International Security Analyst, Richard Gomador, says the government should have advised the IGP to ignore the tweet from the British High Commissioner to Ghana, H.E. Harriet Thompson on Oliver Baker Vormawor’s road traffic arrest.
The IGP in a rebuttal dated May 20, 2022, said the High Commissioner’s tweet wanting to know how the arrest will end amounted to interference in the internal security matters of Ghana.
According to the Police, Madam Thompson’s tweet was a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
But, the International Relations analyst sees the IGP response to the High Commissioner as unnecessary.
“You could have let them go not to have a confrontation in such a manner, you have the right to let them go. I think years back the Australia High Commission, the British High Commission was making some statements some people were not comfortable with.
“If you want to travel on this path then your backbone will need to be strengthened and once you have a weak backbone you start to have problems waking up in the morning,” he told Starr News.
The Security Analyst further indicated that for any government to go on such a trajectory then they must be well prepared.
“I was disappointed the letter was leaked but I was worried Dampare signed it,” Mr. Gomador added.
However, the British High Commissioner in an interview with Natalie Fort on GHOne TV indicated that her tweet was not intended to incite Ghanaians to warrant such a response for the IGP.
“That was not the intention, and in my experience, Ghana is a peace-loving nation where people have the right to express themselves, they do have the right to come out to protest against things that matter to them. A tweet like that will not get Ghanaians on the street in my view. It looks like my tweet wasn’t received as it was intended. I didn’t expect a response from the IGP at all.”
“If I was told there are chances like that I will not be tweeting like that that’s clearly not my intention but I haven’t seen anything like that for the time I’ve been here that will suggest his response,” she explained.