Harriet Thompson, the British High Commissioner to Ghana has expressed surprise to a response by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) over a tweet she made on Oliver Barker-Vormawor.
She said the tweet which was in relation to a recent arrest of the #FixTheCountry convener was a harmless one hence the response came as a shock to her.
Speaking in an interview on GhOne, Ambassador Thompson said she didn’t mean to incite Ghanaians with the tweet.
“That was not the intention, and my experience, Ghana is 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”.
The Inspector General of Police in a strongly worded statement said the High Commissioner’s tweet amounted to interference in the internal security matters of Ghana.
“We consider your tweet on Oliver Barker-Vormawor’s arrest for traffic offenses a violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations,” the Police said.
However, Sammy Gyamfi, a Communications Officer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) has said that the response by the IGP was unnecessary.
He said George Akuffo-Dampare must know that the Police administration like any other human institution is not sacrosanct and not immune from criticism.
Sammy Gyamfi in a statement to the IGP in a Facebook post said “No wonder 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.”
He added: “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.”
