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The arrest of Ruai Police Station Commanding Officer (OCS) has lifted the lead on the dirty tricks used by police officers to extort from members of the public after arresting them on flimsy or framed-up charges.

Detectives from the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) bounced on Ruai police station commander Chief Inspector Duncan Otieng on allegations that he was demanding bribes to release some suspects.

The locals were arrested the previous day, on accusations of being drunk and disorderly, after entertainment at Fun City club in Utawala.

The OCS is said to have dispatched his officers to the club where they arrested the revellers and detained them in the station.

The next day, the OCS allegedly ordered each of them to pay Sh5,000 bribe to secure release from custody, failing which they would remain in cells through the weekend, to face charges of being drunk and disorderly, today.

The EACC mounted an operation and arrested the OCS while receiving part of the demanded bribes.

“We are concerned about the increasing reports of extortion by some Officers Commanding Police Stations (OCSs) who allegedly detain citizens and then demand bribes as a condition for granting them freedom,” EACC chief executive Twalib Mbarak said yesterday.

Extortion centres

He further urged officers to desist from the habit, and called upon citizens to continue exposing to the commission officers tainting the image of the service.

 The arrest is just but a tip of the iceberg in a scheme in which police officers have turned police stations into extortion centres where unsuspecting members of the public are arbitrarily arrested and threatened with being charged with unspecified offences unless they give bribes.

Weekends are the specific days that officers across the country seems to set aside to milk Kenyans dry through various extortion and blackmail methods.

Otieng’s arrest comes a month after Inspector General of Police Japhet Koome publicly said graft was rampant in the service which consistently been ranked by EACC and other institutions among the most corrupt public institutions.

“I can’t lie. Corruption is with us as police. This problem is called returns; where the junior officers are collecting money and taking it to the Corporal, Base Commander, OCPD and even the County Commander. Some have even come to my office, trying to give me something, but I refused,” Koome said recently.

Days before Koome’s confession, Head of the Civil Service and Chief of Staff Felix Koskei had recounted an incident in which he was forced to part with Sh1,000.

Addressing the police commanders in Nairobi, Koskei said he was driving himself within Nairobi when a traffic cop patrolling on a motorcycle flagged him down. The officer, he explained, demanded the money as a bribe for the offense of failing to stop; otherwise, charges would be preferred against him.

“Nyinyi ndiyo watu huwa mnatusumbua sana…tunaenda Station Kilimani (You are the people who bother us a lot…we are going to Station Kilimani),” the officer, according to the Chief of Staff, said.

“But, he really begged me when he realized I am a senior officer,” Koskei said amid laughter from the police officers.

He narrated that despite apologising and identifying himself, the officer insisted on having the money.

“I told him I am so and akasema mimi sikuwa nataka hiyo nilikuwa nasema baridi ni mingi, nilikuwa nakujua lakini unaona hii pikipiki baridi ni mingi sana (It’s not bribe that I wanted, I was saying it is cold, I knew you but you see this motorbike, the cold is too much,” he said.

He, however, said he agreed to fork out the money while warning him of dismissal from service over the act.

In 2016, a police Corporal stunned the nation with revelations of how senior police officers forced their juniors to collect money from members of the public in a well-choreographed network that involved the rank and file in the service.

Returns

The officer, then a traffic officer based in Mombasa, while appearing before the Johnstone Kavuludi-led National Police Service Commission (NPSC) for vetting, revealed how they would at times be given government vehicles by their seniors to facilitate them in collecting money.

The commission then, in its findings, had concluded that there was a network of Officers Commanding Stations (OCS) and Base Commanders who acted as point persons and would receive money from juniors and channel it to seniors.

Investigations by People Daily have revealed that assignments and deployment in a station are determined by an officer’s ability to collect money from the public for onward submission to his seniors.

Referred to as “returns” in police parlance, extortion or collection of money by junior officers on behalf of their seniors has become a norm in the National Police Service for the survival of those in the lower cadres.

In almost all stations, special vehicles have been assigned some officers to move around their respective areas of jurisdictions, particularly in the evenings, to collect bribes from bars, wines and spirits and other business premises. Those who fail to give the money that the officers term “protection fee”, are harassed, intimidated and arrested frequently until they either agree to play ball or close shop.

“The more money you collect for your bosses on a daily basis, the better positioned you yourself to be deployed in a strategic position from where you can make good money,” one officer at Kamukunji Police Station told PD.

Independent investigations

According to the NPSC and independent investigations, cases of corruption related to transfers, deployments and promotions are also said to have hit an all-time high.

Posting of senior officers to busy stations like Buru Buru, Central, Starehe and Langata in Nairobi and Central, Port, Likoni, Nyali and Changawe in Mombasa considered to have high returns, are pegged on one’s ability to “extort” huge amounts of money for subsequent sharing with his or her bosses.

The NPSC chairman Eliud Kinuthia says the common human resource management practices prone to corruption are during recruitment, promotions, transfers, vetting, orderly room proceedings, and disciplinary hearings for commissioned officers. “Other vulnerable points to corruption in the service include police operations, patrols, traffic management, investigations, procurement, finance and accounts, administration, planning and budgeting,” Kinuthia said.

Multiple interviews with several officers revealed that transfers, deployments and assignments are allocated according to one’s pockets and ability to extort money from members of the public in the pretext of enforcing law and order.

For instance, most of the officers posted to harsh areas such as North Eastern, North Rift and Lamu are either sent there on disciplinary grounds or are “financially handicapped to make their bosses happy.”

“There are officers who have been in areas such as Mandera and Garissa for years because they either don’t know anybody or lack money,” says another officer.

Investigations have also revealed that some rogue officers are on the payroll of criminal groups for supporting their illegal activities, leaking information, or securing them protection from police investigations.