Kwamena Duncan, former Central Regional Minister, has commended the Inspector General of Police, Dr. George Dampare for his reply to British High Commissioner’s tweet on the arrest of the FixtheCountry Movement convener, Oliver Baker-Vormawor.
Oliver Baker-Vormawor was arrested for traffic offences, which is a subsequent arrest to his initial arrest for nursing a desire to stage coup d’état.
After his arrest, the British High Commissioner, Harriet Thompson, 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 IGP Dampare responded to the tweet in a statement cautioning Miss Thompson to mind her business.
He told her to “learn to keep within the limits of what concerns you”.
Portions of a statement signed by the IGP also read; “Ordinarily, the Ghana Police Service would not have responded to comments such as yours, obviously made from either a biased or uninformed position. However, we have learnt from previous, painful experience that it has not been helpful to ignore such misguided, unwarranted and biased comments intended to tarnish the reputation of the Ghana Police Service and that of our country.”
“What is more, we consider your tweet a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, 1961 which enjoins diplomatic missions not to interfere in the internal affairs of their host country.”
“For the moment, we would recommend a Ghanaian saying that might guide you in your diplomatic engagements. The saying goes: ‘di wo fie asem’ – it means learn to keep within the limits of what concerns you.”
Making his submissions on Peace FM’s, Kwamena Duncan was happy the IGP straightened out matters to the British High Commissioner to keep her from meddling in the affairs of Ghana.
“We applaud him to have the courage that the thousands in this country and not in slavery, if this woman thought that we were still in those 400 years ago when his [her] ancestors or whoever came and enslaved us, if she is still in that mood, cursed in that mode and therefore she can say anything; she should be educated. She should be told that we are not in that era”, he said.
He opined that Miss Harriet Thompson sought by her tweet to bring the Police administration down but warned her to respect her diplomatic mandate.
” . . I’m sure she doesn’t have a good understanding of what she is here for . . . you are a diplomat. First and foremost, you must understand what it is to be a diplomat . . . a diplomat has all kinds of immunities. They have what they even call the diplomatic bag; a country has no power even to search the diplomatic bag. All kinds of immunities, that is what the world has agreed on, then the reciprocal is that you don’t go and meddle. That is the reciprocal that, giving you all these things, you don’t go and poke your nose into the internal affairs of the receiving country. You don’t do that,” he stated.
