Abraham Kanime (born 19 May 1960) is a retired

Namibia Namibia (, ), officially the Republic of Namibia, is a country in Southern Africa. Its western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Zambia and Angola to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and ea ...

n police officer who served as the chief of the country's only metropolitan Police force, the Windhoek City Police.

Early life

Kanime was born in 1960 in

Omusati Region Omusati ( ng, Mopane, after the dominant tree in the area) is one of the fourteen regions of Namibia, its capital is Outapi. The towns of Okahao, Oshikuku and Ruacana as well as the self-governed village Tsandi are situated in this region. , Omus ...

of northern Namibia. He went to school in the then South West Africa during the time of

SWAPO The South West Africa People's Organisation (, SWAPO; af, Suidwes-Afrikaanse Volks Organisasie, SWAVO; german: Südwestafrikanische Volksorganisation, SWAVO), officially known as the SWAPO Party of Namibia, is a political party and former ind ...

's struggles for

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

from the South African apartheid regime.

Police career

Kanime has been a member of the

Namibian Police Force The Namibian Police Force (NAMPOL) is the national police force of Namibia. It was established by the Namibian Constitution and enacted by an act of Parliament of Namibia, Parliament. The Namibian Police Force replaced the South West African P ...

since 1995. In 2004, he helped found the Windhoek City Police. That same year, he was appointed as chief of Windhoek municipality's police division. Kanime was suspended from his position in 2018 by the City of Windhoek's chief executive after almost two decades in office; leading to infighting within the city's Police division. In January 2019, president Hage Geingob ordered that Kanime and the city's CEO,

Robert Kahimise Robert Naanda Kahimise is a Namibian businessperson and CEO of the City of Windhoek Windhoek (, , ) is the capital and largest city of Namibia. It is located in central Namibia in the Khomas Highland plateau area, at around above sea level, ...

be reinstated immediately. Kanime was due to retire in May 2020 on his 60th birthday and resigned from his position accordingly. He was, however, reappointed for another three-year period. Some city councillors called for Kanime's reappointment to be rescinded, on the grounds of corruption within the process. his successor has not yet been named.

References

Living people 1960 births People from Oshana {{Namibia-bio-stub