Antwi-Danso: Crime now has political colours in Ghana

Crime has now been politicised in Ghana to the extent that criminals seek protection from the law by their mere association with political parties, Senior Research Fellow at the Legon Centre for International Affairs and Diplomacy (LECIAD) at the University of Ghana, Dr Vladimir Antwi-Danso has said.

At a public lecture to mark the 35th anniversary of the late President Hilla Limann’s investiture, Dr Antwi-Danso said the constitutionalism and institutionalism, which Ghana’s only president of the third Republic built, is non-existent in the fourth Republic.

“From the governance perspective, Limann was an egalitarian who wanted a Ghana ruled with a kind of inclusiveness, a kind of–not populism–but allowing institutionalism and constitutionalism, because a lot of the things that he was being asked to do were unconstitutional and therefore he stressed: ‘let the constitution work and that’s why people thought he was lethargic”, the international relations expert said.

“So it was in Limann’s time that he really wanted to establish constitutionalism and institutionalism. Today we’ve lost that. There’s no constitutionalism in the country. Everybody does what he likes until the law catches you.

“Now crime has gotten political colours in this country. So If I slap you and you think you can use NPP to get away, you say I’m NPP that’s why you have arrested me, but Limann didn’t want that”, Dr Antwi-Danso told his audience Wednesday.