Who will save us from the evil that’s Kenyan police?

 Policemen and women no longer arrest people to keep law and order   Photo: Courtesy  

Kenyans long gave up on their police force.

The first line of defence for a Kenyan caught by the long arm of the law is to always find how much loose change he has to spare, followed by an attempt to sweet talk the arresting coppers.

And police have lately become more ruthless in collecting bribes and fines - whose cost has gone up apparently in line with runaway inflation.

It breaks my heart that 52 years after the Union Jack was lowered at Uhuru Gardens, our police force is still run in the same way the vexatious imperialists run Kenya as a colony.

Much of the thinking that governs the police was inherited from the British.

Not walking around with your national ID is potentially a crime, even if you speak English, Swahili, sheng and one native language.

Repressive Kanu days and the persistently low salaries have helped perpetuate a culture of bribery to augment police salaries that hardly support their large families.

I will be lying if I said there aren’t good cops who do an honest day’s job.

But they are few and far between.

The rest mostly think alike: “Let’s go out and arrest a few young men and women and have them buy their way out.”

The reason there are more arrests on Fridays than any other day of the week is because of the fact that courts are not open on weekends and anyone would pay anything to stay out of the fetid police cells teeming with creepy crooks.

Policemen and women no longer arrest people to keep law and order.

They are guided more by how much they will collect.

Not surprisingly, Nairobi is still crime ridden and the number of pickpockets and muggers seems to have gone up since the Jubilee coalition took over power.

And lately, two things seems to be guiding the police.

If they want a bribe, they demand for it without any ounce of shame. It is now their birthright that, it seems, should even be legislated. Under Jubilee, the police have become overzealous with fines, some of them arbitrarily fixed.

It is as if sometimes the government is running on a deficit and they call the police with set targets.

My sister was recently arrested for not belting in a  matatu. Yet, we all know only personal cars and classy long distance buses and ‘shuttle’ services have functional seat belts.

She had to fork out Sh2,000 for the offence, regardless of what the law says. She neither had time nor the resources to challenge the law in our courtrooms that are still cesspits of corruption, intimidation and pettiness that reminds us why we are still in the Third World.

A good example of the imbecility of the police is witnessed daily at the Imara Daima junction along Mombasa Road in Nairobi.

For some weird reasons that do not involve engineering, design or common sense, the footbridge there was built 1,000 metres from the crossing point.

Imara Daima matatus, old and ramshackled charge more to the city centre. The residents prefer crossing the road to board cheaper matatus.

For that, they are constantly arrested and have to buy their way out.

Common sense would have told the police to erect a notice or a barrier and commit the cops elsewhere. But common sense is very rare in our government.

As Africans, we hate ourselves, yet nobody can love you if you do not love yourself first.

The police are a reminder of our collective failure to think of ourselves as human beings. It is time the police started treating Kenyans with some dignity.

If they were efficient, offenders can pay more fines in a more dignified way that can even have their salaries bettered. They need to reform their thinking in line with the 21st century.