INSTITUTIONAL CONTINUITIES: THE POLICE IN THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC
ORDER AND ALCOHOL IN GHANA
A Dissertation Submitted
By
Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
To
The Graduate Program in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of
Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD)
In Development Studies
In the Law School of
Harvard University
June 2004
ii
HARVARD UNIVERSITY HARVARD LAW SCHOOL
GRADUATE PROGRAM
Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Juridical
Science (SJD) degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation.
………………………………………………………………………..
Lucie E. White
Louis A. Horvitz Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
………………………………………………………………………..
Duncan Kennedy
Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence
Harvard Law School
This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate Committee
………………………………………
iii
FIELDS OF STUDY AND FIELD SUPERVISORS
(ORALS COMMITTEE)
The Politics and Economics of Development/Political Economy
Robert H. Bates
Eaton Professor of the Science of Government
Department of Government
Harvard University
Development Economics/Law and Development
Duncan Kennedy
Carter Professor of General Jurisprudence
Harvard Law School
Harvard University
International Law, Human Rights, and Development Issues
Henry J. Steiner
Jeremiah Smith, Jr. Professor of Law and
Director, Human Rights Program
Harvard Law School
Harvard University
Law and Organizing
Lucie E. White
Louis A. Horvitz Professor of Law
Harvard Law School
Harvard University
iv
DEDICATION
This dissertation is dedicated to all subalterns.
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I will first of all like to thank the Graduate Program and the Human Rights
Program of Harvard Law School for providing me with some financial
assistance towards the execution of this project. The Harvard University
Committee on African Studies also provided partial funding for one of my very
first field research trips under the 2001 Jennifer Oppenheimer Grant for
Doctoral Dissertation Research.
Next, I will like to thank my dissertation committee for their complete
dedication to this project and to my broader agenda. Prof. Lucie White
accompanied me on several of my field trips and pointed out to me insights,
which I could easily have missed. Prof. Duncan Kennedy has remained loyal to
the project and at one time agreed to accompany me to the stacks in Widener
Library to search for historical documents on colonial policing! The other two
professors who were part of my orals committee, Prof. Robert Bates and Prof.
Henry Steiner, helped provide the foundation on which this project is based. I
have also held several conversations with them throughout the period of writing.
Dominic M. Ayine, my colleague at the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana,
provided very exhaustive comments on my final draft. I thank him. I also
benefited from discussions of my project with the following of my friends:
vi
Samuel Amadi, Dr. Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, Prof. Eboe Hutchful, Shulamith
Koenig, Prof. Otwin Marenin (who also provided leads to very useful sources),
Jennifer Rosenbaum, Peter Rosenblum, and Dotse Tsikata.
The following of my friends also deserve mention: Issah Akolgo, Godwin
Adagwine, Joyce Agyepong, Frank Atuguba, Harold Atuguba, Juliet Atuguba,
Millicent Atuguba, Mahama Ayariga, Abdul Baasit Abdul Aziz, Ameley
Dankwa, Julius Fobil, Euphemia Gandaa, Saani Ibrahim, Daphne Nabila,
Pascaline Songsore, Nihad Swallah. Several times, and at very odd hours, I
have called them up to provide me with some information or to get, process or
transmit to me some document or other.
Sandra Mays, Annemarie Mecca, and Sena Dei-Tutu have also been helpful to
me in the process of organizing the dissertation for the various submission
deadlines.
vii
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
AFRC ARMED FORCES REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL
AFRCD ARMED FORCES REVOLUTIONARY COUNCIL DECREE
ASDR AFRICA SECURITY DIALOGUE AND RESEARCH
CDD CENTER FOR DEMOCRATIC DEVELOPMENT
CEPIL CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEREST LAW
CID CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIONS DEPARTMENT
CPP CONVENTION PEOPLES PARTY
ERP ECONOMIC RECOVERY PROGRAMME
GLR GHANA LAW REPORTS
GNA GHANA NEWS AGENCY
GTV GHANA TELEVISION
IMF INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND
JJSC JUSTICES OF THE SUPREME COURT
JSC JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT
LRC LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE
NDC NATIONAL DEMOCRATIC CONGRESS
NGO NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATION
NGP NATIONAL GOVERNANCE PROGRAMME
NIRP NATIONAL INSTITUTIONAL RENEWAL PROGRAMME
NLC NATIONAL LIBERATION COUNCIL
NLCD NATIONAL LIBERATION COUNCIL DECREE
NLM NATIONAL LIBERATION MOVEMENT
NPP NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY
NRC NATIONAL REDEMPTION COUNCIL
NRCD NATIONAL REDEMPTION COUNCIL DECREE
NUGS NATIONAL UNION OF GHANA STUDENTS
PNDC PROVISIONAL NATIONAL DEFENCE COUNCIL
PNDCL PROVISIONAL NATIONAL DEFENCE COUNCIL LAW
PP PROGRESS PARTY
SAP STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT PROGRAMME
SC SUPREME COURT
SCGLR SUPREME COURT OF GHANA LAW REPORTS
SMC SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL
SMCD SUPREME MILITARY COUNCIL DECREE
UGCC UNITED GOLD COAST CONVENTION
UNIGOV UNION GOVERNMENT
WTO WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION
viii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FIELDS OF STUDY AND FIELD SUPERVISORS ....................................... iii
DEDICATION..................................................................................................... iv
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .................................................................................v
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................... vii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. viii
CHAPTER ONE ......................................................................... 1
INSTITUTIONAL DYSFUNCTION AND CONTINUITY ............. 1
INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................1
THE POLICE FORCE AND THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC ORDER .........12
THE POLICE AND AKPETESHIE ......................................................................15
RE-ENVISIONING THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE ......................................18
THE STRUCTURE AND METHODOLOGY OF THIS DISSERTATION .......20
CHAPTER TWO ...................................................................... 23
“BOME KOTOKU” ...................................................................................................23
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................23
THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD UNTIL THE END OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN
ABOUT 1830 ........................................................................................................27
THE PERIOD OF CONQUEST AND LEGITIMATE TRADE FROM 1830 UPTIL
1900.......................................................................................................................31
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME ..............................................31
THE ORIGINS OF THE POLICE FORCE ......................................................32
PEACE AND STABILITY FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION .............35
PROTECTING THE POLITICAL CLASS ..................................................39
ENFORCING THE “RULE OF LAW” ........................................................43
THE CONSTRUCTION OF A BRUTAL POLICE FORCE IN AID OF
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DOMINATION AND SOCIAL CONTROL46
EVIDENCE OF POLICE BRUTALITY ..........................................................53
THE POLICE FORCE AND THE LAW .........................................................59
THE PERIOD OF POLITICAL DOMINATION AND INTENSE ECONOMIC
EXPLOITATION FROM 1900 UPTIL THE MID 1940s ....................................63
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME ..............................................63
POLICE ORGANIZATION OF THE TIME ...................................................64
PEACE AND STABILITY FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION .............66
PROTECTING THE POLITICAL CLASS ..................................................69
ENFORCING THE “RULE OF LAW” AND POLICE BRUTALITY .......71
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION TO INDEPENDENCE, THE MID-1940s TO
1957.......................................................................................................................73
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME ..............................................73
THE POLICE FORCE OF THE TIME ............................................................74
POLICE BRUTALITY .....................................................................................80
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................87
ix
CHAPTER THREE ................................................................. 89
POST-INDEPENDENCE “BOME KOTOKU” ............................... 89
INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................89
THE NKRUMAH ERA, 1957-1966 .....................................................................94
THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF GHANA AT INDEPENDENCE ............94
THE POLICE IN THE IMMEDIATE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA ..........98
POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE NKRUMAH ERA ......................................103
THE PERIOD OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY, 1966 TO
1981.....................................................................................................................110
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME ............................................110
THE POLICE FORCE IN THIS ERA ............................................................111
POLICE BRUTALITY AND CORRUPTION IN THE PERIOD OF POLITICAL
AND ECONOMIC DOWNTURN .................................................................124
SAMPLE EVIDENCE OF THE YEARS OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC
DECLINE IN THE POLICE FORCE.............................................................130
THE RAWLINGS ERA AND THE PERIOD OF THE ERP, SAPs, AND
CONSTITUTIONAL RULE-1982 TO 2000 ......................................................135
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME ............................................135
THE POLICE FORCE IN THE RAWLINGS ERA .......................................141
POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE RAWLINGS ERA ......................................147
THE “BOME KOTOKU” CASE....................................................................149
THE ERA OF “POSITIVE CHANGE”, 2001 TO THE PRESENT ..................162
POLICE SUBSERVIENCE TO AND PROTECTION OF THE POLITICAL
CLASS, AND THEIR USE FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION AND THE
ENFORCEMENT OF THE “RULE OF LAW” .............................................166
A BRUTAL POLICE FORCE TODAY .........................................................174
PUBLIC DISAPPROBIUM OF THE POLICE TODAY ...............................179
THE MAY 9 STADIUM DISASTER AND THE POLICE .....................181
POLICE REFORM TODAY ..........................................................................184
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................191
CHAPTER FOUR .................................................................... 195
AKPETESHIE ................................................................................... 195
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................195
THE ‘AKPETESHIE’ SAGA .............................................................................197
ALCOHOL IN PRECOLONIAL TIMES ......................................................197
ALCOHOL IN COLONIAL TIMES ..............................................................203
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT AND ALCOHOL IN THE COLONIAL
ERA.................................................................................................................210
STRANGULATION AND PROHIBITION OF THE ALCOHOL TRADE
DURING COLONIALISM AND THE AFTERMATH ................................214
ENTER “AKPETESHIE” ...............................................................................218
AKPETESHIE EXPLOSION .........................................................................222
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AKPETESHIE, THE LAW, THE POLICE AND SUB-ALTERN COUNTER
HEGEMONIC PRACTICES ..............................................................................226
AKPETESHIE AND THE INDEPENDENCE ERA .........................................234
AKPETESHIE FROM 1970 TO THE 1990s .....................................................238
THE AKPETESHIE CASE ................................................................................245
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................255
CHAPTER FIVE .................................................................... 258
THE REFORM GAME AND ITS PLAYERS ............................... 258
INTRODUCTION ..............................................................................................258
INSTITUTIONAL CONTINUITY ....................................................................258
ALTERNATIVE INSTITUTIONAL FORMS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR
NORMATIVE SUPREMACY ...........................................................................263
VISIONS AND DREAMS OF THE FUTURE ..................................................267
THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONAL REFORM TODAY ............................272
INSTITUTIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORM- AN AGENDA FOR THE
PRESENT ...........................................................................................................276
CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................277
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................... 281
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
1
CHAPTER ONE
INSTITUTIONAL DYSFUNCTION1
AND CONTINUITY
INTRODUCTION
History is beautiful and history matters, and in this dissertation you will get a good dose
of it. “It matters not just because we can learn from the past, but because the present and
the future are connected to the past by the continuity of a society’s institutions. Today’s
and tomorrow’s choices are shaped by the past. And the past can only be made intelligible
as a story of institutional evolution”.2 The starting point for this dissertation is therefore
colonial Ghana.
Many issues that present themselves in Ghana today as simple issues of institutional
dysfunction that need to be reformed are not that simple. They are linked to genealogies
1 The word “dysfunction” is a loaded and tricky word. It has the potential of locking us into a
narrow functionalist way of thinking about institutions. I argue against this way of thinking about
institutions in this dissertation. It also assumes that there is a fixed, instrumentalist, positivist,
rational, high-modernist, deterministic, hegemonic notion of what functional institutions are.
Again, I argue against notion and suggest in this dissertation that moving away from these visions
of institutions problematizes the normative. And that is what it should be. Again, the word evokes
the various pejorative connotations that are often associated with Africa and the Third World. I
still use the word, even if with this long explanatory footnote. It gives me the opportunity to write
this explanation, which is useful in itself. 2 DOUGLASS C. NORTH, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance,
(Cambridge University Press: Cambridge; New York, 1990) p. vii.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
2
and trajectories that are heavily embedded in historical institutional development from
the pre-colonial through the colonial to the post-colonial and post-modern eras. They are
products of intense contestations between the forces of colonialism (past and present) and
those of the colonized, and their respective agents, allies and sympathizers. The outcomes
of these contestations in the colonial era were basically crystallized as political, economic
and social institutional forms during the transfer of power to a Ghanaian government at
independence.
In the context of the political turmoil, maneuvers and compromises that took place
immediately before independence, it was a very rational choice to take over the
institutions, warts and all. Reforming these institutions could after all follow from
political independence. This was not to be. The dysfunctional institutional forms, cheap
to maintain, and serving for the new elite the same instrumental purposes as they did
during colonialism, were mostly retained and upgraded by the new ruling class,
undergoing very limited adaptations. In any case, the two decades following
independence were rough for the continent, and Ghana, a beacon on the continent, was at
the center of it all. There were the many countries emerging from colonialism, the
attendant struggles, and the calls on sister countries for support of all kinds; there was the
worldwide economic crises following the oil shocks, and there was the cold war. Within
Ghana, the colonial institutions were left to endure as Nkrumah struggled to achieve
African unity. If anything, the dysfunctional institutions were retained, refurbished and
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
3
deployed to defend the fragile Nkrumah regime and all the other post-independence
regimes.
When intensive institutional reforms started in the mid-1980s with the Economic
Recovery Programme (ERP), the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), and later the
National Institutional Renewal Programme (NIRP), the colonial institutions could have
been changed. Again, this was not to be. It was not just inertia, or incapacity on the part
of the new governments to govern properly that resulted in institutional continuities. New
structures, interests and patterns of resource control coincided with those of the colonial
era and ensured a perpetuation of the institutional forms that were developed during
colonialism and crystallized at the dawn of independence. The following quotation is
illustrative indeed:
The disintegration of the colonial empires brought about a strange and
incongruous convergence of aspirations. The leaders of the independence
movements were eager to transform their devastated countries into modern
nation-states, while the ‘masses’, who had often paid for their victories with
their blood, were hoping to liberate themselves from both the old and the new
forms of subjugation. As to the former colonial masters, they were seeking a
new system of domination, in the hope that it would allow them to maintain
their presence in the ex-colonies, in order to continue to exploit their natural
resources, as well as to use them as markets for their expanding economies or as
bases for their geopolitical ambitions.3
3 Majid Rahnema, “Introduction” in MAJID RAHNEMA (ed) The Post-Development Reader (Zed
Books: London & New Jersey, 1997) p. ix.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
4
Rahnema was not exactly right. The convergence of interests excluded the masses, and it
is mostly from their struggle “to liberate themselves from …the old and the new forms of
subjugation” that we can begin to find answers to institutional dysfunction.
The former colonial masters sought and found a new form of domination in international
financial and trade institutions. These institutions ensure post-modern colonialism. In this
agenda, the colonial inherited institutions become great assets. This is because the basic
tenets of colonialism and post-modern colonialism are the same and require the same
basic institutional structure to be effective. The rhetoric of institutional reform is
therefore greater than the deed. And the deed is limited to sophist, skin deep, flippant
adaptations without tampering with the core character of the dysfunctional institutions
that perpetuate power hierarchies, poverty and patriarchy.
Without appreciating the fundamental logic of institutional continuity, frustrated persons
and groups in Ghana and all over the African continent, have taken over the reins of
power and attempted to institute institutional reform. Authoritarianism, heady
revolutions, overthrowing and killing the ruling class, have all occurred in a desperate
search for solutions to the gigantic and complex issue of institutional malaise, but to no
avail. There have also been condemnations of the ills of colonialism and of the unfair
world political and economic order, followed by exhortations to make a clean break from
them, but these have not worked. Today, high-sounding human rights refrains and
templates for magical institutional reform, marketed by consultants of international
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
5
financial institutions and their local governmental and non-governmental collaborators
are faring worse.
