Those politicising Dampare-British envoy issue are not correct, says Antwi-Danso

Ghana’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr George Akuffo Dampare lashed out at the British high commissioner to Ghana Harriet Thompson for unnecessarily interfering in “the internal affairs” of her host country.

International relations expert, Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso has said that individuals who seek to politicise the Inspector General of Police’s letter to the British High Commissioner to Ghana to stop interfering in her host country’s internal affairs, are not in their right senses.

“I strongly suspect that this is politics and politicking as usual,” Antwi-Danso said on Asaase Radio’s The Big Bulletin on Tuesday (31 May). “This is a matter for the IGP and for the ministry of foreign affairs, period.”

Antwi-Danso, who doubles as the dean of the Ghana Armed Forces Command and Staff College (GAFSC), added that “anybody trying to politicise this is not correct. If the IGP is wrong, I say we have our laws. We must respect our constitutional remit given by the constitution to the police service. And if the IGP is wrong, we’ll judge him only by that, not by any political kind of inking.”

Dampare vs British envoy

Earlier, Ghana’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) Dr George Akuffo Dampare lashed out at the British High Commissioner to Ghana Harriet Thompson for unnecessarily interfering in “the internal affairs” of her host country.

Thompson had initially raised concerns on social media over the arrest of the #FixTheCountry Movement lead convenor, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, for traffic offences.

“Oliver Barker Vormawor, convener of #FixTheCountry movement, arrested again, I understand for a motoring offence on his way to court. I’ll be interested to see where this goes…” the diplomat tweeted a week ago.

In a four-page response to the British senior officer in Ghana, Dampare said the tweet violates the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 “which enjoins diplomatic missions not to interfere in the international affairs of their host country.”

Response by NDC

Meanwhile, the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said that the “regrettable” and “misguided” statement by the IGP has the “tendency of jeopardising the enviable cordial bilateral relations between Ghana and Britain.”

A statement from the NDC and signed by the general secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketiah indicated that “the IGP’s rather ill-advised attack on the British High Commissioner for being meddlesome in Ghana’s internal affairs appears rather far-fetched, particularly considering the significant fact that the activist of interest is a student in the UK and that matters of human rights are universal and cardinal.”