Journey Ends For Superwoman

It was a journey that – as all journeys do – started with a whimper in a maternity clinic on the 24th of October, 1959 in Chivhu; then known as Enkeldorn, in Mashonaland East Province.

Native Zimbabweans were still crumpling under the colonialism yoke, but as the sixties approached, winds of change were blowing all across Africa, and they must have caught on the infant, Barbara Gakanje when she cried her first breath that October day. Growing, she must have been doing all the feminine chores done by every other girl in Mudavanhu Village. But there was a stillness about her that struck a cord in her younger brother, Last Gakanje, who was also the youngest child in the family.

“She was of royal blood,” said Last in a tribute to his late sister at her home in Seke Communal Lands recently.
“There was this amazing quality about her being a messenger of truth all the times. She spoke her mind and did not apologise for it.”

The same treatment was given to those who tried to dress her or her country down, as recalled by her brother.
“She would shut her eyes when somebody said something that touched a raw nerve in her. But when she opened her mouth to speak, she would say exactly what was in her mind, especially when it pertained to defending the integrity of her nation.

“That was Barbara for you; straight as an arrow.”

The true marks of a police officer. Another speaker at the burial service testified to witnessing the late commander ordering traffic cops who had called her to issue one of her brothers with a ticket for flouting traffic laws; traffic laws she was well versed in, having taken charge of the traffic laws enforcement section and investigations in Mutare Rural during her time as a Section Officer in 1983.

Her baby brother did put aptly – she had royal blood running in her veins. And those who passed through the fiery Depot Furnace between 2003 and 2005 will remember a no-nonsense Commandant who had no time for laziness. Obviously, she earned names for her strict disciplinarianism, but when The Outpost asked her about them in 2005, she just chuckled.

“The comforting thing is that those names came because of the work I was doing, not the opposite. Such are the moments in life that helps strengthen one’s spirit,” she said at the time.

“While some people maybe affected by the nicknames to the extent of giving up, I would rather be called by them, because it shows someone is doing their job right.”

And one of the unflinching tenets that must have won her a name or two was her strong belief that a police officer and his/her surroundings should be squeaky clean and free of dirt. Take the dramatic testimony of the family sahwira who – although falling short of the flair carried by the dame herself – did justice to her late friend’s faith in the adage that cleanliness was next to godliness.

“Chii chandiri kuona ichi? Tsvina so pakambha pano! Mashizha ese aya ari kudei pachivanze? Torai mitsvairo mubvise zvese izvi,” chanted the sahwira, as she took the late Dep Commr Gen’s alter ego as an inspecting officer.
They even said the late Mrs. Mandizha was so tidy that her garden looked like a bedroom. The bereaved husband, ex-Senior Assistant Commissioner Albert Mandizha, who is now GMB chairman, told mourners that his wife would wake him up just to make the bed and change the sheets.

At home, she was the perfect epitome of the down-to-earth dream African woman, who, sadly, has remained a dream most African men. She personally prepared food for her family, personally saw to the affairs in her home, and let the maids do mostly peripheral chores.

“I knew I had found a superwoman,” said Mr. Mandizha. “So I gave her the medal of The Freedom to My Home, where she had free reign to almost everything.
“Why not – because she was the wife? No. My wife, B, was very capable, so I gave her the freedom to express her greatness.”

Her prodigious capabilities were not lost on the ZRP, the organization she joined as a Patrol Officer on the 26th of June, 1980, two months after Zimbabwe had celebrated the fresh taste of freedom; and exactly one week after the man who – 18 years later – would be Commissioner General of Police had checked into Morris Depot, also as a Patrol Officer.

After Depot, her first port of call was Chinhoyi where she investigated traffic dockets, a position she was to consolidate in a leadership capacity when she was promoted three years later and moved to Mutare Rural. Two years later, she was on the road again, but this time to Braeside in the capital where her astute people skills assured that she was made one of the pioneer Community Relations Liaison Officers in the country.

But it was after taking a further step up the ranks to Inspector that Barbara broke ranks with the also runs and, like a fish, began to flow upstream as she charted a new trail set apart from the wide road followed by many. First she took charge of Mabvuku Police Station at her promotion in 1989; the first woman to do so in the history of the ZRP; before she broke new ground again a decade later when she became the first female police officer to command Fairbridge, a Support Unit district. Before her posting to Fairbridge, Dame Mandizha had had a stint in the same capacity in the Police Protection Unit (PPU).