In the last decade, persons and groups have sought the help of the courts of law in the
agenda of institutional reform, but the general approach of the courts has been to decide
on very narrow issues and to hint that the proper agency to engage in extensive
institutional reform is the executive.4
Something else must be the solution to the problem of institutional malaise. The
beginning, I propose, is to look carefully at the history of the various reform issues, and
note the convergence and divergence of interests that have attended them. These should
then be mapped to determine the institutional forms that were produced by various
constituencies as they strove, in the context of politico-socio-economic changes,
eventualities, and accidents over time, to ensure the protection of their interests. These
patterns, together with the patterns produced by countervailing forces, are the key to the
enduring character of institutional forms, the reason for their dysfunction, and the
possibilities for reform.
4 New Patriotic Party v. Inspector General of Police [1993-94] 2 GLR 459, at 466, per Archer C.J.
See also DOMINIC M. AYINE, Constitutionalism, Governmental Accountability and Economic
Transformation in Ghana: A Law and Economics Perspective, 1998 (Unpublished Paper, on file
with author).
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
6
In none of the contestations and discussions about institutional reform has there been a
thorough historical analysis of institutional dysfunction. Nor has there been a serious
consideration of the convergence and ill convergence of interests that lead to institutional
continuity and the implication of these for reform efforts. Virtually all participants in
these discussions see the problem as a current one of institutional ineffectiveness and
inefficiency that need to be fixed with the aid of institutional performance improvement
models and kits.
In what way will historical institutional analysis help us in this quagmire? What are the
historical questions that have not already been asked? How will my type of historical
institutionalist research pay off as we identify ways of reforming institutions today? In
this dissertation I adopt a narration of history that shows interplay of changing
ideological formations and changing institutional forms. I show how these two shift
overtime and the interplay between them. I then show the light that the interplay sheds on
new forms of institutional ordering; new institutional forms, that produce new
possibilities and new countervailing technologies of power, capable of meeting the ways
in which the power of post-modern colonialism mobilizes itself.
The colonial infrastructure was not imposed on pre-existing states that were tabular rasa,
or which were governed by loose, and inferior norms and practices, as the early European
writers will have us believe. The political, economic and social systems of colonialism
and the new “rule of law” were superimposed on a set of highly developed systems and
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
7
rules that constantly mutated in accordance with the political economy of the societies
that occupied the territory now called Ghana.
The colonial enterprise interacted with these pre-existing systems producing two main
effects: first various variants of obliterating effects on a range of institutional forms, from
absolute expurgation and excision, through mutilation to pruning5 and modification. This
was executed mainly through superior military force and other forms of coercion. The
second effect of the interaction of the colonial enterprise and pre-existing forms of
organization was resistance. This took two forms: open, radical resistance that was
mostly crushed through military and police force, and more subterraneous and
sophisticated forms of resistance and survival skills that were used by ordinary folks to
beat the system. The latter forms of practical and pragmatic resistance were sustained and
made more complex by their interaction with other forms of political, economic and
social institutional and organizational forms that were left pretty intact by the colonial
enterprise. The resulting mesh of pragmatic resistance and pre-existing institutional
forms, deployed through physical, mental and rhetorical survival skills, made resistance
stronger still and more difficult to detect, contain and counter. When akpeteshie was
banned, there is evidence that some people beat the system through tricks like stringing
gallons of the “illicit” gin together, belting them to their waist, and covering them up with
a large cloth that is loosely draped over the body, a perfectly traditional dress style that
5 Pruning is chosen to convey the potential of fuller and better growth after the exercise.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
8
was still legal.6 When the Poll Tax ordinance was in force, signals were sent round the
village when tax collectors were in sight. The result, everyone was in hiding when they
arrived. Information flow was effected through the use of drum language for example. In
confrontations with colonial officials and in the courts of law, rhetorical survival skills
were at play. Deliberate misinterpretation, and the use of coded language and proverbs to
outwit those colonial officials who had learnt the local language were rife. Counter
hegemonic activities of subalterns flourished. Most of these survival skills are now
chronicled in various African film and television dramas and in various literary works,
especially the African Writers Series.
As noted earlier, the negotiations for independence and the, at first, hesitant but
progressively highhanded and radical steps of the new governments unwittingly
crystallized the existing institutional forms for the same instrumental reasons as the
colonial government, but to different ends. The aim of the colonial government was
political domination and control for the purpose of economic exploitation and social
penetration and transformation. That of the independent government was centralized
political control for the purpose of extracting economic rent to build a unified socialist
developmentalist Africanist state, where all will have “work and happiness”7 and to fund
6 EMMANUEL K. AKYEAMPONG, Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of
Alcohol in Ghana (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH; James Currey: Oxford, 1996) p. 108. In High
School, our disdain for school uniforms and our love for this form of dressing, made us make up
stories about having infections and boils in our scrotums such that we could not wear the tight
fitting school shorts. This allowed us to dress traditionally. 7 This was one of the slogans of Nkrumah’s party, the Convention Peoples Party (CPP).
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
9
the goal of African Unity as a counter weight to neo-colonial imperialism.8 Political
subjugation and control of the masses, in order to ensure centralized political authority
and social control, the better to extract economic rent and ensure radical social
reorganization and unification of a conglomeration of diverse ethnic groups, thrust
together by the European partition of Africa at the Berlin conference of 1884, “called…to
settle Africa among the rival powers”9, required the same policies, laws, practices and
instruments of brute force and exploitation that the colonial government used. The new
independent government could not afford to let go of these. Indeed, they made the pre-
existing repressive institutions more sophisticated. The institutional forms that were
developed by the colonial regime were not only cheap and represented the line of least
imagination for the new governments; they were effective for crushing resistance and
exploiting the populace.
To the extent that they decided to keep the institutional forms of the colonial regime, the
new governments met with even more sophisticated forms of resistance than the colonial
government; resistance mechanisms and survival skills that had been revised, updated
and refined over the years. This was met with even greater forms of repression. When
“criminals” evaded the police, they will arrest their relatives and literary hold them
ransom. As late as 1993, the Supreme Court was still decrying this practice.10
8 KWAME NKRUMAH, Neo-colonialism: The Last Stage of Imperialism. (International
Publishers: New York, 1969), passim. 9 LYNN PAN, Alcohol in Colonial Africa, (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies;
New Brunswick, N.J.: [Distributed By] Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies, 1975) p. 31. 10 Tehn-Addy v. Electoral Commission and another [1996-97] SCGLR 589
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
10
This state of institutional dysfunction continued until the early 1980s. The ERP and SAPs
of this period, launched by the government of Ghana and the World Bank and IMF,
brought economic benefits to the upper classes through a series of economic stabilization
programs, and the concomitants of engineered foreign direct investment, loans and grants
from development partners, mainly G-8 countries. The economic benefits hardly reached
the poor.11 Only two decades later was this sought to be corrected by various “Poverty
Reduction Strategies”12; and even this more in rhetoric than in practice. The second effect
of buying into the neo-liberal consensus was the opening up of democratic spaces within
Ghana. A liberal Constitution, a comprehensive bill of rights, various governmental
efforts at doing “National Institutional Renewal” under the NIRP13 and the National
Governance Program (NGP), and the rise of NGOs interested both in human rights and
institutional renewal, coincided to create and ensure the utilization of various democratic
spaces in Ghana for the purpose of reforming her institutions.
Whilst the upper classes were busy apportioning the benefits of the ERP/SAP and the
NIRP/NGP, and musing about institutional reform, the poor were equally busy polishing
up their forms of resistance and survival skills. When the upper classes were ready to do
serious reform, the lower classes had developed parallel and elaborate systems of
institutional ordering. They had mastered the art of combining the appropriate levels and
11 JIM YONG KIM et al (eds) Dying for Growth: Global Inequity and the Health of the Poor
(Common Courage Press, 2000), passim. 12 Many African countries under Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) are now required to
develop and implement “Poverty Reduction Strategies”. 13 The National Institutional Renewal Programme (NIRP) is a Government of Ghana/World Bank
Project that aims at improving the performance of various institutions of state. It was started in the
mid-1990s and is currently being reviewed.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
11
mix of overt and covert resistance that was necessary for self-help and survival. Current
institutional reform efforts mostly ignore these developments, either because they are not
aware of their existence and/or their ubiquitousness, potential, and value as alternative
forms of institutional ordering, or because they do not have the capacity to identify, learn
about, understand and address them.
In this dissertation, I explore the themes of institutional continuities, subaltern counter
hegemonic practices, and institutional reform by examining the regulation of public order
and alcohol in Ghana. The critical role of the police in these regulatory areas is
instructive at a number of levels and in several ways, as we shall soon see. I discuss how
the British political, economic and legal infrastructure penetrated and disrupted pre-
existing regulation of public order and alcohol that was conducive to a particular political
economy and various social practices. I emphasize the enduring character of the new
institutions14 created around public order and alcohol, and how they crystallized at
independence and were perpetuated in the post-independence era. As is to be expected,
the process of rough interaction between pre-existing norms on public order and alcohol,
and the imposed colonial infrastructure, was settled in favor of the latter, a process that
was ultimately dis-empowering to Ghanaians. It was only in the 1990s that groups of
Ghanaians thought that the situation should be changed. They felt oppressed by the
various relics of colonialism that were propped up and used by the new colonizers. As
14 Institutions are defined here as repetitive patterns of human behavior. North, Supra note 2; ANN
SEIDMAN, ROBERT B. SEIDMAN, NALIN ABEYSEKERE, Legislative Drafting for
Democratic Social Change (Kluwer Law International; Hague, London, Boston, 2001), passim;
ANN SEIDMAN AND ROBERT B. SEIDMAN, State and Law in the Development Process
(Macmillan: London; St. Martin’s: New York, 1994), passim.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
12
shown in chapters three and four, they sought the help of the Supreme Court15 to address
some of the issues in the regulation of public order and alcohol that worked against them.
By showing that serious colonial issues around public order and alcohol, were still
nagging only a few years ago, I make explicit, the enduring character of institutional
dysfunction in Ghana today. This dissertation is the story of institutions, the reasons for
their endurance, resistance to them, and efforts at reforming them.
THE POLICE FORCE AND THE REGULATION OF PUBLIC ORDER
Systems of policing existed in the states that inhabited the territory now called Ghana
when the Brits formed their police force. Indeed, the concept of village or native policing
that was later introduced, was intended, in part, to incorporate and subsume the pre-
existing systems of policing as part of the broader design of indirect rule. The story of the
colonial enterprise was as much a story of economic exploitation as it was a story of legal
and political penetration and social reorganization. The police were critical to this
function.
There were several background rules that established the political and legal authority of
the British in the Gold Coast. Treaties- however tenuous, laws on treason, sedition and
15 The Supreme Court is the highest court in Ghana. It is also the only Constitutional Court,
subject to the jurisdiction of the High Court to enforce the constitutional provisions on
Fundamental Human Rights.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
13
other crimes against the state16, arms and ammunition regulations,17 and laws on public
order18 were all aimed to secure British political authority. Other laws on property, tax,
and liquor licensing also distributed economic and social power in subtle but critical and
effective ways. It is the entire gamut of these laws which constructed the social reality of
the colonized by regulating their interactions inter se and in a subordinate capacity with
the colonizers, and in some cases, their fellow colonized. It was the police that was called
upon to enforce these laws. The police were therefore the basic instruments for
maintaining a particular political economy and social organization that was conducive to
the colonial enterprise. Part of the argument in this dissertation is that the police were
again central in maintaining the political economy of neo-colonialism, and are today,
central in maintaining the political economy of the globalization of capital, which I refer
to as the era of post-modern colonialism.19 To take one little example, this continuity is
seen clearly in the use of the police by the nationalist leaders as instruments for national
integration and the policing of the high modernist developmentalist state, and in the use
of the police as implementers and policers of neo-liberalism, another form of integration,
but integration into the world economy under the tutelage of the World Bank, the IMF
and the WTO.
16 Criminal code, 1832 (CAP 32). 17 Arms and Ammunition Ordinance, 1922 (CAP 253). 18 Public Meetings and Processions Regulations, 1926 (No. 10 of 1926). 19 Susan S. Silbey, “Let them eat cake: Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism, and the
Possibilities Of Justice”. 31 Law and Society Review 207, (1997).
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
14
It is essential here to graphically illustrate the type of historical continuity I am trying to
describe with one extensive quotation from an intelligent observer:
The baseline is that policing the empires developed largely in response to
several imperial demands, the most important of which was the global
expansion of capitalism, particularly in the nineteenth century, and the need
to control international markets in raw materials as well as outlets for
Europe’s industrial goods…[T]he police forces that eventually emerged in
the colonies were essentially ‘hybrids’, with many having characteristics that
did not mirror police models in the ‘mother-country’ but were shaped by
colonial events and needs…
The impact of colonial policing on the colonized are many and varied. The
link between policing and military action in the pacific territories, and the use
of the colonial police forces generally to maintain unfavourable colonial tax
and labour policies earned them the reputation of being nothing but
instruments of state coercion, representing an unquestionable political
authority and existing only to serve the political and economic interests of the
colonialists. Incidents of police brutality, corruption, violence, murder and
abuse of power punctuated almost every decade of colonial police history.
The political image of the colonial police was most visible during the period
of decolonization when development in colonial policing shifted rapidly
towards political policing against the ‘enemies’ of the colonial states.
However, the colonial policing legacy did not disappear in the developing
world after independence, even in those post-colonial states that adopted anti-
colonial revolutionary governments. Many post-colonial states continued in
the colonial tradition of political policing, using the police as the most visible
symbol of political power and control, to legitimize and entrench largely
authoritarian governments. Thus, in many respects, the post-colonial police
forces, like their colonial predecessors, are still misused and abused. The
question of their autonomy is yet to be resolved in constitutional
arrangements that emphasize government control. Various accounts of the
police in Africa continuing in the colonial tradition as agents of the state
against trade unionists, students and political opponents, persist…In a
nutshell, the strategic position that the police occupied in the colonization
process together with their operation as an arm of authoritarian governments
ever since have enabled them to consolidate their position as an instrument of
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
15
the central state which functions to perpetuate existing power relations in the
interest of the different factions of the post-colonial political classes.20
It is against this background that various governmental and non-governmental groups,
including the police itself, are working for reform of the force. This is a daunting task
indeed. Daunting because, the incentives to reform are very low in key sectors. As
Bankole notes, “there appears to be a general lack of political will…to make radical
changes for the future. For many post-colonial African countries, the inherited colonial
tradition is simple, manageable and perhaps cheap.”21 And I will add that it fits into the
pattern of neo-liberalism and post-modern colonization, more decently called
globalization. It will be a damn thing indeed for those who benefit from post-modern
colonialism to want to change the colonial character of the police. Flowing from the
above, I make the point in this dissertation that the reform issues facing the police in
Ghana today are less about changing or reforming the police than they are about policing
change or reform.
THE POLICE AND AKPETESHIE22
A vital component that must go into the institutional reform game is the product of the
various forms of resistance to the institutional forms that developed in the colonial era,
transformed through the independence era, and matured in the era of post-modern
20 Bankole A. Cole, “Post-Colonial Systems” in R.I. MAWBY Policing across the World: Issues
for the Twenty-first Century, (UCL Press: New York, 1999) p. 100-102. 21 Ibid p. 102. 22 This is the most popular name of the locally brewed “illicit” gin that replaced imported liquor
when import restrictions were imposed.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
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colonialism. The various sophisticated rhetorical and other survival skills that subalterns
developed to avoid being crushed by these forces, and the various sub-institutional forms
that proliferated thereby, are a major factor in the reform game, and we discount them at
our peril. Already, there is increasing tension between the police and the citizenry,
serious security voids, and the proliferation of extra-state security institutions, some legal,
most “illegal”, as we shall see in chapters three and five.
