Crime Combat in Developing Economies: The Dilemmas of the Ghana Police Service

This paper examines crime prevention in Developing Economies in Africa with special focus on Ghana and the Ghana Police Service. By and large, the Ghana Police Service has been in the news for wrong reasons partly as a result of several researched outcomes and public perceptions that tagged it as an institution riddled with corruption, extortion and embroiled in politics of patronage and clientelism with governments. This image of the Ghana Police Service has had negative repercussions on public understanding of its professionalism and the institutionalization of policing in communities in Ghana. In spite of these perceptions and bastardizations, public confidence in the police in combating armed robbery and preventing crime in general in Ghana has not completely waned. Indeed, records of the successes of the police in combating crime in Ghana abound and public memory of them continues to reverberate in some circles. This paper argues that the Ghana Police Service has been unnecessarily ‘framed’ in a negative limelight to the extent that its performance in crime prevention and protection of lives and properties has been glossed over. Keywords: Armed robbery, Corruption, Crime, Developing economies, Patronage, Police capacity, Police Service, Stealin

The Gods, Spirits And Magical Powers At War: Reflections On The Psychological Dimension Of The Nawuri-Gonja Conflict, Northern Ghana

In 1991 and 1992, the Nawuri and the Gonja clashed over allodial rights in lands in the Nawuri area of the present-day Kpandai District in the Northern Region of Ghana. The conflict was cataclysmic, and throughout its conduct, there were psychological dimensions. In all the events before the conflict and throughout the phases of the conflict, metaphysical and superstitious resources were utilized and became the fulcrum in the conduct of the conflict. As the conflict occurred in the part of Ghana where superstition and belief in spiritual powers was an integral part of people’s psychology, the Nawuri and the Gonja naturally provided space for the gods, spirits, and magical powers in the conduct of the conflict. With an ingrained philosophy that empiricism is controlled by metaphysical forces, the Nawuri and the Gonja mixed superstition in every aspect of the conflict. This paper examined the extent to which superstitious beliefs played a catalytical psychological role in the Nawuri-Gonja conflict. It analyzed the space provided for spiritual forces – the gods, spirits, and magical powers – and the extent to which these psychological factors determined the course of the conflict. The paper argued that it is impossible to reconstruct a cogent narrative of the conflict – both in terms of its conduct and the scale – without recourse to the psychological factors

One State, Two School Systems: the Instability of Ghana’s School System since the Fourth Republic

This paper examines the fickle nature of Ghana’s school system since colonialism. The school system has undergone several metamorphoses both in structure and content from the colonial epoch to post-independence. The management and reform of education in Ghana seem to have become synonymous with a change in political power. This paper argues that the management of Ghana’s educational system after fifty-five (55) years of independence is still undergoing turbulent experimentation to fine-tune to an efficient and effective school system. This instability in the structure and content of Ghana’s educational system looks more of a political jingle as well as military musical chairs rather than based on national consensus aimed at mitigating the many challenges facing the school system. Keywords: Education management, education reform/review, politics, quality educatio

The Ethnic Factor in International Politics: Constructing the Role of the Nawuri in the Pan-Ewe Nationalist Movement

This paper examines the German colonial project in Alfai in Northern Ghana as well as the roles the Nawuri played in the political activism of the 1940s and 1950s that sought to define the administrative status of the two Trust Territories of former German Togoland. Described as the “Togoland Question” or the “Ewe Problem”, the political activism has been labeled an Ewe affair, and examined largely within the framework of the pan-Ewe nationalists seeking to project an Ewe identity and establish an Ewe-dominated state. This study shifts focus to the roles that the Nawuri, a non-Ewe ethnic group, played in the pan-Ewe nationalist movement, and argues that the pan-Ewe nationalist movement was not entirely an Ewe affair; Nawuri association with and participation in its activities were conspicuous. Keywords: Alfai, British, Ghana, Gold Coast, German, Gonja, Kanankulaiwura, Kete-Krachi, nationalist, Nawuri, Nawuriwura, Northern Territories, Trust Territories, Togo, Togoland Questio

Autochthonous, conquest and overlordship rights in land: Constructing allodial rights in the Kpandai area in Northern Ghana in the pre-colonial times

In 1991-92, a conflict over the allodial title to lands in the Kpandai area broke out between the Nawuri and the Gonja, prompting the necessity to interrogate the concept of allodial rights. In Northern Ghana in general, allodial rights in land are ethnicized - the right of absolute ownership of land resided in an ethnic group. Nonetheless, the modes of acquisition of allodial rights in land differ from place to place, though generally they are embedded in the historical traditions of societies. By and large, the modes of acquisition of allodial rights in land by an ethnic group are determined by variables such as autochthonous and conquest rights, lease and gift. This study interrogates the ownership of Kpandai in the pre-colonial period, using, as determinants, tools such as autochthony, conquest, and I overlordship. It argues that allodial rights in lands in the Kpandai in the pre-colonial period resided in the Nawuri by virtue of rights of autochthony and autonomy

Colonial Conflicts in Contemporary Northern Ghana: A Historical Prognosis of the British Colonial Factor in the Nawuri - Gonja and Mamprusi - Kusasi Conflicts

Northern Ghana has witnessed phenomenal increases in armed conflicts over the past three decades. Many of these conflicts are ‘colonial conflicts’ rooted in colonial policies, but some others have no reference to colonialism as they are occasioned by endogenous factors. The Kusasi-Mamprusi and Nawuri-Gonja conflicts are colonial conflicts whose historical roots are traceable to colonialism in Northern Ghana. This paper interrogates the British-sponsored political conferences held prior to the introduction of indirect rule in Northern Ghana, with special focus on the Mamprusi and Gonja conferences. The paper argues thatthe conferences sowed the seeds of the post-colonial Mamprusi-Kusasi and Gonja-Nawuri conflicts