By then she had already met and married Albert Mandizha; staying close to him during his days as Officer Commanding Bulawayo Province when she led Fairbridge Support Unit District on behalf of Badger, and closer still when she was elevated to the rank of Assistant Commissioner at the turn of the millennium, and deputised her husband in Bulawayo.

Three years later she was back in Harare, charged with the duty of overseeing ordinary young men and women being morphed into competent police officers. During her two years in Depot, she opened a new training depot in Ndabazinduna, Matebeleland North Province in 2004.

The following year witnessed the history books being re-written again as Assistant Commissioner Mandizha was a conferred with a new rank as Deputy Commissioner (Human Resources) when the ZRP re-introduced the system of having four deputies lending a hand to the police Commissioner. She stayed as the human resources chief – earning another rank as the Deputy Commissioner General in 2008 – until the end of 2009 when she was transferred to oversee investigations as Deputy Commissioner General (Crime).

Sadly, it was sometime during this stage that Mr. Mandizha – on his return from a business trip abroad – noticed something amiss in his wife’s eyes.

“Barbara was a strong woman,” he said. “At first she brushed aside as nothing, but I convinced her to make a date with the doctor, just to be sure.”
It might have been a short painless trip to the doctor’s but the news he delivered back brought a deluge of sad, painful memories about a fight the family thought they had repelled a long time ago.

The cancer was back.

She went to China to seek treatment, but her return was not want everyone was expecting.
“Barbara, you bid me farewell when you left for China,” said the Commissioner General of Police, Cde Augustine Chihuri at the late Dep Commr Gen’s funeral church service in Harare.
“But you didn’t warn me about was that you would return to us this way, with body and spirit no longer in the same place.”

News that Dep Commr Gen Mandizha had lost her protracted battle with the cancer came as a shock to everyone, not least to the late commander herself, who had such a positive outlook on life that she was convinced she would prevail again.

Sadly, it was not to be. On the 12th of September 2010, with her sister, Rudo by her side, Deputy Commissioner General Barbara Mandizha breathed for the last time, to leave behind fond memories and a rich history that is ample proof that hard work pays in life. For, during her selfless service to the ZRP, Dame Mandizha earned herself accolades that included the Zimbabwe Independence Medal, the Ten and Fifteen years Service Medals, the Police Long and Exemplary Service Medal, and the First and Second Bar to Police Long and Exemplary Service Medals.

Befittingly, someone quoted the exact scriptures to summarise Barbara’s time on earth: “I have fought a good fight.”

As people looked up the walls to be inspired by the impressive recognition of an exemplary, selfless dedication to the police cause, they also noted that Dep Commr Gen Mandizha never stopped bettering herself, as evidenced by the Master of Arts in Leadership and Management Degree she acquired in 2008, in addition to a couple of previous academic feats. And they understood why her husband gave her free reign to his house – and his soul.

They also drew attention to the fact that Dep Commr Gen Mandizha was the only female officer in the presidium of the ZRP – a fact about which she was modest, simultaneously showing her belief in meritocracy.
“I shall work hard and lead by example,” she told The Outpost at her appointment to the prestigious seat in 2005.

“Other female officers should ensure that in whatever they do, they do not look down upon themselves. They should come up boldly and show that being a woman is not a disadvantage.
“They should not expect to be handpicked for promotion just to fulfil the organizational gender policy, but should qualify on merit.”

It was little wonder then, that the who is who in the political and business world left their offices and busy lives to pay their last respects to one of the most accomplished police officers in independent Zimbabwe’s history. And from her home area in Dema Communal Lands in Seke, people traveled from as far afield as Jonasi Primary School, almost fifteen or so kilometers away, to bid farewell to the true gallant daughter of the soil, who, as the Commr Gen put it, “remained resolute in serving her nation at a time when the country is being unjustifiably vilified by its erstwhile colonizers, that are bent on effecting an illegal regime change.”

Serving Zimbabwe was like singing her favourite hymn; It is a great thing to serve the lord.

Sermons, testimonies, words, phrases and verses overflowed to describe what she meant to all of us during her time on earth – a source of inspiration, pillar of strength, a success story, a distinguished officer, an uncompromising cadre, a trusted confidante, a shelter, and a bastion of humility.

And somewhere up there; in the place reserved for the best among us; as she was lowered to her final resting place beside her brother-in-law, Lovemore Mandizha; the history making security heroine looked down to where her friends and relatives were waving tearful goodbyes – and said thank you.

One word – said by her husband Albert – captured all that every speaker stood up to say.

Superwoman.