In this dissertation, I explore this theme by reference to the regulation of alcohol in
Ghana. First, I showed how the British colonial infrastructure penetrated and disrupted
pre-existing regulation of alcohol. This complements the story of the colonial
construction of institutions that I discuss in the case of the police. The complex contests
between men, women and young persons, between local and foreign temperance
movements and the colonial government, between the colonized and the colonizers,
between the police and persons who brewed, sold or consumed akpeteshie and several
other constituents, all around the regulation of alcohol, demanded a pragmatic and
experimentalist negotiation of power. All this was further complicated by the rise and fall
of revenues from liquor and from other sources, the rise of the nationalist movement and
various other historical events and accidents.
Contests over the regulation of alcohol was settled against the subalterns of each era,
women and children in the pre-colonial era, the colonized in the colonial era, and the
working-class and the poor in the post-colonial era, outcomes which I think are ultimately
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
17
dis-empowering to the Ghanaian citizenry. Thus, at the dawn of independence, there was
a crystallization of the institutional forms for the regulation of alcohol that placed
enormous power in the hands of the government and its agents. As was the case with the
police, these institutional forms were preserved by the new independent government and
used for social control and revenue mobilization purposes. Again, as was the case with
the Bome Kotoku case, the akpeteshie case, decided by the Supreme Court in the 1990s is
living testimony to the currency of the issues of institutional dysfunction.
On a lighter note, the emulation of the colonial European lifestyle, by the new leaders of
Ghana, which included elaborate and quite heavy drinking, was an outward manifestation
of the enduring character of institutional dysfunction and portends worse forms of
subterranean dysfunction.23 As one observer has noted:
It is perhaps an irony…that among the small national bourgeoisie of officials
and intellectuals created after independence, the emulation of the life style of
their ex-colonial rulers made possible by their raised standards of living has
meant the increased import of spirits along with cars and other consumer
goods…[and] the adoption of drinking habits more characteristically
European.24
23 LYNN PAN, Alcohol in Colonial Africa, (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies;
New Brunswick, N.J.: [Distributed By] Rutgets University Center of Alcohol Studies, 1975) p.13-
14. 24 Ibid p. 14.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
18
RE-ENVISIONING THE COLONIAL EXPERIENCE
The colonial experience is normally thought of in terms of economic exploitation. This
diminution of the colonial experience to economic exploitation, discounts all the serious
issues of legal penetration, political governance and social reordering that took place
during the period and their enduring character today. This dissertation helps fill this void
by showing how the economic exploitation imperative, operating through law-the
command of the sovereign-had gross and lasting effects on political and economic
governance and social ordering. I have tried in this dissertation to move away from the
narrow, economic historicisation of the colonial reality, and proffer a legal, and political
institutional historicisation of colonialism. I describe the colonial state as a legal and
political enterprise in aid of economic exploitation. I am, however, quick to add that the
legal and political aspects of the enterprise had a life of their own and led to the
establishment of peculiar institutional forms. The police were key to the making of these
institutions. Because the police were formed for the sole purpose of enforcing the laws
and the political economy of colonialism, that institution acquired a particular culture and
ethos. That culture and ethos has since not left the police due to the continuity of
colonialism in various mutations.
If we consider that the crises of state collapse in Africa relates only to the collapse of
what is left of the colonial state,25 then police reform in Ghana today can only take place
25 MAHMOOD MAMDANI, Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities: Overcoming the
Political Legacy of Colonialism, 2004. (Unpublished Paper, on file with author).
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
19
by devising the mechanisms for presiding over the collapse of those aspects of the police
which are legitimate descendants of the colonial construction of the force. In the peculiar
case of the police, the entire institution was a product of the colonial enterprise. This
means that the force has to be completely reconfigured.
There is nothing that is not constructed. So to reconstruct or reform, we need to know the
nature of the engineering that constructed the phenomenon we are trying to reconstruct.
And the better it is constructed, the more it withstands all the bloody reform forces
directed against it. In the case of the police force, reform is a complex matter because its
colonial characteristics are conducive for the current era of post- modern colonialism.
The colonial state lives on. To reform it, we need to rediscover emancipatory legacies
that were officially silenced by the colonial power and are being silenced today by the
powers of post-modern colonialism. I conclude that a reform of the police in Ghana will
have to be grounded in the reform of the political economy that the police are called upon
to police.
Any such strategy for institutional redesign has to have a stubborn ability to resist the
discourse of post-modern colonialism; contain a proliferation of alternatives-an inventory
of institutional social normative forms on the basis of which contestations and policy
decisions will be made; and be situated in the prevailing array of democratic possibilities.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
20
THE STRUCTURE AND METHODOLOGY OF THIS DISSERTATION
After this introductory chapter, I discuss in chapter two how the police force in the Gold
Coast, now Ghana, came to acquire its status as a key institution of governance. This
chapter covers the period up till political independence in 1957. It provides a re-reading
of the traditional role of the police-the maintenance of law and order- and suggests that
law and order are empty categories that can be filled with anything. In this case, it was
filled with the core imperialist objectives of political domination, economic exploitation
at the onset of industrial capitalism, legal penetration, and social reordering. This will be
the first part of a detailed account of how institutions in Africa came to be what they are.
A police force, constructed to meet certain core imperialist objectives and a political
economy conducive to same, cannot but be dysfunctional today.
In the next chapter we bring this story up to the present by showing how the opportunities
for the reform of the police were lost as political independence approached and through
the years of political and economic decline up till the present. I conclude this chapter by
noting that the reasons for this type of stubborn institutional continuity can be located in
the continuity of colonialism and imperialism in different forms and under different
names.
Chapter four deals with a different aspect of colonial political control, economic
exploitation, legal penetration and social reordering. Here, I discuss an example of more
micro-level institutional construction-the control of alcohol-from the colonial, through
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
21
the post-colonial, to the current period. The role of the police in this enterprise is
underlined. As in the case of the police, this story is also one of historical continuity. In
this example of fiscal and cultural control, however, the forms of resistance are different.
Conquered and “pacified”, the colonized could not but engage in various subterraneous
counter hegemonic activities against imperialist hegemony. These forms of subaltern
resistance have endured and continue today.
In the last chapter, chapter five, I do two main things. First, I discuss the general
character of current forms of subaltern resistance to existing institutional forms. I then
reflect on the implications of this, and other themes in the dissertation, on institutional
reform efforts that are being attempted today by a range of diverse interests and
constituencies. The key reflections relate to the limited information and knowledge on
institutions in Ghana, the importance of the colonial character of these institutions, and
the possibilities for a complete re-envisioning of institutional forms.
Next, I reflect on institutional continuity as it relates to the reform of institutions in Ghana
today. I look closely at the one hundred and seventy-five years of history of the police
force in the regulation of public order and alcohol and identify a number of alternative
forms of institutional ordering in the security sector over the years which were “the roads
not taken”. I proffer some reasons why these “roads [were] not taken”, remain obscure,
un-documented, and un-researched. I then present these reasons as the missing links in
the current process of reforming Ghana’s institutional heritage.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
22
My dissertation provides crucial knowledge gaps on the police as an example of the
information deficit on the institutions that are sought to be transformed; develops a theory
for analyzing the genesis, growth and development of colonial institutional forms;
develops a theory of institutional continuity for mapping immediate post-colonial and
current institutional forms; and finally, a theory for grafting that historical institutional
analysis into reform initiatives of the present.
The bureaucratic state is unintelligent, and so we have political contestation to guide it.
This contestation, including contestations on what institutions should exist, what form
they should take, what they should do, and how they should do what they do, is guided by
two discourses: the discourse of power and the discourse of reason informed by
knowledge and experience. The fact that subaltern counter-hegemonic forms of resistance
have the capacity to disrupt institutional forms is evidence that the discourse of power is
very unreliable and in any event, too costly. The only other option is the discourse of
reason informed by experience. The beginning of this is historical institutional analyses,
more so in the case of ex-colonies with their peculiar and complex histories. In the words
of my barber at Central Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “how can you be yourself if
you do not know yourself”?
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
23
CHAPTER TWO
“BOME KOTOKU”26
INTRODUCTION
The “traditional role” of the police is said to be that of “maintaining law and order”.27
What constitutes “law” and “order” varies from place to place and from time to time. In
this chapter, I argue that the police are not just there to maintain “law and order”,
whatever that means. The police, the most visible arm of the state’s internal sovereignty,
are a key player in the creation, maintenance, and demise of the political economy of a
nation state. They do this by implementing policies and laws of the nation state. These
policies and laws are the infrastructure of the state’s political economy. Thus, the
existence of the police, their importance, functions, activities, relationship with the
government and the citizenry, are determined by the political economy of the state. Yet,
the nature of the political economy is also determined by the extent to which the police
enforce “the rule of law”. In sum, the nature of the political economy, no matter how
26 This expression means “box me” and was used to describe akpeteshie (see post, Chapter 4, note
1 for the definition of akpeteshie). It captures the assault on persons who were arrested for
brewing, selling or consuming the illicit gin. The most widely known and most detested function
of the police is their arrest function and the brutality with which it is executed is encapsulated in
this expression. 27 1992 Constitution of Ghana, Article 200(3).
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
24
contested, warped or subterraneous, can be seen clearly in the relative importance and
functions of the police.
The role of the police in the political and economic development of nation states has not
received much attention in the literature.28 In Western societies, the roles of the police are
defined primarily in terms of the prevention and detection of crime, the apprehension of
offenders, and the maintenance of public order and safety. This holds true for the
developing world, but there is more to the police in those nation-states. The role of the
police in less-developed countries, are defined broadly and include political, economic
and social governance. Persons and groups who seek to understand and possibly contest
and change a particular political economy, will do well to watch the police and policing.
In this and the next chapter, I trace the historical and social contexts within which the
police as an institution of governance was created in Ghana, and how its role was shaped
through time. Policing in Ghana changed drastically between the pre-colonial and the
colonial, from the enforcement of moral and religious order to the protection of political
and commercial interests. There has, however, been little fundamental change, during the
various post-colonial phases.
28 John A. Arthur and Otwin Marenin, “British Colonization and the Political
Development of the Police in Ghana, West Africa”, in CHARLES B. FIELDS AND RICHTER H.
MOORE, JR, Comparative Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional Systems of Law and
Control (Waveland Press, Inc.: Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1996), p. 163.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
25
In tracing the political economy and law and order maintenance functions of the police in
the Gold Coast/Ghana29 through time, I have identified the following critical phases:
1. The pre-colonial period, up until the formal end of the slave trade in about
1830;
2. The period of conquest and “legitimate trade” from about 1830 to 1900;
3. The period of political domination and intensive exploitation of natural
resources from about 1900 to the mid 1940s;
4. The tumultuous period of transition to independence, beginning in the mid-
1940s, through the attainment of independence in 1957;
5. The Nkrumah30 period, ranging from 1957 to 1966;
6. The period of economic downturn and political uncertainty, that witnessed
the rise and fall of five military regimes and two democratically elected
constitutional governments, between 1966 and1981;
7. The Rawlings era31 and the period of the Economic Recovery Program (ERP)
and the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP), beginning in 1982 through to
2000; and
29 Most of the entity now called Ghana was formally a British colony in the latter part of the
nineteenth and in the twentieth centuries. It was then called “The Gold Coast”. It gained political
independence in 1957, with the Queen of England as the titular Head of State. It became a full
Republic, with a President as Head of State and Head of Government in 1960. Henceforth in this
dissertation, I will refer to the entity through time as Ghana. 30 Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister of Ghana from 1951 to 1960. In 1957, when
Ghana became independent, he continued as Prime Minister till he was voted and installed
President with the coming into force of the 1960 First Republican Constitution. He was
overthrown by a Military-Police coup d’etat on 24th February 1966. 31 Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings became Head of State on 4th June 1979, following a military coup
d’etat. He handed over power to a civilian democratically elected Head of State who was installed
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
26
8. The current period, 2001 to date.
The purpose of this exercise is to examine, very broadly, the political economy of Ghana
at each point in time, and identify the role of the police in same. Each period will contain
a brief account of the political economy of the time and a corresponding account of the
role of the police. As David Bayley32 has argued, the police have not generally been
independent actors. They rarely act on their own in politics, but usually as instruments of
others. He adds that in the case of the colonial police, they were closely tied to the
political purpose of the colonial regime, and the roots of police systems in the colonies
are to be found in colonial policies: “police forces are the creatures of politics”.33
But before we examine British imperialism as it played out in the creation of the Police
Force in Ghana, it is imperative to examine what forms of security provisioning were
available before the advent of the police force. This will remind us that Ghana was not
with the coming into force of the 1979 Third Republican Constitution on the 24th September 1979.
On 31st December 1981, Rawlings overthrew the government he handed over power to in another
coup d’etat and became Head of State again till 6th January 1993, when the fourth Republican
Constitution came into force following elections. Rawlings became President under this
constitution and ruled from 7th January 1993 to 6th January 1997, when he was re-elected for a
second and final term that ended on the 6th of January 2001. The main opposition party during the
Rawlings era won the elections of 2000 and was installed on the 6th of January 2001. The term of
that government ends on the 6th of January 2005. The ERP and SAP that were initiated by the
Rawlings government from the mid-1980s, under the tutelage of the World Bank and the IMF
have basically been continued to date, if even under different names and with minor substantive
changes. 32 Quoted in RICHARD B. KRANZDORF, The Military and Police in the Gold Coast/Ghana
Through February 1966: A Study of Limited Institutionalization. Ph. D Dissertation, University of
California, Los Angeles, Political Science, 1973) p. 20. 33 Ibid, p. 63.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
27
tabular rasa security-wise, and that the creation of the new force went along with a good
deal of extirpation of what existed before.
THE PRE-COLONIAL PERIOD UNTIL THE END OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN ABOUT 1830
The police as a centralized and formal body of trained officers with specific policing
duties did not exist within the groups that inhabited pre-colonial Ghana. This came with
formal British rule in the early part of the nineteenth century. The idea of policing was
not, however, totally unknown to these groups. In the traditional system, there were men
who did police duties. These law enforcing agencies in the traditional system included
individuals who performed citizen arrests and the Linguist, (chief spokesman of the
chief), when as a linguist to a sub-chief he ensures the attendance of his sub-chief at the
court of the paramount chief to be tried for an offence. The community as a whole would
also act in concert and in response to an alarm to catch a fleeing offender or search for an
offender in hiding. Bands of adult men would also lie in wait to apprehend thieves34 or
patrol the village. There were also the Messengers of the Chiefs who were given oral
warrants by the paramount chief to arrest offenders35.
34 S. K. ANKAMA, Police History: Some Aspects in England and Ghana (Silkan Books, Essex,
UK 1983) p.22. Ankama does not discuss the role of the police during the era of slave raiding and
trading. This is probably because slave raiding was a military and not a police function in pre-
colonial Ghana. 35 Ibid, p. 20-26.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
28
Thus, pre-colonial Ghana had well-developed institutions for maintaining social order
and bringing under control behaviors that threatened the stability of ordered society.
