FT is a fairly small sample, and I'm relatively certain no current posters have been killed in Nairobi, and no more than a few would have been victims of crime. In my personal experience (Nairobi in 2005, 2006 and 2010; Kampala in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010; Eldoret in 2005; Karatina in 2006) I've yet to be killed or successfully victimized. That said, I don't tend to go anywhere dodgy, and I have no involvement with alcohol, tobacco, drugs or other such "risk factors."

The first time I flew into Nairobi, my driver was pulled over before he could even leave the airport grounds, and detained for a couple hours by cops trying to shake us down for a bribe on some made-up grounds. I've also seen police raiding (tear-gassing, beating, whatever) street vendors, and I've found vendors at a Maasai market to be extremely high-pressure salesmen, verging on con men... but since I don't get there often, my impression is largely based on what I read in the major newspapers from Nairobi and Kenya, which I read almost every day.

I have always felt safer in Karatina, Eldoret and Kampala than in Nairobi. I concede that's a qualitative statement, but it is at least first-person from someone who's been there.