts to explain that he was on his way home, the officers took him to the Muthaiga Police Station, where he was locked up in a dark room without any record of his arrest being made in the Occurrence Book (OB).
According to Ogeto, the officers told him to call his family members to come and bail him out, but only after he had paid a bribe of Sh2,000. His sister, a practicing lawyer, arrived at the station and was asked to pay the bribe for his release.
Since then, Ogeto has lost trust in the police service, and his incident is just one of many cases of rogue police officers in Nairobi. In recent weeks, there have been several reports of police officers involved in armed robbery, bribery, and extortion.
One such incident occurred in Eastleigh, where five police officers stormed a hotel and robbed businessmen of Sh6 million at gunpoint. Three of the officers have since been arraigned in court, and the Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) is still pursuing other suspects.
Security experts have attributed the rise of rogue police officers to mass recruitment in 2010, which led to a lack of proper vetting and background checks. Former GSU officer George Musamali notes that the integration of uniformed personnel with other Kenyans was not properly supervised, making it difficult to monitor their activities when they are off duty.
Additionally, Musamali blames police bosses for allowing off-duty officers to keep their firearms, which have been used in criminal activities. He suggests that standard operational procedures should be followed, where officers surrender their firearms to the station and armory when they are off duty.