Although security, law and order provisioning was essentially a collective communal
responsibility, the greater onus fell on local chiefs who retained a system of courts with
agents whose primary roles consisted in enforcing local edicts. Tribal elders, chiefs, and
their ruling councils derived this power of social control from religious norms and
beliefs, which permeated the fabric of pre-colonial society in Ghana.36
The extended family system also played an important role in social control and the
maintenance of social order. Norm violation brought shame not only to the offender but
also to his or her extended family and kin group. There was, therefore, collective pressure
from extended family members to ensure the compliance and conformity of family
members. It was very common for members of the extended family to intervene to
protect the honor of the family when one of its members went against the norms of the
society. They would impose swift and certain punishment on their own, after an
adjudicatory process that determined that his or her actions had gone against the common
weal. Again, norm violations could be arbitrated within the extended family nexus of the
victim and the offender.37
In this period, common norm violations included witchcraft and sorcery, acts of sexual
improprieties, thefts, assaults, and adultery. Following some of these crimes, and to
36 John A. Arthur and Otwin Marenin, supra note 28, p. 165. 37 Ibid, p. 166.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
29
restore harmonious relationships, the entire community had to be purified in the manner
prescribed by customary law. This gave an intricate communal twist to the various
delicts. Forms of punishment included being expelled from the community, fines, and
restitution. Incarceration as a form of punishment was a British colonial importation.38
The kingdom of the Ashanti, one of the several kingdoms that inhabited the territory now
called Ghana, had agents of social control who performed various judicial roles and they
were provided training according to the law, customs, and traditions of the kingdom. In
most parts of the then Northern Territories, a similar system of law enforcement based
upon Hausa and Islamic doctrines of law prevailed.39 The northern-most parts of the
Northern Territories, however, remained significantly untouched by Islam. In these areas,
social control was based on customary laws and traditions of the kind described by
Marenin below.
In the words of Marenin:
The traditional precolonial system of social control was very effective in
preserving social order and ensuring social stability. In conjunction with the
institutions of government and the extended family system, the precolonial
agents of social control maintained order by taking steps to prevent events
that disturbed or threatened social cohesion. Acts of normative violations
were few and far between. Collective punishment and enforcement of social
regulations solidified the shared norms and values of law-abiding citizens
while alerting all to the boundaries of unacceptable behaviors….
38 Ibid. 39 Ibid.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
30
The legitimacy of policing was authorized by the community or its
recognized representatives and, in a larger sense, by the religious beliefs that
stressed the harmony between the living and their current and past
environments. The structure of policing was decentralized, often done
informally by kin and community. Policing served broad and numerous
functions, from crime control to order maintenance to the reaffirmation of
secular and religious authority.”40
Most of this was to be wiped away with the advent of colonialism. If anything was
retained, it was the native authority police, but they had lost their independence and
operated somewhat as junior appendages to the Gold Coast Police Force. Writing in
1952, Sir Charles Jeffries had this to say:
In addition to the regular government police, some of the native authorities
have their own police forces, which are normally unarmed and locally
recruited. They have powers of arrest and search and are required to assist the
Gold Coast Police when necessary.41
It will appear that, even in respect of these forces, the colonial government set out to
introduce a completely new form and purpose of policing in the Gold Coast. In the
grinding words of Gillespie:
The customs of the savage and barbarous native states have left no mark on
modern organisation or methods, for the Native Authority Forces of to-day
are copies of the Government Police rather than survivals of indigenous
methods of Peace preservation.42
40 Supra note 28 p. 166-167. See also M. FORTES AND E. E. EVANS –PRITCHARD, African
Political Systems, (Oxford University Press: London; New York; Toronto, 1958). 41 SIR CHARLES JEFFRIES, The Colonial Police, (Max Parrish: London, 1952) p. 94. 42 W.H. GILLESPIE, The Gold Coast Police: 1844-1938 (The Government Printer: Accra, Gold
Coast, 1955) p. 1.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
31
The indigenous and pre-existing systems of policing were considered inappropriate for
the exploitative agenda that was to unfold. To this agenda we will now turn our attention.
THE PERIOD OF CONQUEST AND LEGITIMATE TRADE FROM 1830 UNTIL 1900
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME
The colonization of Ghana came in stages. First, there was the colonization of the colony,
then Ashanti and then the Northern Territories. These processes, especially in the case of
Ashanti, involved serious warfare. The various wars, treaties and pacts that led to the
consolidation of British rule over Ghana took place during this period. The role of the
military and police in conquest and the pacification process is evident.
Again, by 1830, the slave trade was ending. The European trading companies needed to
substitute the illegitimate trade with “legitimate trade” in primary agricultural and
mineral products. Slave-raids could often be conducted in short spells of time, not so with
legitimate trade. The production of primary agricultural products like cocoa and palm oil,
or the extraction of gold, diamond and other mineral resources required greater
investments of time and resources. Like most of the other colonies, Ghana commenced its
imperial connection as the private domain of limited companies based in London. These
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
32
colonial ventures were profit-motivated.43 To ensure returns on these investments, the
sites for the production of the agricultural and mineral raw materials, and the routes for
charting them from the sites to the coast for export, needed to be kept safe. When these
primary products were exported to Europe, they were turned into manufactured goods,
some of which were sold in the colonies. For this, trade routes had to be created,
maintained and kept safe.
THE ORIGINS OF THE POLICE FORCE
Flowing from the above, the key reasons for establishing the police force in Ghana, was
to ensure the protection of representatives of trade companies, supervise convict labor on
plantations, maintain the peace and security necessary for the extraction and export of
agricultural and mineral products, and the maintenance of the colony as a market for
European goods through the protection of trade routes. The colonial governments saw the
economic imperative as foremost in establishing a professional police.44 The early
policing of the colony, therefore, had the primary function of protecting the assets of the
companies. Originally performed by the companies themselves, the costs of the operation
grew too great, and were absorbed by the imperial government. And the imperial trading
43 Mike Brogden, “The Emergence of the Police-The Colonial Dimension”, British Journal of
Criminology vol. 27 no. 1 (Winter 1987) p.4 at 12. 44 Ibid.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
33
companies voluntarily ceded this function when they deemed it more profitable for the
state to undertake the burden.45
The declared policy of the British colonial government, according to the principle of
indirect rule that was formulated and championed by Lord Luggard46, was to employ the
well-centralized local systems of traditional social control and law enforcement that were
in place prior to their arrival. To this end, they established local-authority police forces.
They were charged with enforcing traditional laws and directives or ordinances of the
chiefs, so long as these ordinances and directives did not threaten British political or
economic interests. The local authority police wore uniforms but were not permitted to
bear arms. Between the 1820s and the 1890’s, the British then established new
institutions of social control and law enforcement. These were to protect their newly
acquired territorial and economic interests. The colonial project of subordination and
transformation of native policing systems had started. In name, the new institutions
included, more or less sequentially, the Royal African Colonial Corps, the West Indies
Regiment, the Militia and Police, the Gold Coast Corps, the Armed Police, the Gold
Coast Artillery, the Gold Coast Constabulary, the Lagos Constabulary, and a Volunteer
Force. Their functions included the protection of the coastal forts, the resident constables
at the courts of prominent chiefs instructed to inform the Governor of whatever was
going on, the guarding of prisoners, the maintenance of order in the towns, the attending
45 Mike Brogden, “An Act to Colonise the Internal Lands of the Island: Empire and the Origins of
the Professional Police”, International Journal of the Sociology of Law, vol. 15, no. 2 (May 1987)
p. 179 at 205-6. 46 See LORD LUGGARD, The Dual-Mandate in Tropical Africa, (London, 1922), which
discusses the theory of Indirect Rule.
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34
of Magistrate’ and Judicial Assessor’s Court, the acting as messengers, the actual going
to war against Ashanti, and finally, the patrolling of the interior and countering any
incursions by the French, to the north and west or Germans, to the east, of the Gold Coast
in the 1890’s.47 As the various names of the force and its functions show, it was a
military cum police contingent.
These new security institutions were not created primarily for the preservation of law,
order, peace and security in the colony, but rather to protect the persons, territory and the
economic interests of the British companies that were now operating along the Atlantic
corridor of West Africa, such as the United Trading Company (UTC) of Ghana, the
Imperial British East African Company, and the Royal Niger Company.48 Professional
policing was thus directly linked to the commercial interests of an expanding capitalism
in search of new markets and resources. With the pacification of the interior going on,
and trade expanding, “some kind of armed constabulary was required for the protection
of British traders, missionaries, and officials and for the support of friendly tribes”49 and
“…so many aspects of Police work closely [concerned] the policy of the Government that
a high-grade police force [was] by way of being an economic insurance in the long
run”50. The New Police were clearly driven by the economic imperative to safeguard and
enhance exploitation through trade and through the control of new industrial labor. They
47 Supra note 32, p. 75. 48 Supra note 28, p. 167-8. 49 Supra note 45, p. 202. 50 Ibid.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
35
were inextricably linked to the new era of imperial legitimation and Victorian capitalism.
Their origin was materially based.51
The core functions of the police in this domain are best summed up in the activities of the
Escort Police, a branch which has survived as a branch to date and which still has a very
huge percentage of the total number of policemen and women in Ghana52.
The Escort Police had an initial force of fifty men…created to guard specie,
particularly from the mines and the banks, to escort officials, accompany carrier
caravans of the newly formed Government Transport Service, supervise convict
labour and provide additional armed force for the business of civil
administration. By 1914…the Escort Police had become the largest branch of
the police…”.53
In fact, the role of the Escort Police, the successor to the Lagos Constabulary or Hausa
Police, was that of an obedient paramilitary unit that could be counted on for
unquestioning fidelity to the European officers.54
PEACE AND STABILITY FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION
The demands of commerce in the Gold Coast dictated that trade routes and customs posts
51 Supra note 45, p. 205. 52 As late as 1999, the Escort Branch still commandeered 12.5% of the total strength of the police
force. POKOO-AIKINS, The Police in Ghana: 1939-1999 (J.B. Pokoo-Aikins, 2002) p. 47. 53 David Killingray, “Guarding the Extending Frontier: Policing the Gold Coast, 1865-1913” in
DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds), Policing the Empire: Government,
Authority and Control, 1830-1940 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, New York, 1991) p.
106 at 122. 54 Supra note 32, p. 83
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36
should be policed,55 and in Governor MacLean’s estimation, magistrates and policemen
were the primary “instruments of civilization”.56 Indeed, the origins of the Gold Coast
Police Force, lies in efforts by the British council of merchants to protect trading routes
and depots. In 1830 the council hired numerous guards and escorts for this purpose and
Governor, MacLean, "let it be known that to interfere with travelers and with trade-in the
local phraseology, to 'close the paths'-was a serious offence".57 He generally succeeded in
maintaining the law and order necessary for “keeping trade routes open and recovering
commercial debt”.58 This was done through the enforcement of peace treaties which
provided, to take one famous example, that “the first objects of law are the protection of
individuals and property”,59 necessary pre-requisites for “individuals” to trade in
“property”. According to Gillespie, "In tracing the history of the Gold Coast Police…the
starting point must be the second assumption by the Crown in 1844"60 with the Bond of
1844 and the change to imperial government. This was when the new Force began to
exercise true police powers throughout the country. It was at this time that the British
established the 120-member Gold Coast Militia and Police.61
55 David M. Anderson and David Killingray, “Consent, Coercion and Colonial Control: Policing
the Empire, 1830-1940 in DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds), Policing
the Empire: Government, Authority and Control, 1830-1940 (Manchester University Press:
Manchester, New York, 1991) p. 1 at 6. 56 Ibid, p. 9. 57 W.B. F. WARD, A History of Ghana (London, 1958) (Second Edition) p. 191. 58 Supra note 53, p. 111. 59 See the full text of the Bond of 1844, regarded by the Gold Coast/Ghana in colonial times as its
Magna Carta, and signed by the Governor and by eight chiefs in W.B. F. Ward, Supra note 57 p.
194. 60 Supra note 42, p. 1. 61 Information Courtesy: The Library of Congress - Country Studies, (1Up Info All Rights
reserved, 2003).
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37
In 1830, it was essential for the police to enforce peace treaties and laws and thereby
ensure the stability that was necessary for agricultural productivity and mineral extraction
to feed the population and the industries in Europe; for "The chaos of the last twenty-five
years had made it impossible to develop the rice, maize, indigo, palm oil and timber
trades...as substitutes for the slave trade. The establishment of internal peace and security,
and the development of trade went together...".62 It appears that the 120 man strong police
force that was available to MacLean chalked some successes for, "In ten years he more
than trebled the country's trade..." and in another ten years, the then Governor was able to
report: “almost entire absence of lawless violence in any part of the old settlements, and
that property in goods or bullion to any amount can be and is transported for scores of
miles...without the lightest risk of danger”63.
Reading the peace treaties, it is clear that the British basically cut a deal with the local
chieftains, which ensured that the latter were protected by the former from various
invading and marauding forces both within and without the colony. For this purpose, the
colonizers needed a police force as the visible instrument of the internal and external
sovereignty of the colonial state. In return, the colonizers were given access to the trade
routes and the markets of the coast and the interior, first for the slave trade and second for
"legitimate trade". The police force was used to enforce this deal.
The above conclusion is evident from the duties of the Force. They performed escort
62 Supra note 57, p. 190. 63 Supra note 42, p.5.
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duties, attended the Magistrates' and Judicial Assessors courts and performed prison
duties.64 These constitute the complement of steps needed to apprehend, try and imprison
various offenders who breached the peace necessary for trade or interfered with the
import and sale of manufactured goods or the extraction and export of agricultural and
mineral produce.
When it was decided to concentrate on the recruitment of Hausas for the force, it was not
only their martial qualities and the policy of “policing strangers by strangers”, but the fact
that they had experience in guarding “the Lagos hinterland and the trade routes to the
British colony”65 that informed the decision. The Hausa Police became the paramilitary
arm of the colonial government and aside guarding the “key [trade] route north to Kumase
and Prasu”, they generally formed patrols and punitive expeditions to assert British
sovereignty and authority, thus providing the coercive force that enabled British authority
to be established throughout the Gold Coast.66 The Constabulary was also regularly
required to deal with urban riots and faction or ‘company’ fights which erupted
frequently. A major aim of the British administration being territorial and fiscal control it
was essential to ‘protect British territory from violation and stop smuggling’ of tobacco,
rum and trade routes and increase the colony’s revenue. New customs posts were also
created, and the Hausa force stationed in the area built blockhouses and redoubts.67 In a
series of campaigns over a period of more than ten years, they suppressed the
64 Ibid, p. 3 65 Supra note 53, p. 107. 66 Ibid. 67 Ibid, p. 113.
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39
independence and trade of the south-eastern Ewe peoples.68
PROTECTING THE POLITICAL CLASS
The police force was always under the control of the political class in this period.
According to a number of narratives, formal policing in the Gold Coast is said to have
started in 1831 when Captain George MacLean, the then Governor, formed a body of 129
men to maintain and enforce the provisions of the "treaty of Peace" which he signed with
the coastal chiefs and the King of Ashanti.69 Ward70 tells us that a police force was in
existence as at 1831 and was in the service of Governor MacLean, but he put the figure at
120. It is certain that this very force was used to police the bond of 1844, another treaty of
peace, protection and trade. Gillespie writes that when Lieutenant-Governor Hill assumed
the government in 1844 he found under the management of the President and Council,
who had administered the government of the forts under the African Committee, two
small bodies of troops, "the Gold Coast Corps of 129 men and the Militia of 62"71. This
force was obviously the successor to the force that was at the service of MacLean. It is
safe to conclude that when Governor MacLean took office in the Gold Coast in 1830, he
either formed or had at his disposal, a body of about 120 men who either performed or
were called to perform police duties under his control, even if they were not formally
68 FRANCIS AGBODEKA, African Politics and British Policy in the Gold Coast 1868-1900: A
Study in Forms and Force of Protest, (Longman: Northwestern University Press, 1971) p. 62-76. 69 EMMANUEL KWESI ANING, An Overview of the Ghana Police Service. Paper prepared for
the African Security Dialogue and Research, October 2001. (Unpublished, on file with author) p.
1. 70 Supra note 57, p.190. 71 Supra note 42, p. 1.
