Inspector General of the Police Service, Dr. George Akufo-Danpare, has been pummelled from all sides and interests, following his letter dated 20th May, 2022, which sought to tell the British High Commissioner, H.E. Harriet Thompson, to mind her business and not to undermine the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961, which enjoins diplomatic missions not to interfere in the internal affairs of their host country.
Press Release after another, tweets and statements from politicians and Civil Society Organisations (CSO’s) have criticised the Inspector General for the manner he handled the situation.
The National Democratic Congress (NDC) in a statement signed by the General Secretary, Johnson Asiedu Nketia- General Secretary, cautioned the IGP against what it described as a “posture of high handedness and insipid arrogance which creates the impression that the Ghana Police Service under his leadership is above reproach. He must also be reminded that he does not speak for the Ghana Armed Forces or the Government of Ghana.”
According to the NDC, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare should have raised his concerns about the British High Commissioner’s tweet on Oliver Barker-Vormawor’s latest arrest with Ghana’s Foreign Minister through the Minister of the Interior for it to be addressed via the usual diplomatic channels.
“The IGP’s regrettable and misguided letter has the tendency of jeopardizing the enviable cordial bilateral relations between Ghana and Britain.
Ghana and the UK have shared strong friendly bilateral relations and official communications must avoid tones and language which are considerably discourteous, offensive and needlessly provocative.
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.
In any case, international relations of the modern era create great accommodation for peer review—this has been on exhibition in recent times when the Ghanaian President criticized western nations including the UK in his 2021 UN address for apparently using COVID-19 vaccination policies as a discriminatory immigration tool against Africans,” the NDC noted.
The party therefore requested of the IGP to focus his attention on the worsening security environment which has led to the gruesome loss of life of a lawyer, gold dealers in Asamang Tamfoe, and many other victims of unresolved police brutalities from the 2020 election killings to Ejura, Tamale, Akatsi, Asawase and Nkoranza.
Communications Director of the NDC, lawyer Sammy Gyamfi, described the IGP’s response to the British High Commissioner’s as “arrogance and intolerance displayed by the IGP in his response to a harmless tweet by the British High Commissioner to Ghana is disgusting to say the least.”
For Sammy Gyamfi, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with the tweet by the British High Commissioner which is what appears to have angered our celebrity IGP. If Dampare had apprised himself of Article 3(d) of the Vienna Convention, I am not sure he would have embarrassed himself and the nation this way.”
No wonder, the NDC Communication’s director intimated, that harassment, human rights abuse and extra-judicial killing of innocent Ghanaians by some rogue elements in the Ghana Police Service is on the ascendancy.
“IGP Dampare must know that the Police Service, like any other human institution, is not sacrosanct and not immune from criticism. The least expectation of a leader worth his salt is to focus on cleaning up the battered image of the Police and restoring public confidence in the Service. Defending wrong-doing while snapping at genuine criticism is not the new dawn of Policing that he promised us,” he added.
Civil Society Group, ASEMPA saw the IGP letter as a misguided uproar by the IGP as a blast in the face of all forms of diplomatic courtesies accrued to the British High Commissioner, it is in bad taste and totally unacceptable.
ASEPA opined, in press release dated 31 May, this year, and signed by Mensah Thompson the Executive Director, ASEPA that “If indeed the IGP perceive without malice that the British high commissioner’s tweet was uninformed in respect of the second arrest of Oliver, the appropriate thing to do was to have officially written to the High Commissioner explaining their side of the story, this could also have been achieved through a curtesy phone call to the diplomat engaging her to clear her misunderstanding.
This public display of contempt and ridicule towards the British High Commissioner merely because of a tweet is unwarranted, misguided, immature and an apparent breach of diplomatic courtesies and the IGP must be called out.”
Recall that H.E Harriet Thompson, in a Tweet on Tuesday, May 17, said she looks forward to seeing how the arrest of the convener of the FixTheCountry Movement would turn out.
“Oliver Barker Vormawor, the convener of #FixTheCountry Movement, arrested again, I understand, for a motoring offense on his way to court. I’ll be interested to see where this goes…,” the tweet read.
It was in response to that Tweet that the Police in a letter signed by the IGP, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare was from either a “biased or uninformed position.”
