…..A Life of Service, Power, Public Scrutiny, and Political Storms…..
By Falles Kamanga
BLANTYRE-(MaraviPost-On an August evening in 2021, three armed men stepped out of the dark near Mapanga Police Post along the Zomba–Limbe road.
A man had stopped by the roadside to relieve himself while driving home from a tombstone unveiling in Zomba.
The attackers demanded money, then struck him on the forehead with a panga.
He fought back, managed to run onto the tarmac shouting for help, he was later treated as an outpatient at Mwaiwathu Hospital in Blantyre. Nothing was stolen, but the windscreen of his car was smashed.
The victim was not just another traveler. He was Rodney Jose, a man who, only two years earlier, sat in the most powerful seat in Malawian law enforcement as Inspector General of Police.
Now, that long and turbulent story has come to its final page. Family members have confirmed through Zodiak Broadcasting Station that the former police chief has died.
To truly understand Rodney Jose, you have to go back to 1983, when he first put on the police uniform as a young recruit.
Over the next 36 years, he survived political shifts that swallowed many of his peers, eventually serving under five different state presidents: Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda, Bakili Muluzi, Bingu wa Mutharika, Joyce Banda, and Peter Mutharika.
Yet, his long climb to the apex of the Malawi Police Service was haunted by one of the most controversial cases in the nation’s modern history.
In September 2011, Robert Chasowa, a fourth-year engineering student and outspoken activist at the Polytechnic, was found dead on campus. Police initially claimed Chasowa had taken his own life.
But an official judicial commission of inquiry chaired by Justice Andrew Nyirenda later proved it was murder, pointing troubling questions toward top police management.
At the time, Jose was serving as the Police Commissioner for the Southern Region. Though the inquiry raised suspicion over police attempts to control student dissent, Jose firmly maintained his innocence.
He publicly challenged his critics, daring anyone with actual evidence to take him to court.He even invoked God and the spirit of Chasowa as his witnesses.
When President Peter Mutharika appointed Jose as acting Inspector General in April 2018, the past came rushing back.
Civil society groups and opposition leaders fiercely fought his nomination. The showdown reached Parliament on 27 June 2018, where lawmakers held a tense secret ballot.
Jose survived the political storm, securing confirmation with 96 votes in favour, 55 against and two abstentions.
He succeeded Dr. Lexten Shame Kachama, who had been appointed Inspector General in February 2015 following Paul Kanyama’s sudden resignation on health grounds, and who was later sent on pre-retirement leave upon reaching the mandatory age of 60 in 2018.
Yet peace was brief.
Following the disputed May 2019 presidential elections, mass demonstrations organized by the Human Rights Defenders Coalition swept across the country. The police under Jose’s command faced severe backlash over their handling of protesters.
At the same time, tension boiled over as ruling party youth militants commonly called party cadets were frequently seen wielding pangas in public, drawing widespread fear and public accusations that law enforcement was failing to rein them in.
Jose pushed back against accusations of political bias, He pointed to his 36 years of service across five different administrations and demanded that those accusing him of being a “cadet” produce evidence.
He reached the mandatory retirement age of 60 and stepped down in November 2019, handing over leadership to Duncan Mwapasa.
From a young officer in 1983 to the top commander facing parliamentary battles and street protests, Rodney Jose leaves behind a career deeply tied to some of Malawi’s biggest security milestones and debates.
Funeral arrangements are expected to be announced by the family shortly.
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