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40
called a police force. It appears that they were a type of militia and had police cum
military duties. Lieutenant-Governor Hill, who succeeded MacLean, renamed the Gold
Coast Corps of 129 men the "Militia and Police". Hill then used the "Militia and Police",
"a body under the undivided control of the Lieutenant-Governor and consisting of local
men" for civil employment72. It appears that the force dwindled some where along the line
and had to be reorganized. In 1846 Lt.-Governor Winniett sent a dispatch to the Secretary
of State for the Colonies seeking approval for the establishment of a Police Force of 60
men in Ghana73. The Secretary of State’s approval was granted,74 and in 1865, the then
Lt. Governor wrote to the Secretary giving a progress report on the re-organization of the
force.75 Digest of Rules for the maintenance and good order of the new Police Force were
prepared in November 186576 and the Lt. Governor sought and received approval of these
from the Secretary of State the following year.77
It is clear from the above that at its inception, the force was without any officers and was
under the direct control of the Governor himself.78 The armed police of 1873-4, and their
military successors and the civil police, also came under the direct control of the
governor of the colony. He acted as the commander-in-chief of the military and directed
the local organization and conduct of the civil police.79 Earlier, in 1869, Acting
72 Ibid. 73 Despatch No. 28 dated 16th June 1846, (ADM. 1/2/3). 74 Despatch (Military) No. 2 of 14th October 1846. 75 Despatch No. 138 dated 9th November 1865 (ADM. 1/1/4). 76 (ADM. 1/3/14). 77 Despatch No. 299 dated 17th January 1866 (ACC No. 3135/56). 78 Supra note 42, p. 3 79 Supra note 53, p. 111.
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41
Administrator Simpson had proposed “a ‘Governor’s Guard’ to police the courthouse and
guard Government House”.80 The day-to-day direction of the constabulary and the civil
police was done by District Commissioners.81
Aside the Gold Coast Colony and British Togoland, there were two other areas of British
jurisdiction, which form present day Ghana. These are Ashanti and the Northern
Territories. The control of the forces in these areas was no different. The Police were
first stationed in Ashanti in 1896, accompanied the governor in his escape from a siege
and returned when British Authority was re-established. Their numbers in Ashanti were
gradually increased and an Assistant Commissioner was stationed there in 1905. It was
not until 1922 that the Police Ordinance of that year provided: “There shall be established
for the Gold Coast Colony and Ashanti, a Police Force to be known as the Gold Coast
Police Force”. In 1929 an ordinance was passed to apply the Police Ordinance of 1922, to
the Northern Territories.82
A remarkable thing that one observes whilst sifting through the colonial literature on the
police are the pictures of colonial officers heavily guarded by police forces. One
80 Ibid, p. 107. 81 Ibid, p. 112. 82 S. K. ANKAMA, Police History: Some Aspects in England and Ghana (Silkan Books: Essex,
UK 1983) p. 58-9. In 1906 an Ordinance had been passed forming a Constabulary for the Northern
Territories at the time when frantic efforts were being made to replace the Constabulary at the
Coast with the Civil Force. It will appear that the only reason for this was that with the declaration
of a Protectorate over the Northern Territories (NTs), such a force was needed to pacify the area. It
was only in 1929 that the Constabulary in the NTs was abolished and immediately replaced with
the Civil Police Force.
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42
illustration83 shows “Captain Rupert Lonsdale, Commissioner of Native Affairs on the
Gold Coast…on an official mission to the Asante capital, Kumase, in June-August 1887,
accompanied by Assistant Inspector Barnett and a fifty-strong Hausa escort.”
Protection of property and the political and propertied class was self-evidently the
principal aim of urban policing. Constables in colonial towns in walking their beat,
covered only the commercial and upper and middle-class residential areas of the town.84
Given the reasons for the establishment of the force and the role of the political executive
in that agenda, it made sense that “the different police forces were put under the control
of the Governor of the colony, while the District Commissioner supervised [their] day-to-
day affairs.85” As Ward tells us, the Force was directly under the Governor’s control and
the then Governor, sent them out on specific duties.86 It was this strict political control,
which the Commission set up in 1951 to enquire into the police force thought should be
changed. 87 It never was changed.
83DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds), Policing the Empire:
Government, Authority and Control, 1830-1940 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, New
York, 1991) p. viii. 84 Supra note 55, p. 10. 85 Mathieu Deflem, 1994 “Law Enforcement in British Colonial Africa: A Comparative Analysis
of Imperial Policing in Nyasaland, the Gold Coast, and Kenya” Police Studies 17 (1): 45-68. Also
on the World Wide Web at: http://www.cla.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zcolpol.html. Visited on
26th October 2003. p. 5. 86 Supra note 57, p. 191 87 COLONIAL A.E YOUNG, A report upon the Gold Coast Police (Accra: Government printer,
1951).
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ENFORCING THE “RULE OF LAW”
Conquest, political and then economic domination, the creation of a police force under
the direct control of the political class and for their protection and the protection of the
propertied class and trade routes, required one complement to complete the web of
domination. The “rule of law”, which in eighteenth-century England had become the
central legitimizing ideology, was exported to the colonies88. According to the
distinguished English jurist William Blackstone, writing in 1765, "if an uninhabited
country be discovered and planted by English subjects, all the English laws are
immediately there in force. For the law is the birthright of every subject, so wherever
they go they can carry their laws with them."89
The demands of the colonial political economy required a certain type of the rule of law.
Legislative controls in colonial settings frequently gave colonial police greater powers to
enforce inimical laws to political and economic ends, especially so in Africa where the
question of policing by consent was largely immaterial90. The enforcement of tax laws,
vagrancy, and liquor laws in order to ensure a supply of labor, right down to the
employment of soldiers in the police function of attempting to control petty thieving from
European houses, evidences how much the colonial police became entwined with the
88 Stefan Petrow, “Policing In A Penal Colony: Governor Arthur's Police System in Van Diemen's
Land, 1826-1836” Law and History Review, Summer, 2000, p. 351. 89 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press: Chicago, 1979), 1:104-5. 90 Supra note 55, p. 10.
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requirements of colonial capital. “Curbing slaving, kidnapping and human sacrifice
provided further moral imperatives”.91
In the colonies the rule of law was essential for under-girding the criminal codes and
rules of contract and property that sought to protect individual liberty (especially the
security of the person) and of private property by putting in place certain social
constraints. The colonial government used the rule of law to enhance its power, remake
and enforce contract and property laws, and ensure economic exploitation of the colonies
in terms of free or cheap agricultural, mineral and human (labor) resources. All natives
and residents could seek redress for wrongs in courts that were sponsored by the colonial
government, and presided over by judges appointed by them. What constituted a wrong
was determined by the laws passed by that government.
Police work had an important bearing on the rule of law. They made the orders of law
“meaningful” and constituted its "coercive function."92 The Police were in charge of
enforcing the “rule of law” as just described. As British authority grew, constabulary
officers increasingly became District Commissioners and acted as magistrates, thus
adding to their political administrative functions, the roles of, policeman, prosecutor and
judge in local criminal and civil cases93.
91 Supra note 53, p. 111. 92 See DAVID NEAL, The Rule of Law in a Penal Colony: Law and Power in Early New South
Wales (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1991) p. 67. 93 Supra note 53, p. 112.
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The history of British colonialism, therefore, always entailed an alien imposition of
power and a mixture of political and economic interests, which determined the
government of the conquered territory and its “rule of law”. Whilst at the inception of
the Metropolitan Police in London in 1829, their General Orders, at page 1, provided that
“The primary object of an efficient Police is the prevention of crime; the next that of
detection and punishment of offenders if crime is committed” and then the “protection of
life and property”94, the Squad Notes95 of the Ghana Police provide, also at page 1,
provide that the “objects of the Ghana Police Force [shall be the] Protection of life and
property [and only second] the Prevention and Detection of Crime”. For how else were
the British colonial officers to protect their persons and those of their families and to
protect the labor, mineral, agricultural and other produce that were badly needed in the
metropolis. It was only after 1897 that crime detection was seriously put on the agenda.96
In practice, this meant that colonialism involved the maintenance of peace and security
necessary for trade, the extraction of agricultural and mineral resources, the collection of
taxes, recruitment for low-wage labor, and other forms of economic exploitation. Key to
this was the enforcement of various laws, which were designed to operationalize this
agenda. A particular type of police force for the enforcement of a particular type of “rule
of law” emerged as an ideal construct to meet these various needs.
94 Supra note 41, p. 24. 95 Ghana Police Squad Notes. 96 Supra note 53, p. 121-2
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THE CONSTRUCTION OF A BRUTAL POLICE FORCE IN AID OF
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DOMINATION AND SOCIAL
CONTROL
The forms of political, economic and legal domination and exploitation that were planned
for the colony needed a particular kind of police force to succeed. In 1855, the then
Governor argued that the regular maintenance of law and order required an armed police
force, “under strict military discipline”.97
During the first phase of the development of the force, various experimentations and
improvisations were undertaken to find the right balance of brutality and civility that was
necessary for the peculiar duties of the Gold Coast Police Force.98 The force at its origin
“was primarily a military body, but included a civil police section.”99 In 1851, a Gold
Coast Corps was raised and assigned some police duties although it was officially part of
the army. This was to supplement the work of the small police force that was
“insufficient for the preservation of the peace throughout the coast”100. This gendarmerie
was converted to Artillery in 1856 and disbanded in 1863 “as a result of its
unreliability”101. Before this, “Owing to lack of men…soldiers had to be used to fill the
97 Ibid, p. 106-7. 98 Supra note 41, p. 219. 99 Ibid, p. 92-3. Mantieu Deflem, supra note 85, also notes that “the British conquest of the Gold
Coast initially relied heavily on a military force for the establishment of the territorial boundaries
of British colonial rule. In 1845 detachments of the West India Regiment were brought into the
territory, and the first official police force was organized in 1865.” Mathieu, p. 5. 100 Supra note 42, p. 5. 101 Ibid.
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ranks [of the police force] and keep it in existence”102. The police force itself was a
“Militia and Police”. When the Militia and Police was transformed into a messenger
corps in 1860, “Cape Coast… was patrolled by soldiers. And “The early Inspectors of
Police were almost all military men”103.
The military nature of the force is very evident indeed. The first official police force
organized in 1865 was modeled after the Lagos Armed Police, and the police force
consisted, next to British officers, largely of Hausas, the ethnic group which was
considered a martial race. By 1872, one writer reports that there had been raised “a force
of Hausas to both garrison the forts and police the country”.104 The Hausas were
increasingly identified as the archetypal Martian race—sturdy, amenable to discipline,
steady in battle, and able to march great distances with few provisions.105 The colonial
government would take nothing less than a brutal and ruthless force capable of clamping
down riots, company fights, and other disturbances of the peace. The extraction of natural
resources and agricultural produce from the colonies and their use as markets for
European goods could only take place in a peaceful environment.
In 1886, when the Gold Coast was declared not to be any longer under the Governor-in-
Chief at Sierra Leone, but to be united with Lagos in one colony, a number of services
including police services were to be shared. A fresh organization of the force was decided
102 Ibid. 103 Ibid p. 9. 104 Ibid p. 11. 105 ANTHONY CLAYTON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY, Khaki and Blue: Military and Police in
British Colonial Africa, (Ohio University Center for International Studies: Athens, 1989) p. 175
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upon. All troops were to be withdrawn and the armed police increased in number to 975
men, at least 400 of who were to be either Hausas or natives of countries outside the
protectorate106. This force became the paramilitary police arm of the colonial government
even before the proclamation of the colony in 1874. Apart from Hausas, the police force
also consisted of members from the Fante ethnic group who initially were the only
policemen instructed in civil police duties.107 Although there was to be “only one Police
Force, the Gold Coast Armed Police”, the Hausa and Fante companies of the Force were
to be kept distinct108.
In the estimation of the colonial government, “The government of a barbarous country
and the existence of a very vague jurisdiction necessitated constant semi-military
expeditions …[and]…the government hoped to establish a semi-military force under its
own exclusive control”109. It is clear that the Gold Coast experienced a pretty decent
amount of military style policing. And Imray, a distinguished colonial police officer was
to say in 1997 that: “In the colonial territories, it was necessary in the interests of security
that there should be complete accord between the police and the armed services”.110
The British had two models of policing with which to experiment in the colonies: the
centralized, military styled, and armed force of Ireland kept away from the local
community in barracks; and the consciously non-military, unarmed, preventive English
106 Supra note 42, p. 13. 107 Supra note 60. 108 Supra note 42, p. 11. 109 Ibid, p. 8. 110 Colin Imray, Policeman in Africa, (The Book Guild Ltd: Sussex, England, 1997) p. 44.
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police supposedly working in partnership with, and with the consent of, the local
community. Both models were employed and adapted to suit local circumstances and
times. The assertion that colonial policing was an Irish import is now very doubtful as
several studies show that the colonial reality was far more complex. True, there is
evidence of the influence of the “Irish Model” of policing, but this is different from
asserting that the force was an Irish import. The “realities of policing the empire were
simply too varied and complex to be held within the models of nineteenth-century
policing that emerged in England or Ireland.”111 “[T]he Gold Coast police developed in a
pragmatic way,” in response to local circumstance, with influences from other African
countries (Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Egypt), India and the Caribbean Islands. It
benefited from the structural model, the personnel and the training facilities of the Irish
Constabulary; the methods of organization of English county forces; the London beat
system and some of their accoutrements112 and emergency policing techniques from
Palestine113. The system was essentially hybrid in origin and development. The one
indispensable criteria was this: whatever the model, however variegated the model,
wherever the model came from, it had to ensure a police force that was capable of
pacifying the restless peoples that were conquered or being conquered, and ensure peace
and security for economic exploitation and trade.
As already noted, the Irish model was distinct from the English (or Scottish) Model of the
111 Supra note 55, p. 12. 112 Supra note 53, p. 112. 113 DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds) Policing and Decolonisation:
Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-65(Manchester University Press: Manchester, New
York, 1992) p. x.
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nineteenth and twentieth centuries along three main lines: organization along military
lines (they were armed); housing in barracks rather than living among the community
they served; and were directed and centrally controlled by a national or territorial
force.114 Yet these are grave influences indeed, and to the extent that it is mostly these
characteristics of the police force which are sought to be reformed in Ghana today, it
makes some sense to refer to the force as an Irish export even if with a long explanatory
footnote. As one writer notes: “After the 1860’s, the second phase [of its development]
shows the police forces being organized on a fairly uniform quasi-military pattern,
modeled very closely upon the Royal Irish Constabulary, which had been found a more
practical prototype than the British police.”115
Another commentator notes as follows:
…from the point of view of the Colonies there was much attraction in an
arrangement which provided what we should now call a “para-military”
organisation or gendarmerie, armed, and trained to operate as an agent of the
central government in a country where…the recourse to violence by members
of the public who were ‘agin the government’ was not infrequent. It was
natural that such a force, rather than one organized on the lines of the purely
civilian and localized forces of Great Britain, should have been taken as a
suitable model for adaptation to Colonial conditions…So long as the Irish
Constabulary existed…it was a constant source of recruitment for officers of
many Colonial police forces, and its training depot was regularly used as a
center for courses of instruction for colonial police officers.116
In the early stages of the establishment and extension of colonial rule, the colonial police
114 Supra note 55, p 2-4. 115 Supra note 41, p. 219. See also Supra note 85, p. 9-11. 116 Ibid, p. 30-31.
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were often indistinguishable from a military garrison, in function and form. “The
troublesome frontiers, unruly peoples and ‘unsettled’ territories required military force to
guard, extend and uphold the authority of the crown and what was often new and alien
law”.117
To ensure that the force could be unabashedly brutal, the policy of “policing strangers by
strangers” was adopted.118 “The colonial policeman was seldom the familiar local who
knew his beat well and who could use that knowledge to act with discretion, but rather
the feared alien, a man who could be relied upon to carry out the instructions of his
colonial masters”.119 This was another reason for the preference for Hausa men as recruits
for the force. Aside “showing great steadiness under fire…the Hausas made a most
favourable impression… [and] were free of many of the faults of the local police by
reason of their lack of connections with the people”120. To ensure that the force was
disconnected enough from the people in order to better brutalize them, the force included
European officers, persons from other parts of British West Africa and the West Indies.
