Police Post Crisis: Officers and Suspects Share Cramped Colonial-Era Building in Nyandarua

Deteriorating 1942 structure serves as station, cell, and home for police in remote Pesi trading center

NDARAGWA, Nyandarua County – In a stark illustration of Kenya’s infrastructure challenges, police officers at Pesi Police Post are forced to live, work, and detain suspects under the same leaking roof of an 83-year-old colonial building that’s literally falling apart.

The timber structure, dating back to 1942, houses what may be one of Kenya’s most unconventional police operations. Officers use different rooms of the deteriorating building as their family residence, report office, and holding cell – creating a security and privacy nightmare that has persisted for over a decade.

“The officers are forced to hand female suspects to some families in the town for the night before they are taken to Ndaragwa or Shamata police stations,” explained Francis Ngana Gathurai, Pesi community chairman, highlighting the facility’s inability to properly separate male and female detainees.

The bizarre arrangement means suspects can eavesdrop on private conversations between officers and their families, while police personnel struggle with zero privacy in their own living quarters. The building’s leaking roof and crumbling walls compound the misery for everyone inside.

Despite these deplorable conditions, the post has successfully addressed the security concerns that prompted its establishment. The 5-kilometer murram road between the Nyahururu-Nyeri highway and Pesi village was once notorious for armed robberies targeting travelers through the forested area.

“We requested for this police post because there was rampant insecurity in the forested section,” Gathurai noted, crediting the facility with transforming local safety despite its operational shortcomings.

Now the post faces an uncertain future. Nyandarua County Government wants the police relocated to make way for modern facilities at the Pesi Vocational Training Centre, which owns the compound. The county has already constructed a workshop building and is completing modern toilet facilities for the training center.

Local residents propose a practical solution: relocate the police post to land originally set aside during the Pesi Settlement Scheme. “The land set aside is enough for a police station,” said resident John Maina, suggesting the move could upgrade the facility from a basic post to a full station.

The situation at Pesi encapsulates broader challenges facing Kenya’s rural security infrastructure, where resource constraints force improvised solutions that compromise both officer welfare and operational effectiveness. While the community has gained security, the human cost to police personnel and proper law enforcement procedures remains evident in every shared room of the aging colonial structure.

As modern buildings rise around them for the vocational center, the police continue their essential work from a building that belongs in a museum rather than active service. The question now is whether authorities will act before the structure becomes completely uninhabitable, forcing an emergency relocation that could temporarily leave the community without police presence.

The Pesi Police Post stands as a testament to both community determination to secure their area and the government’s struggle to provide adequate infrastructure for those tasked with maintaining law and order in remote regions of the country.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​