It was a normal day for the cops, going about Sugunanga estate on the outskirts of Eldoret town arresting law-abiding citizens in order to extort them. And then they arrested one 'connected' individual.
So common is the vice that people have considered it inevitable, staying vigilant where they can and praying where they can’t.
On that fateful day, Kiptoo was unlucky. He was nabbed by cops from Langas police station and taken there for an overnight stay, or until he 'coughed' the mandatory Sh2,000.
“I did not have any money with me,” Kiptoo narrates.
Thrown on the cold and filthy cell, crowded with other humans reeking of alcohol stench, he finally decided to call his father, a senior police officer.
It was then that a quick phone call to the Officer Commanding Station (OCS) was made and an inquiry made about Kiptoo’s arrest. On command, the officers who arrested Kiptoo were asked to take him, not only where they arrested him but where he stays.
The officers quickly released Kiptoo and took him all the way to Sugunanga estate where he stays, embarrassed about how close they were to losing their jobs.
Along the way, the officers asked him why he did not tell them who he was.
“Si ungetuambia wewe ni nani bwana. (You could have told us who you are),” one of the cops who arrested him joked.
Kiptoo says that he knew they would not believe and would have made things only worse for him. Nevertheless, the cops still had the audacity to ask him for something small.
They had been outsmarted but then they still operate on ignorance, praying they do not land a ‘culprit’ with connections high above.
#hivisasaoriginal