By his own admission last year in the in-house publication for cops, the Police Inspector-General Sebastian Ndeitunga confessed a Citizen satisfaction Survey of our men and women in blue tasked with maintaining law and order in our country “rated very low” in terms of service delivery. 

The survey looked at benchmarked attributes such as courtesy, credibility and responsiveness to incidents of crime. In my honest opinion that survey made a fundamental omission in that it was silent on police fitness levels that seem to be dwindling by the day if any observer is to look at their bulging waist lines. It would be very interesting to find out what percentage of Namibian police officers from the rank of chief inspector, deputy commissioner, commissioner upwards would have pass a basic police fitness test such as running a distance of five kilometres without ending up in ICU.

One gets the impression potbellies among policemen and women could be attributed to lack of physical activity and is a reflection of their life-styles such as eating too much kapana and shebeen-hopping particularly over weekends when most people drink as if the world is coming to an end.

Are police officers whose heart rate is within the universal norm of 60 to 100 heartbeats a minute? How many of our chief inspectors or even commissioners can perform basic police duties such as attempting to chase a running thug even if they are outsprinted because in most cases such a criminal will be younger, leaner and most probably fitter than them - but at least they have tried.

We know the police have done a commendable job under these economically trying times but they should put a premium and internalize staff fitness. The enemy within the force is bulging waist-lines and potbellied officers. They could enforce compulsory annual fitness tests within the force so that we have lean, mean-looking cops whose mere presence will make criminals tremble with fear.

These compulsory bootcamps and fitness tests could also be the criteria for police promotions.
Just for argument’s sake the police could initiate something like, “Okapunda naka gwe Campaign,’’ to make it lean, mean and possibly the fittest police force in Africa as this problem is not only typical to Namibia. We should make Nampol possibly the envy of other police forces in the world. Ndeitunga could leave an enduring legacy if he could whip his subordinates into shape.

If a police officer cannot police his/her own paunch, how can they be expected to police the public?
Potbellies were symbols of prosperity in the 60s, 70s and 80s but we must move with the times and accept the reality, potbellies are indicative of lazy police officers not treating their job with passion and respect. There is nothing fancy about a ‘kapunda’ or a potbelly. In fact, WHO classifies obesity or having a paunch as one type form of malnutrition resultant from an unbalanced diet.