(Global Post) In East Africa’s most prosperous economy, the average city resident pays up to 16 bribes per month, according to Transparency International. Locals have dubbed Kenya "ya kitu kidogo" — the land of the "little something" — a kind of homeland of the bribe. And on the streets of Eastleigh, Nairobi, the victims of those bribes point their finger at one perpetrator.
"If you look at the police who are meant to protect them," says local activist Abdullahi Mohamed, "they just arrest them to extort cash."
Like most of his neighbors, Mohamed is ethnic Somali and Muslim. Half a dozen residents of the Eastleigh neighborhood say the police come here not to patrol, but to get rich. They describe the same scene repeating every Friday night: Police pick up ethnic Somali residents and threaten them with jail unless they hand over money. The scene has become so normal, the neighborhood is known as a police "ATM machine."