These Countries included Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Togoland (now Togo), and
Dahomey (now Benin). At some point Palestinian policemen were brought in.121 At
particular times during the history of the force, policemen from the Gold Coast were a
117 Supra note 55, p 4-5 118 Ibid, p 7. 119 David Killingray and David M. Anderson, “An Orderly Retreat? Policing the End of Empire”
in DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds) Policing and Decolonisation:
Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-65 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, New
York, 1992) p. 8. 120 Supra note 42, p. 10. 121 Supra note 110, passim.
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minority compared to foreign policemen122. By 1913, for example, most branches of the
police were alien occupying forces regarded with hatred, fear or suspicion by all sections
of the population.123
The initial and often continuing role of the colonial police force as an arm of the conquest
state was indeed reflected in these patterns of recruitment.124 One commentator has
succinctly summed-up the recruitment policy of the colonial government thus:
The only unifying guidelines that determined the police recruitment policy
were the notion of the martial race, responsible for the high number of
Hausas, and the principle of policing strangers by strangers. Africans from
other territories were called in to join the police force because they were
considered to stand sufficiently close, yet not too close, to the native…125
Of the men who were from within the colony, a good percentage were from the Northern
Territories, the more remote and poorer parts of the colony, where paid jobs were few,
where the people were habituated to traveling for trade or war, and where many young
men looked upon military and police service as a convenient form of wage employment.
Many writers have commented on the extreme loyalty of these men to the colonial
masters and their propensity to brutalize their southern, richer brethren:
Northerners were preferred, while Southerners were viewed with
suspicion…The Northerners, especially the Mossi, Dagombas, Grunshis and
Mamprusis (or Fra-Fra), were said to be of good fighting quality, loyal and
122 Supra note 42, p. 11. 123 Supra note 53, p. 122. 124 Supra note 55, p. 7. 125 Supra note 85.
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obedient. A breakdown of the Constabulary in 1900 showed 66 percent of
the Africans came from the Northern territories and neighboring French
colonies, 29 percent were Hausa/Fulani from Nigeria, and 5 percent were
unidentified. Even when Southerners were recruited during World War I,
better than 90 percent of the men were from the North, evidence of both the
Europeans’ preference... Through the end of the period the conviction
remained that certain Northerners were of better fighting stock and that these
men had mutual antipathies with the Southerners, much to the approval of the
expatriate officers.126
The preference for warrior tribesmen from remote areas of the colony was very
understandable. In the context of imperialism, it was completely justifiable: such fighters
would be detached from and even hostile to the urban folk who were the main initiators
of internal security problems.
EVIDENCE OF POLICE BRUTALITY
The force appears to have been successful in brutalizing the citizenry, for the police was
unpopular with the native population. It had a significant127 number of Ghanaians within
it, but was generally conceived of as an intrusive alien force128. Complaints about the
brutal character of the Hausa Constabulary and the Gold Coast Regiment were legion.129
In Accra, “a large part of the population stoned the civil police”130 in 1886, because they
were considered traitors of the native African community131. In 1885 the Commissioner
had written thus:
126 Supra note 32, p. 98. 127 Ibid. 128 Supra note 55, p 7. 129 Supra note 53, p. 119-120. 130 Ibid p. 119. 131 Supra note 85.
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The Force is unpopular with the natives and the great majority of the natives
would rather do anything than become a constable132.
A South African observer had this to say:
The most worthless body of men on the coast are the rank and file of the
Native Police, recruited from among the worst classes of West African
native-Sierra Leone Niggers and the lazy, good-for-nothing ignorant slum
blackguards who imagine the duties of a Policeman to consist in wearing a
uniform and getting drunk-the Policeman on the coast is a disgrace to his
cloth.133.
More disgrace was attached to the calling of a Policeman than to the fact that a man was a
convict or ex-convict, “the latter receives sympathy for having been unfortunate enough
to have been found out, but everyman’s hand is against a Policeman who is looked upon
as a traitor to his race”.134
The Native Authority Police in the rural areas was also similarly feared and disliked by
the people. The men, poorly trained and irregularly paid, often acted on their own in
carrying out assignments and making arrests. Another commentator notes that:
Very often, the Native Authority Policemen whose province has not been
determined, used any amount of force within their power to bring offenders
to Court even on a very minor charge.
132 Supra note 42, p. 34. 133 Ibid, p. 12. 134 Ibid, p. 38.
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It was a common thing to see people being beaten and dragged along by these
officers.
Many were disgusted with the overbearing manner by which these officers
went about their duties…135
Indeed, the most objectionable thing about the Native Authority Police was the way and
the manner they exercised their powers of arrest.
This commentator notes further:
It was in this sphere that brutality and absolute disregard for the liberty of the
citizen were more manifest. … [T]he rural areas where people were mostly
illiterate and not aware of their rights offered a fertile ground on which
arbitrary use of power could thrive. They arrested with impunity. …136
These comments were mainly consequent upon the numerous punitive expeditions and
the brutal and licentious soldiery exhibited by the military and police of the period. By
the end of the 1870s the force was getting into more trouble. Its reputation fell. Issues of
discipline of both the Hausa and Fante companies of the Force were now in sharp focus.
An inspecting officer on a visit had this to say:
The Force is injured by enlisting “Haussas” who are not Haussas at
all…They are merely semi-savage and half-pagan slaves, and on detachment
duty they get quite out of hand. 137.
135 S. K. ANKAMA, The Police and Maintenance of Law and Order in Ghana, (Ph D.
Dissertation, University of London, 1967) p 163-164, Quoted in Kranzdorf, Supra note 7, p. 107. 136 Ibid, p. 17 quoted in Kranzdorf, ibid, p. 153. 137 Supra note 42, p.22.
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And as for the Tarkwa detachment he described it as “drunken Fanti Policemen and
plundering Haussa soldiers”138. The men enlisted are described as ‘bushmen and very
stupid”. These are the words of the then Governor:
The present force is worst than inefficient…only those who can not get any
respectable employment join the Police Force; and one-third of the Force
may be said to consist of men who belong to the criminal classes” and they
were very unpopular139.
But could anything better be expected of a force that was “cut from whatever cloth was
available: rank-and-file ex-servicemen, vagabonds and adventurers…and added to this
motley crew…former slaves and refugees of various sorts, along with a substantial body
of men who may have been compelled into service by one device or another”.140 The
following painless words capture the state of affairs then:
Glover recruited runaway slaves for his Hausa force in Lagos, a practice he
continued in Accra in 1873, buying slaves at £ 5 a head…When the Hausa
Armed Police became the Gold Coast Constabulary in 1879 the majority of
the 800 rank and file were former slaves…
…men who have plundered their masters or committed other atrocities…sent
back to them [their masters] with read coats on their backs, [police uniform]
to enforce the orders of Government; which they, of course, do with all the
insolence natural to their sudden change of fortune.”141
A Ghanaian publication summarizes military/police-civil relations of this period thus:
138 Ibid. 139 Ibid, p. 30. 140 Supra note 55, p 7. 141 Supra note 53, p. 116.
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Until just before the [second world] war, soldiering to most educated
Ghanaians was taboo—a profession fit for only the uneducated, the social
misfit, the frustrated and the unwanted individual. In fact, if perchance your
instinct of adventure drove you to join the Army, you were immediately
ostracized by your family, village and friends. Many were the times when the
inhabitants of a whole village took to their heels at the sight of one uniformed
soldier.142
A Ghanaian officer put the matter even more strongly when commenting on the
abongo—the local name used for a soldier during the colonial period:
“ ‘Abongo? Not for all the breath that holds me—not in my life time. You
can join your abongo only when I’m dead and gone you damned one; and
even that my ghost shall keep on haunting you for proving refractory to my
advice…’ These are no unfamiliar outbursts a few decades ago, expressing
the indifferent wont of many a parent towards the Armed Forces. They were
usually provoked by the least inclination of their sons to enlist in the army.
Almost invariably accompanying such reproof was wailing by mothers,
especially if the son happened to be the only one in the family. Such
unhealthy impression of the Armed Forces in this country was pronounced at
a time when for one reason or the other the military institutions was looked
upon as a haven for criminals and illiterates.”143
A former police officer recalled townspeople attacking his wife when she was alone. He
was a young constable in the late 1930’s when a policy was announced by the
Commissioner that policemen and their families should live in the community and
fraternize more, rather than in separate barracks. Since every soldier and policeman was
viewed as the enemy, the people reacted in their own way. The experiment was thus
abandoned.144
142 “The Ghana Army,” Ghana World Magazine, April 1959, quoted in Kranzdorf, Supra note 32,
p. 153-4. 143 Lt A. Enninful, “From Civil to Military Rule,” Ghana Armed Forces Magazine, I, No. 1, 19
quoted in Kranzdorf, ibid. 144 Interview with Theo Adjirackor, Winter, 1969, Kranzdorf, Ibid, p. 154.
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It is important to note that the distinction between the military and police during this
period was nebulous indeed. The police had stipulated functions but, being an offshoot of
the military, continued to have a paramilitary bearing, complete with long-service army
men among both Europeans and Africans serving in it. As late as the Second World War,
the exigencies of the time again blurred distinctions in both function and personnel
realignments, and Africans were shuttled between the military and police.145 In some
situations there were some distinctions. “While the soldier was viewed with fear, the
policeman was often looked upon as a traitor. This was especially true of those who
helped to stamp out illicit distilling or acted as under-cover agents or generally waded
into an unruly crowd.”146
The colonial police and military also had a great partiality for drink. “Drinking and
affairs with women represented the main leisure activities for these forces.”147 On
Christmas evening 1882, at Cape Coast, free “license seems to have been given to the
soldiers of the West India Regiment, and they used the license to annoy all whom they
met who were not in the same state of drunkenness as themselves” and “some of the
Hausa Constabulary and Soldiers were even arrested for stealing liquor from the
shops”.148 Also in 1882, the Gold Coast Times declared the Ada police as “useless; they
145 Supra note 32, p. 116-118. 146 Ibid p. 108. 147 Supra note 105, p. 186-189. 148 EMMANUEL K. AKYEAMPONG, Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of
Alcohol in Ghana (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH; James Currey: Oxford, 1996) p. 51-52.
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are generally seen sitting outside grog-shops and strive to escape work”.149
The need for a brutal para-military force was always considered important and when this
clashed seriously with the need for a civil police, the response of the colonial government
was to create two police forces: The Gold Coast Regiment with a paramilitary mission;
and the Gold Coast Police Force with civil police functions.150 The official separation
between military and policing tasks, however, was more rhetoric than reality151. The civil
police, created as an unarmed force, were rearmed in 1897.152 Military discipline and
armaments, especially artillery, and machine guns, introduced in 1888, were seen as
essential to repress and intimidate a truculent and unreliable population. Indeed, the civil
police force experiment was ultimately very unsuccessful.153 The police remained first
and foremost an armed paramilitary force directed at the protection of the political and
economic interests of the colonial powers.154
THE POLICE FORCE AND THE LAW
The “troublesome frontiers, unruly peoples and ‘unsettled’ territories required military
force to guard, extend and uphold the authority of the crown and what was often new and
149 Ibid, p. 52 150 Supra note 61. 151 Supra note 85. 152 Supra note 53, p. 121. 153 Ibid, p.110. 154 Supra note 85.
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alien law”.155 The administrative and legal systems within which the colonial police
worked and the laws, which they sought to enforce, were often significantly different in
many respects from those, which prevailed in England. True, English law was
transplanted in the Gold Coast, but colonial legislative codes were invariably hybrids,
formed of parts from other colonies as well as from England, and these were molded to
fit the local environments. 156
All this had profound implications for the forms and methods of policing. Legal and
administrative categories that were distinct and separate in England were often confused
and overlapping in the colonies. Administrator, magistrate, policeman might be one and
the same official.157 The operation of the criminal law was a de facto mixture of local
customs and legislative codes neither of which was likely to be familiar to the police
recruit. “Colonial policing evolved as part of these hybrid legal and administrative
systems, and so the practice of policing in each colony came to acquire certain distinctive
features”.158
155 Supra note 55, p. 4-5. 156 Ibid. 157 Police Magistrates Ordinance, (CAP 132), 1st February 1916. 158 Supra note 55, p. 4-5. “The legal system that accompanied British colonialism is characterized
by a mixture of different laws related to the principle of indirect rule…Much like the way in which
African political authorities were incorporated within the overall structure of British government,
native law was taken up in the colonial legal framework. Customary law, purported to represent
the legal principles of native Africa, was essentially amalgamated with colonially imported law.
As was the case with native political government, customary law was only accepted on the
condition that it did not conflict with the basic principles of British law, which were in any case
considered superior on a presumed evolutionary scale of legitimate legality. Customary law did
concern native Africans, and was settled in separately organized native courts, but its premises
grew out of British understanding of traditional African legal systems. What was accepted as the
native African legal tradition was fundamentally a British invention, probably having more sense
of reality in the minds of the British rulers than actually being founded upon the concrete
historical practices of the African population. Thus, the incorporation of African political
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In 1874, an “Ordinance to Provide for the Better Regulation and Discipline of the Armed
Police Force in the Settlements on the Gold Coast” was passed, though the force, in its
them current form, had been in existence since the previous year. The Ordinance was
based on the one in force in Lagos159. The Ordinance was meant to do exactly what its
long title preempts. It gave the governor enormous powers, including the power to
formulate regulations for the efficient running of the Force. A commission of inquiry was
later to recommend, as early as 1951160 that the police should be made independent of
political and other extraneous influences.
This Ordinance of 1874 was to be followed by the passage of a criminal code in 1892161
and strict control over the possession of arms and ammunition,162 and control over the
press163. The police was used to enforce these. Policemen magistrates were appointed in
various Police Districts with “judicial, coronatorial and magisterial powers” including the
power to enforce the criminal law through fines and imprisonment.164 The police, unlike
soldiers, were in those early days expected to interpret and administer the law and were
free to exercise personal judgment.165 All these were necessary for the preservation of
institutions in British government, based on the principle of indirect rule, was complemented at
the level of legal procedures by an appropriation of customary law into British imported law.”
Supra note 85, p. 2. 159 Supra note 42, p. 11. 160 Colonel A. E. Young Young A.E colonial - A report upon the Gold Coast Police (Accra:
Government printer, 1951). See also Ankama, Supra note 82, p. 56-7. 161 Criminal code 1892 (CAP 9). 162 Arms and Ammunition Ordinance (Cap 144) No. 22 of 1952. 163 Supra note 161, section 344. 164 Police Magistrates Ordinance, (CAP 132), 1st February 1916. 165 Supra note 85.
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alien rule.
The structure of the Penal Codes shows that they were meant primarily to suppress the
people and protect and perpetuate alien rule. The Criminal Code begins with chapters on
assault, unlawful damage to property, stealing, offences against the person and property,
and ends with offences against public order and the state. In the Criminal Procedure
Code, the chapters on security for keeping the peace and maintenance of public order,
including the use of force and arrest and detention take precedence over the provisions on
the investigation and trial of criminal offences.166
The colonial government would take nothing less than a brutal and ruthless force capable
of clamping down riots and other disturbances of the peace. To do this, there was the
need to establish a particular rule of law conducive to the enterprise. The extraction of
natural resources and agricultural produce from the colonies and their use as markets for
European goods could only take place in a peaceful environment. Such an environment
had to be created at all cost and a brutal paramilitary force and a particular rule of law
were essentials for this. As the colony was consolidated in the very early years of the
twentieth century, it was practically inconceivable that this will change.
