This Week In The Khuta – Police fails yet another victim

Over the weekend, the Namibian police yet gain proved what most people have been saying for a very long time, that they are incompetent and do not know what is required of them as law enforcers.
Sofia Stefanus is currently admitted in the Oshakati State Hospital with a panga wound at the back of her head because the people that were supposed to protect her did not. According to news reports, Stefanus was advised by the police to seek shelter at a neighbour’s house after she went to the Oshakati charge office to report her father for attempted rape. The very next day, her father attacked her with a panga for refusing to have sex with him.
I just cannot get my head around the fact that police officers sent someone away after bringing forward a complaint of attempted rape. In my opinion, rape is the second most serious crime after murder whether the person did or attempts to do it.
What would have happened if the police had acted on Stefanus’ complaint? Her father would have been in jail and she would have been at home, painless and waiting to testify in the attempted rape trial, and not in hospital with a 2 centimentre deep wound in the back of her head.
What shocked me the most about this incident was the comments made by the Oshana Police commissioner, Ndahangwapo Kashihakumwa. He was quoted saying that the police is not legally obligated to force a person to open a case and that Stefanus is an adult and can make her own decisions.
Maybe she did not want to open a case against her father but she went to the police station for a reason and I am sure that the police officers could have handled the situation better. They should have accompanied her home and warned the father or locked him up for the night, maybe that would have changed the outcome of the incident.
The commissioner and all the police officers involved in this incident should be ashamed of themselves and should also be dealt with because they failed to execute their responsibilities, which in this case was to protect the life of Stefanus. It is not their job to turn people away, but they should follow up every complaint brought to their attention whether the person wants to open a case or not.
They are a bunch of lazy police officers that almost cost a young woman her life and should be dealt with accordingly.
I have lost hope in our men and women in uniform, I have noticed that they would rather waste their time on stupid and petty issues such as gossip instead of fighting real crime and catching real criminals.
People are dying because some police officers are useless and lazy. They are only police officers when they want to use their status to get preferences. Why is the Government wasting money training and recruiting these people, if they cannot take their work seriously?
I think police officers who want to join the force should pay for their own training just like all other professions. Maybe then, we will get productive police officers, who have a passion for their job and  can risk their lives to save that of others.
I suggest that the Ministry of Safety and Security rethink its strategy: either they fire all the non-performing officers or they retrain and equip them with a well-instructed job description because I think most of them have forgotten the oath they took the day they joined the force.