Who’ll police these highway robbers?

A colleague promised to send me a number, but after waiting for nearly 15 minutes, with nothing forthcoming and the policemen getting impatient at my refusal to move, I decided to drive to the provincial police headquarters in Nakuru to report the matter.

The policemen, all either wearing sweaters or reflective traffic police jackets had covered their force numbers, making it impossible for anyone to identify them.

That left the registration number of their car as the only evidence one could use to report them.

At the provincial police headquarters in Nakuru, I demanded to see the PPO or the PCIO, but none of them was in.

I waited for 30 minutes and the constables manning the station started demanding that I disclose the reason for wanting to see their bosses.

I declined. It was heading to five o’clock and realising this was Nakuru, not even having covered half of my journey to Kisumu, I threw in the towel and jumped back into my car, dismissing the Sh1,000 as a small price to pay for all the trouble.

But I decided to write about this matter five days after the incident, my conscience having refused to let go.

If I a journalist could be harassed and robbed of such amount of money by junior police officers, what about the millions of fellow citizens out there?

Who can they turn to in the event of such robbery?

How much money do these people collect by the roadside each day and what is the cost of it to ordinary citizens and to business?

These hoodlums appeared to take comfort in the fact that most motorists are pressed for time and money — and are therefore easily cowed by the idea of leaving their car at a police station for an entire weekend waiting to be charged on Monday.

Having failed to stop the corrupt policemen on their tracks, I realised that the biggest challenge to the fight against petty corruption is the mere absence of a place to report it as it happens and the chances that even if it were reported, the likelihood of any action being taken is nil.

Could anyone please tell Kenyans where to report petty corruption and get immediate results?

Mr Rapuro is the Managing Editor, Business Daily