166 See parallel developments in India in B. P. SAHA, The Police in Free India: Its Facets and
Drawbacks, (Konark Publishers, New Delhi, 1989).
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THE PERIOD OF POLITICAL DOMINATION AND INTENSE ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION FROM 1900 UNTIL THE MID 1940s
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME
British intrusions into the area, which came to be known as the Gold Coast, were hesitant
from the first. A combination of factors accounted for this. There were doubts as to the
commercial potential of the area and discomfort about past and possible future wars with
the powerful Ashanti. There was also the inhospitable natural conditions, especially the
mosquitoes with its malaria to which many European lives were lost. There was finally
the temptation to focus imperial attention on other areas of the African continent and
elsewhere in the world.167
Somehow they decided to stay. The initial move occurred in 1874 when the coastal states
were annexed following a sixth Anglo-Ashanti war. Following a final war against
Ashanti in 1900-1901, Ashanti proper was annexed as a colony also. Then came the
formal declaration of a Protectorate over the Northern Territories on January 1, 1902. The
formation of the Gold Coast was essentially complete, lacking only a slice of the German
colony of Togoland, which became a British mandate following World War I, and an
integral part of the country in 1956.168
167 Supra note 32, p. 66-8. 168 Ibid.
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The period beginning in 1900 and ending in the mid-1940s was, therefore, a period of
political consolidation of the territorial gains from war and intense economic exploitation.
After political consolidation, it was decided that the Gold Coast was to be made a going
concern. The colonial government set itself to the economic task of developing the
immense and hitherto neglected wealth, mineral, agricultural, sylvan and pastoral, for the
benefit of Europe, Asia, and Africa, either as raw materials for their industries or as food
for their congested population.169 As we shall soon see, police functions had to change
accordingly.
POLICE ORGANIZATION OF THE TIME
After the Ashanti wars in 1876, the British government had converted the Gold Coast
Armed Police Force into the Gold Coast Constabulary, which existed until 1901. In that
year the constabulary was split in two. The paramilitary functions were assigned to the
Gold Coast Regiment and the police functions assigned to the Gold Coast Police Force.
After the declaration of a Protectorate over the Northern Territories in 1902, the colonial
administration established the Northern Territories Constabulary. Just before the First
World War in 1914, this constabulary was absorbed into the Gold Cost Police Force, thus
establishing a unified police force for the entire colony. This unified system of police
existed in the gold coast until independence in 1957.170
169 Ibid. 170 Supra note 28, p. 168.
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The Gold Coast Police Force, the entity with police functions was also divided into two
sections-the General Police and the Escort Police. The Escort Police developed in
response to demands by financial institutions and mining companies for escort services.
The Escort Police recruited men who did not have any formal education, although they
were required to have a rudimentary command of spoken English. Aside from providing
escorts to banks and mining companies, they were also used in routine patrol duties,
prisoner escort and sedentary guard duties, and they were trained in crowd and riot
control. A unit of the Escort Police was attached to each regional police headquarters as a
mobile force available for emergency deployment.171
To summarize, before the creation of the police force, the colonial military force,
composed mainly of Europeans, had a dual military-police function. With the wars of
conquest over, the colonizers decided to establish a civil police force made up mainly of
Africans from various parts of British Africa172. This was obviously cheaper and
conformed to the broader colonial strategy of indirect rule.173 As noted in the previous
section, the key reasons for establishing the force was to ensure the protection of colonial
officials, maintain peace and security necessary for economic exploitation through the
production and trade in primary agricultural and mineral resources and manufactured
goods, and to generally enforce the “rule of law” to various political and economic ends.
171 Ibid p. 168-9. 172 Supra note 69, p 12. 173 Supra note 46.
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These various functions of the police are best summed up in the activities of the Escort
Police of this time, a branch which was created at this time, has survived as a branch to
date, and still has a very huge percentage of the total number of policemen and women in
Ghana.
The Escort Police had an initial force of fifty men…created to guard specie,
particularly from the mines and the banks, to escort officials, accompany
carrier caravans of the newly formed Government Transport Service,
supervise convict labour and provide additional armed force for the business
of civil administration. By 1914…the Escort Police had become the largest
branch of the police…”.174
PEACE AND STABILITY FOR ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION
In the twentieth century, the basic economic functions of the police discussed in the
previous section were perhaps at their zenith. As the value of Gold and cocoa exports
increased, so also did government revenue from taxation and the state-owned railway.
Between 1901 and 1914, for instance, the value of cocoa exported from the Gold Coast
had increased more than fifty-fold (from £43,000 to £2,194,000), and future progress
seemed assured. By 1926, the entire cocoa exports of the colony stood at £9,181,000, an
impressive rise from £ 16,000 in 1899.175 Foreign trade also grew tremendously in the
Gold Coast. In 1913, the value of imports in pounds sterling was 4,952,494 and exports
174 Supra note 53, p. 122. 175 L.H. GANN AND PETER DUIGNAN (eds), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960: Volume 2 The
History and Politics of Colonialism 1914-1960, (Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 5.
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5,427,106. In 1938-9, they were 10,626,284 and 16,235,288 respectively.176 The Gold
Coast exports of cocoa, gold and other produce grew by leaps and bounds. Detailed
commercial statistics speak an eloquent language.177
This new and expanding capitalist infrastructure of mining, cash crops and transport,
much of it in the form of movable property, needed to be protected. Again, a rapidly
growing, and ethnically varied, migrant labor force in the gold-mining towns led to a rise
in crime. Mine closures and reductions in wages in the years 1900-06 resulted in
increased labor militancy and officials feared serious civil disorder. To oil the wheels of
the expanding capitalist infrastructure, and to combat the labor unrests, separate divisions
of the police were established in 1901.178
By the beginning of 1902 three fresh divisions of the police, known collectively as the
“Khaki Police” were in place. The Mines Police, hired out to the mining companies, had
been created ‘specially and solely for the purpose of preserving law and order in different
mining centres’ and to protect property. Local detachments of military volunteers, armed
with rifles and machine guns were also established from European employees on the
railway and mines. During the years 1902-06 the mining companies frequently used the
Mines Police to break strikes and to regulate labor disputes.179 There was also the
Railway Police to ensure the transport of agricultural and mineral loot to the ports for
176 Ibid, p. 15-16 177 Ibid, p. 16. 178 Supra note 53, p. 121-2. 179 Ibid.
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export. And finally the Escort Police, made up mostly of Hausas and Grunshies, to satisfy
the demands of the Mines and the Bank for reliable escorts since the General Police could
not satisfy this demand. Indeed the Escort police became one of the two main branches of
the police, the other being the General Police. Whilst the General Police was comprised
of literates who understood the Criminal Code and criminal procedures, kept records and
maintained administration, “the Escort Police, about half of the force, were generally
illiterate and were used for routine watch and ward duties, town and village patrols, guard
duties, and bullion escorts”180. According to some writers, the Escort Police was larger
than the General Police, were trained in the use of arms and many of them were ex-
soldiers.181 Some statistics show that in June 1926, there were 809 Escort Police out of a
total of 1,546 non-commissioned officers servicing seven divisions of the force. This
constituted more than half of the men of the force. There were only 73 other Superior
Officers and Superintendents182. The Marine Police was raised in 1916 to patrol the beach
and sheds, and also went to sea in canoes. Pilfering by carriers and canoe men was
immensely reduced.183 The inspection of Weights and Measures became a police duty
since 1898, and the growth of the Cocoa trade made this branch more important at this
time.184 The economic imperatives for the establishment of the police force are indeed
manifest in these developments.
180 Supra note 105, p. 14. 181 Supra note 41, p. 93. 182 Supra note 42, p. 64. 183 Ibid, p. 53. 184 Ibid, p. 42-3.
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As is clear, the specialization of the Force was directly related to the creation of a
security system in aid of the extraction (Mines Police) and safe transport (Railway
Police) of natural resources (Mines Police and Escort Police) from the hinterland to the
coast (Marine Police) for export abroad. The police also engaged in fiscal control
through the collection of taxes185 and the crack down on smuggling186.
PROTECTING THE POLITICAL CLASS
As noted earlier in this chapter, a remarkable thing that one observes whilst sifting
through the colonial literature on the police are the pictures of colonial officers heavily
guarded by police forces. In a booklet titled “The Gold Coast (A Publication of the Public
Relations Department, Accra, Gold Coast Colony, 1950), page 4 carries a picture of a
Governor of the Gold Coast, heavily guarded by “The Governor’s escort of mounted
troops” outside Christianborg Castle, the colonial seat of government. At no moment was
this more evident than during the riots of 1948.187 The shooting and killing of two of the
rioters was to prevent the advance of the party to Christianborg Castle, the seat of the
government.188 For this great job, the then commander of the police force, who personally
did the shooting and killing, was decorated with a medal.189
185 Supra note 85. 186 Supra note 83, p viii, illustration 7. 187 Details of these riots are discussed later in this chapter. 188 Supra note 110, passim. 189 Ibid, p 147-148.
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Of one thing there was no doubt: “those in charge of the [police]…would not
countenance any act undermining the government in power, the principle of colonial rule,
nor the life style, values, authority relationships, and roles of its representatives. Thus, in
building the loyalty of the African to Imperial rule all were expected to pledge allegiance
to that rule:
I,…………………………..’ do hereby solemnly and sincerely declare and
promise that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty the
King, His Heirs and Successors, and that I will faithfully serve and defend
His Majesty the King, His Heirs and Successors, and the Government of the
Gold Coast, for the period of my enlistment or re-enlistment, provided His
Majesty should so long require of my service………” 190
One commentator has noted that “…outside interference in purely regimental duties of
the force has reached such proportions that often District Commissioners, holding no
military command (and even treasury clerks) could authorize a ‘detail’ required for escort
duty, etc., without reference to the commanding officer of the detachment from which the
men were drawn. This greatly undermined the standing of such commanding officers
with their men.”191
Given the reasons for the establishment of the force and the role of the political executive
in that agenda, it made sense that “the different police forces were put under control of
190 Supra note 32, p. 91- 92. 191 SAMSON C. UKPABI, The West African Frontier Force, 1897-1914 (Unpublished M.A.
Thesis, University of Birmingham, 1964) pp. 183-184, quoted in Kranzdorf, Supra note 32, p.
149.
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the Governor of the colony, while the District Commissioner supervised [their] day-to-
day affairs”.192
ENFORCING THE “RULE OF LAW” AND POLICE BRUTALITY
By 1900, there was a police force trained to use brute force to suppress disturbances,
capable of assuming a military posture to repress uprisings, with a system of political
supervision and control that prevented the development of professionalism, and deployed
to maintain a “rule of law” comprising a body of criminal, contract and property laws that
were fashioned for the specific purposes of maintaining empire and advancing economic
exploitation in the Gold Coast.
Colonial rule rested to a certain extent on a mixture of bluff and consent of the colonized,
however tenuous. Effective colonization, therefore, depended ultimately on the ability of
the colonial rulers to coerce their colonial subjects by the threat or use of armed force.
The police, which developed first as a para-military and then a civilian force separate
from the army, provided the front line coercion with the regular military in reserve as the
ultimate deterrent.193
Indeed Section 5 of the Police Ordinance of 1922 made provision for the police to
assume the status of an army under certain conditions. In many cases, political
192 Supra note 85. 193 Supra note 105, p. 145
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paternalism replaced the British policy of indirect rule when local politics did not
resemble appropriate government in their estimation and when it conflicted with the
imperial policy, which sought to make colonial conquest a commercially viable
enterprise194. The police, in their dual police-military status, were essential for this, and
other related purposes.
This period witnessed intense economic exploitation and the attendant issues of riot,
crime, social disorganization, ordering, and class control. Colonial policing at this time
functioned to control these distractions to imperialism and ultimately legitimate central
rule from Westminster.195
A mark of successful brutality of the police force at this time is that, imperial police
practice seems to have informed British police practice. Colonial methods of policing
labor and political disturbances have been employed in Britain since the early twentieth
century. Also, there was a high number of officers who returned from service in the
colonies to take up senior positions in the Metropolitan and County constabularies in
Britain.196
194 Deflem notes that “This is further shown by the fact that indirect rule could be interventionist
or non-interventionist. In the case of interventionist indirect rule, the native chiefs were governed
as dependent rulers and their traditional administration was gradually adapted to the alien
institutions of British rule. Non-interventionist indirect rule left the traditional authorities to their
own devices, but only to the extent that the over-all political and economic goals of colonialism
were not threatened.” Supra note 85, p. 2. 195 Supra note 43, p. 9. 196 Supra note 55, p. 12-13.
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The rule of law waxed strong and throughout the period, the police remained first and
foremost an armed paramilitary force directed at the protection of the political and
economic interests of the colonial powers.197 As independence approached, it was
conceivable that this will change. But did it?
THE PERIOD OF TRANSITION TO INDEPENDENCE, THE MID-1940s TO 1957
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME
In 1957, the Gold Coast became politically independent and was renamed Ghana.
Various constitutional reforms had granted a great deal of internal self government for
the colony beginning in 1951, but the Queen of England was still the titular head of state.
In 1960, Ghana became a Republic with its own Executive President, Dr. Kwame
Nkrumah. This section deals with the police force in the years of transition to
independence, that is, the period between the start of serious nationalism in about 1948 to
1957.
The Second World War occasioned many economic hardships. The Allied colonies could
no longer trade with the German-occupied parts of Europe, nor with the regions under the
sway of Imperial Japan. The great industrial powers of the world turned most of their
energies to making implements of war, hence, consumer goods became expensive.
197 Supra note 85.
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Capital goods were hard to obtain, prices rose and money kept losing its value. War,
thus, created a great demand for African raw materials. The British, therefore, looked
upon Africa as a vital strategic bastion and were only inclined to make limited changes to
the colonial imperialist infrastructure while the war was in progress. Beyond limited
constitutional changes, it was not intended to initiate the devolution of government to
Africans.198
Students of colonial rule in West Africa commonly treat the fifteen years from 1945 to
1960 as the most significant period in the history of decolonization. Yet, the Second
World War did not mark a completely new departure. It may be considered to have
accelerated political developments already apparent in the late 1930s. In the Gold Coast
the British realized by about 1950 that new policies would have to be formulated to
accommodate social forces not actually created by the war but strengthened in the course
of it.199
THE POLICE FORCE OF THE TIME
The character of policing in the Gold Coast, as in many parts of the British Empire, can
be shown to follow a historical sequence involving at least three periods. I have discussed
in previous sections, the first period, which was a time of intense coercion associated
198 Supra note 175. p. 19. 199 K.W. J. Post, “British Policy and Representative Government in West Africa 1920 to 1951, in
L.H. GANN AND PETER DUIGNAN (eds), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960: Volume 2 The
History and Politics of Colonialism 1914-1960, (Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 31.
