The National Democratic Congress (NDC) has expressed chagrin at a letter authored by the Inspector-General of Police, Dr. George Akuffo Dampare and addressed to the British High Commissioner, H.E. Harriet Thompson on a tweet about the arrest of Oliver Barker-Vormawor.
According to the NDC, the IGP’s regrettable and misguided letter has the tendency of jeopardizing the enviable cordial bilateral relations between Ghana and Britain.
The IGP’s letter questioned the British diplomat whether she is within the bounds of the Vienna Convention that regulates the conduct of diplomats in the countries in which they serve when she took to twitter to make insinuations about the arrest of a Ghanaian citizen by the Ghana Police.
“Should you get involved in the domestic/internal affairs, especially security issues of the sovereign state in which you are serving as a diplomat,” he quizzed?
H.E. Harriet Thompson had tweeted, “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 NDC, however, argued the IGP should have raised his concerns about the Diplomat’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.
Ghana and the UK, the NDC noted, have shared strong friendly bilateral relations and therefore official communications must avoid tones and language that 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,” a statement signed by General Secretary of the NDC Johnson Asiedu Nketia said.
He noted that the Ghana government was amongst the first nations of the world to condemn President Vladimir Putin for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and yet in all these instances no one accused Ghana of violating the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961.
The NDC, he said, has on no occasion described these very recent examples cited above as tantamount to President Akufo-Addo meddling in the internal affairs of other nations.
The party cautioned the IGP against a posture of high handedness and insipid arrogance that 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.”
“We request IGP Akuffo Dampare to rather 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,” he said.
The party called on Ghana’s Foreign Affairs Ministry to immediately intervene in offering diplomatic guidance to the IGP and also taking concrete steps to ease tensions.