2015: Police on the firing lines

From accusations of complicity in crimes—most of them very deadly and armed—to being targeted in some highly articulated attacks, 2015 saw police officers always living on the firing line.

Police officers started the year with a hangover from some heinous crimes involving fellow officers, including the ‘great bank robbery’, in which about K500 million was stolen from the Standard Bank Mzuzu Branch, and aiding and abetting illegal entry into the country, particularly of Ethiopians an Somalis.

The ‘great bank robbery’ saw Ken Kamwambi of the Police Mobile Service (PMS) B Company arrested on suspicion that he was among the masterminds of that daring act.

And there was more of the same to give the hangover. In Blantyre, some police officers were reportedly involved in organising a K90 million robbery at the First Merchant Bank (FMB) in Livingstone Twin Towers. Some officers died in the heist.

If Malawians thought that was enough to get the men in uniform off the firing line in 2015, then what turned out should have given them reason to get back to sleep and dream again.

Enter Saturday, January 24. The setting is Namiwawa in Blantyre. The action is a shootout between the police and a suspected robber who had attacked a woman and got away with two mobile phones and a handbag containing certificates, sunglasses and automated teller machine (ATM) card.

Then in March, the law enforcers were in the news again for the wrong reasons. Six officers were transferred from Kafukule Police Post because they failed to act on three murder cases recorded in the area, according to, then, Northern Region Commissioner of police Demester Chigwenembe.

“The problem is that it has taken us some time to appoint a new in charge at the post after the incumbent retired. As a result, community policing structures died a natural death. So there was no link between the police and members of the public. What we want to do now is bring new staff and start a new chapter,” said Chigwenembe.

Then, two officers were arrested in Chitipa on suspicion that they robbed a businessman of K450 000 at a lodge at the boma. The number rose to four and the officers are now serving a jail term.

In May, the service promised hope for an end to insecurity that had gripped the country by graduating 1 874 recruits. But it was later revealed that the recruits had not been vetted, which raised an alarm that criminals could have infiltrated the service.

Then after playing the role of agents of terror, the police appeared to have become targets of terror. Robbers targeted police manning different establishments before getting away with whatever they had wanted. Several were killed in Blantyre and Lilongwe.

On June 8, an unarmed officer was shot dead at Amina House in Lilongwe and two others were critically injured when robbers opened fire on them. The robbers stole money believed to be in millions.

The officers came under attack from civilians too following some unexplained deaths. That of Chilomoni’s Dyson Mjojo is one of them. His death enraged residents that they torched Chilomoni police substation and vehicles parked there.

The year continued with the good and bad from the police. While some stations engaged in activities to enhance their relationship with the communities, others courted accusations from the communities. Nsanje Police was among the latter, courting accusations of being corrupt.

There was an episode of drama from the national police headquarters too. One would only dream about infiltrating a police headquarters, posing as an officer from the elite International Police (Interpol), and end up without being busted.

November was a sad month, particularly, for the Eastern Region police headquarters which lost its commissioner, Wilson Matinga. Matinga was pronounced dead after collapsing.

But if everyone thought the police would use the sympathy the public shared for Matinga’s death to redeem themselves, they should surely have been disappointed. Criminal elements marred the police, rekindling the hangover with which the officers had started 2015; thus ending the year with the same.

An officer stationed at Limbe Police defiled a 15-year-old housemaid, taking advantage of his wife’s absence. Then some four officers, stationed in Mzuzu after passing out in May, failed to resist an opportunity to get money to spend on Christmas. Instead of arresting a woman in whose compound they had found some Cannabis sativa (chamba) plants, they demanded a K20 000 (about $30.5).

Will the law enforcers be any better in 2016? n