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with the establishment of imperial authority. I have also discussed briefly the second
period of the consolidation of imperial rule through the establishment of the “rule of
law”. Our concern in this section is the multiple parts of the third period200. This period
was characterized by a mounting breakdown in order, attendant upon the strains induced
by war, economic crisis, and the development of indigenous trade union and nationalist
consciousness. This period includes the phases of insurrection, reform201, reorganization
and recruitment,202 and the fall of empire.203
The events leading up to the fall of empire placed the police closer in proximity to the
forces of nationalist politics and anti-colonial protest than any other agency of
government. Again, in the final arrangements for the transfer of powers, the transition of
the police from their role as the principal agency of colonial control to becoming an
institution at the service of a new independent government was the most sensitive and
important of political issues.204 Despite several self-government gains, colonial control of
the police remained, with the key posts in the sensitive areas—Special Branch, C.I.D.,
and radio communications manned by expatriates.205 These developments were
significant for the police and are important if we are to have a complete sense of the state
200 I discuss other relevant parts of this period at the beginning of chapter 3. 201 “From the later 1930s… a Colonial Police Service was established to coordinate and regulate
policing throughout the dependent empire, and London took an increased role in dictating the
methods and standards adopted in colonial policing and in monitoring the performance of
individual police forces”. Supra note 88 p. 4. The Metropolitan authorities were as concerned with
central appraisal and control, as with international fears of alleged global communist conspiracy
and their links within the colonies. See Supra note 88 p. ix-x. 202 As empire was to fall, between 1945 and 1956 police numbers increased from 2500 to 5360 in
the Gold Coast. Supra note 94 p. 4. 203 Supra note 113, p. ix. 204 Supra note 119, p. 1. 205 Supra note 32, p. 179.
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of the police force at empire’s fall. To do this, we will lift “the veil of anonymity that has
shrouded the…[Gold Coast] police …[and] reveal their central role in the histories of the
end of empire and the birth of [Ghana].”206
After the wars of conquest and the consolidation of British rule in the Gold Coast, and
before the 1940s, police work had usually been limited to local issues, tribal clashes,
boycotts, destoolment disputes, and opposition to taxation in which a small number of
policemen had almost always been sufficient. The riots of February 1948, chaos and
widespread rioting and looting closely related to nationalist activities, caught the colony
and its police force unprepared.207 The years 1948-1951 saw unrest, lawlessness, rapid
changes of policy, and turbulence. Challenges to the colonial government and its laws,
was heralded by nationalist militants as patriotic. At the height of the riots the Gold
Coast’s own troops and reinforcements from Nigeria had to be deployed.208
After a century, organized opposition to the police force finally emerged in the context of
the liberation struggle. Opposition to the police force was a tangential by product of
opposition to the entire British imperialist architecture. One commentator summarizes the
sentiments of the time in the following long quotation:
206 Supra note 119, p. 18. 207 See F. M. BOURET, Ghana-The Road to Independence 1919-57, (Stanford University Press;
Oxford University Press, 1960), especially pp. 157ff. for political context of the riots. See also
Supra note 85 passim. 208 Supra note 105, p 13-14.
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While colonial rule at times evinced considerable stability, it never gathered
the active support of more than a fraction of the Gold Coast population.
World War II saw that support become more tenuous still, and in the
following years it disappeared almost completely. Between 1946 and 1948
different types of dissatisfaction among different groups in the population
coalesced, providing a broadly based opposition to the established order. Ex-
servicemen berated the Governor for a lackluster pension and gratuity
program, too few resettlement offices, failure to provide sufficient job
assistance for the unskilled and semi-skilled, and failure to free soldiers still
in jail for wartime offenses. Economic difficulties included an outbreak of
swollen shoot disease which damaged some 15,000 [cocoa] trees a year,
steady rise in the cost of living, and soaring import prices resulting from
overseas shortages and possibly made still more critical by expatriate-run
monopolies. This last factor resulted in sporadic boycotts of European
commercial firms beginning in 1947. A host of social problems existed,
especially in the burgeoning urban areas, where an already high rate of
unemployment was further augmented by a growing number of primary-
school leavers who could not find work, as well as distressed farmers and
bored ex-servicemen. There were shortages in housing, an inability to meet
increased demand for public services, and a rise in the crime rate. Resentment
was also voiced over the pace of Africanization—especially inasmuch as a
new scheme allowed officials from other parts of the Commonwealth to
transfer to the Gold Coast—and generally over delays in implementing
schemes of economic development and social improvement. The resulting
demand for political advances was not met by a new constitution of 1946,
which increased African membership in the Legislative and Executive
Councils, while providing for the Town councils in the large coastal cities to
have elected majorities. Rather, the whole question of where ultimate
authority resided was raised and suggestions were voiced that there were
alternatives to alien rule.209
The nationalists and their followers hated the police force to the extent that it ensured the
continuance of British imperialism. Thus, the 28th February 1948 social movement had as
its target, the Governor, as representative of the British Crown. The showdown with the
police occurred when the latter prevented them from marching to the office of the
Governor.
209 Supra note 32, p. 157-8.
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For the police, these crucial years of resistance meant rapid expansion and reform, all
under the pressure of strenuous events.210 From the mid-1920’s to the mid-1940’s, the
Police Force had only grown from 2,000 to 2,500 and the number of European officers
from 80 to 100 despite the growing population and the needs of the people.211 The events
of 1948 necessitated an expansion of the Gold Coast Police Force to some 8,000 men to
provide for any emergency. Re-equipment of the force, left with little transport and no
wireless, was expedited. Troop-carrying vehicles, signals equipment, riot equipment,
were all brought in, and twenty former gazetted Palestine Police officers experienced in
police mobile force work were seconded to the colony. An armored car unit was added as
a final dressing.212 In the months which followed, exercises in crowd control and anti-
guerrilla techniques were held by the military. In 1949, with warnings of Positive Actions
already in the air, it was decided to form a third battalion. The military was rarely
actually called out to aid civil authorities and never used its firearms in such operations.
Nevertheless, conditions in the country had led to policy decisions by the authorities to
expand the armed forces as a back-up to the police.213 Thus, faced with renewed violence,
the police force grew dramatically, became more paramilitary in character, developed
more centralized command systems, and established special branches. In coping with
210 Supra note 85 p. 5-6. 211 Supra note 32, p. 177. 212 Supra note 80 p 13-14. 213 Supra note 32, 170.
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this complex of problems, they drew upon the personnel, practices and ideas of
supposedly comparable revolts: Irish, Palestinian and Malayan disturbances.214
The police were obviously required, under the pressure of the new circumstances, to
reform and to reform fast. The Police Mobile Force had been set up in 1947 and was to
be used no fewer than 200 times between December 1947 and September 1951215. After
the war, there was further clouding of the roles of the military and the police, as many
who had served in the army used the standards learned there for service in the police and
its auxiliary, the Mobile Force.216 The men of this force were in a perpetual state of
alertness and moved to any troubled spot to quell rioting.217 As already noted, a new
police wireless network was in operation by March 1949 and the Special Branch was
beefed up as part of a general expansion of the police force, which saw it double in size
between the end of 1947 and 1952.
It was realized that intelligence operations prior to the upheaval had been inadequate and
that officials had been lulled in to a false sense of security by a belief that the Gold Coast
was a model colony. The woefully understaffed Criminal Investigation Department
(C.I.D) had not been effective in its dual function of collecting of intelligence data and
the investigation of crime. The C.I.D., whose numbers were barely over 100 in 1948, was
214 Supra note 113, p. ix-x. 215 Richard Rathbone, “Political Intelligence and Policing in Ghana in the late 1940s and 1950s” in
DAVID M. ANDERSON AND DAVID KILLINGRAY (eds) Policing and Decolonisation:
Politics, Nationalism and the Police, 1917-65 (Manchester University Press: Manchester, New
York, 1992), p 84. 216 Supra note 32, 119. 217 Supra note 52, p. 68-9.
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expanded to almost 175 by 1950 and close to 250 by 1953, against an outside report
urging further expansion to at least 700. As already noted, the Special Branch was also
inaugurated to deal with intelligence matters.218
In effect, the1948 riots proved a catalyst for police reform, and every dimension from
orientation, equipment, administration, through training procedures to specialized
departments, underwent major change. The result-the Gold Coast retained a militaristic
Police Force, now better organized and equipped, and that was ready to descend upon the
citizenry at the command of the Government.
POLICE BRUTALITY
The political protests of the time constituted fodder for police brutality. After the 1948
disturbances, the authorities decided they needed additional manpower with paramilitary
training. Such manpower was available among European police men who had served in
Palestine and were no longer needed. The thirty-seven officers from this source who were
introduced into the Gold Coast were accused of “acting in a roughly hewn manner, of
making facile judgments, and not adjusting to the new culture” and had no “respect for
Africans at all”.219
218 Supra note 32, p. 172. 219 Ibid, p. 185.
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Various opportunities for police brutality presented themselves. With the riots of 1948,
the lack of support for the official classes became clear, as did the preaching of
nonviolence:
Economic frustrations, the anger of ex-servicemen, and new political leaders
combined to produce demonstrations in Accra. When a parade to the
Governor’s residence got out of hand, armed police under a European
Superintendent were called in, shots were fired, men were killed and
wounded, and the crowd broke ranks and went on a rampage. They were
joined by others in the capital who were not happy with a new price structure
posted in expatriate-run stores that day. The military was called, but the next
day rioting flared anew, this time throughout the country. The Government
declared a state of emergency, later claiming that “… a Communist
conspiracy had occurred but…the Government had arrested the leading
Communists.” Although the African leadership under Dr. J.B. Danquah per
se was not labeled communist, six top members of an inchoate political
party—the United Gold Coast Convention—were arrested and removed to
isolated areas of the Northern Territories until a Commission of inquiry
arrived from London.
…In early 1950’s, Positive Action, a campaign of civil disobedience
involving propaganda and boycotts of European firms, was instituted…
Several figures were convicted on charges of promoting an illegal strike and
attempting to coerce the government. Nkrumah himself was sentenced on
three counts of sedition to run a total of three years…220
As already noted, the Mobile Force, a body especially trained in riot control, was formed
after the 1948 riots. It had an establishment of at least 100 and sometimes more at each
provincial headquarters. Indeed, it earned the wrath of segments of the population. In
addition, in order to deal with serious disorders when they were beyond the resources of
220 Ibid, p. 160-1.
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the regular police, a Voluntary Police Reserve was established which could quickly call
out over 2,000 Africans, Asians, and Europeans.221
Among the more elite classes there was disagreement between the left and the right. The
left was pushing for immediate independence from the time of Positive Action. The right
questioned all talk of expansion of the public sector, and wanted less power to reside at
the center and more in the several regions. From both sides there were charges of
sycophancy and nepotism, of Government failure to act in a temperate way to combat a
new outbreak of swollen shoot disease in Ashanti, of plans to harness the power of the
Volta River which would mainly benefit the South, of low wages to laborers, and of the
slow pace of Africanization.222 In Ashanti, considerable opposition remained,
championed by the National Liberation Movement (NLM), which had opposed the
Government since 1954. In Accra, protests of the Ga people that they were being taken
for granted began in the weeks and days before independence.223
Thus, from 1948 until independence, there was almost continuous political instability.
Demonstrations, riots, competition for political office, clashes among the followers of
various political parties, were the order of the day. The police had their hands full
clamping down on these various disturbances and threats to the peace. Many laws and
regulations were invoked or passed to give the police greater leeway in matters of internal
221 Ibid, p. 173. 222 Ibid, p. 160-1. 223 Ibid, p. 164.
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security. These included various ordinances dealing with the influencing of public
opinion in a manner prejudicial to the public safety, restricting or preventing publications
which might disturb the populace, imposing curfews, sanctioning the stopping and
searching of vehicles, and additional authority to act against looters or those causing
disaffection. Others provided for arresting without a warrant any one who might act
against the public safety, restricting or prohibiting processions and meetings224, and
finally allowing Detention and Removal against those believed to be undermining
national security.225
As late as April 1951, the colonial government was still striving to create or re-create a
militaristic force for the colony in order to contain the nationalist activities and internal
political differences of the time, which promoted violence and civil unrest:
…the subjects dealt with at the [conference of commissioners of police in the
colonies] ranged from fundamental issues such as relationship of police and
government, to matters of practical detail, such as riot procedure, training and
the procurement of equipment. While, naturally, there were differences of
opinion upon some points, there was complete unanimity about the essential
principles. The main point emphasized by the conference was that Colonial
police forces should be organized as civilian forces existing for service to the
community on the general lines obtaining in the United Kingdom, but with
one important qualification. It was recognized that in many territories, owing
to the absence of military forces, the larger areas to be controlled, the nature
of the population, or to some combination of these factors, it was necessary
for some or all of the police to be employed in a semi-military manner, so as
to be able to deal with disturbances, whether in urban or rural areas, without
the immediate support of military forces. These police bodies must, therefore,
224 See the Public Order Ordinance and the Bome Kotoku case discussed post. 225 Supra note 32, p. 166-72.
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in present conditions, be equipped with arms and trained in their use…226
With this consensus the official seal had been placed on the conception of the Colonial
Police. It was to be pragmatic and experimental and not precisely copy the British police
system, but adapts its principles to the social and political realities of the Colonies.227
With reforms, the colonial police were able to carry out their duties more efficiently and
with greater reliability, but the nature of those duties remained coercive rather than
consensual. The improved policing of the period was to a large extent directed at
strengthening the ability of the colonial state to coerce an increasing number of industrial,
agrarian and political opponents more effectively.228
In 1951229, Colonel A. E. Young was to recommend the establishment of a Police Force
that was truly independent of political and extraneous influences to the service. In 1952, a
memorandum by the Commissioner of Police accepting the Young report defined “a
Police Constable [as] a citizen serving the office of a Constable, thereby having certain
powers and being liable to certain responsibilities. He serves the Sovereign…and is a
servant of the state exercising original authority”.230 It would have been more honest if
the words “Sovereign” and “state” were replaced with “Governor” and “Government”.
226 Supra note 119, p. 16-7. 227 Supra note 41, p. 218-9. 228 Supra note 55, p. 12. 229 Supra note 87. 230MEMORANDUM BY THE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE, The Present Role and Statutory
Functions of the Ghana Police Force, its Organisation and Distribution of the Force, Staffing,
Training and Equipment. (Accra, June 1952) Para. 2 (Unpublished).
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Colonel Young also recommended a massive decentralization of the operational and
administrative machinery of the force and consistent with the changes that were occurring
in Ghanaian society as a whole. He thought that it was necessary to characterize the status
of a police officer in an emerging democratic society. This was essential to place the
functions and role of the officer squarely within society and thereby permit the officer to
function optimally. These useful recommendations do not seem to have sunk in.
Reform within the colonial police services, first conceived in the 1930s and were being
implemented in the 1940s and 1950s were seriously disrupted by the politics of
nationalism. These political challenges only succeeded in bringing more resources to the
police, which remained basically the same in orientation and tactics. 231 The plan to
change from a military to a civil force following territorial consolidation never
materialized and nationalist activities prevented this from happening at the fall of empire.
Indeed, at this time, there was actually a re-militarization of a force that hitherto was
being demilitarized.
Policing throughout the colonial period was imposed on the people and never enjoyed
their consent. “Colonial policing in the Gold Coast had little to do with serving the
community and everything to do with upholding the authority of the colonial state.”232
During this period under review, the colonial police invariably served the political
interests of the colonial state more overtly than ever before, and were nowhere in any real
231 Supra note 119, p. 9-10. 232 Supra note 53, p. 123.
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sense accountable to the community.233
In the settlements in Canada, Australia and parts of South Africa, policing generally
evolved with the consent of the community.234 In the Gold Coast, and the other colonies
in West Africa, (and in line with the political economy of colonization), the question of
policing by consent was largely immaterial.235 In these places, and also in south-east
Asia, where the majority populations were not of European descent, there was little
concern even in the twentieth century with any notion of policing by consent. The police
served the interest of the state and were hardly accountable to representative bodies or the
community. Also, there was a marked difference between the development of policing
ideologies and practices in Britain and in Africa.236 While the metropolitan and county
forces in England moved closer to the ideals of consensual policing during the twentieth
century, this trend was not mirrored in the police forces in Africa. The policing of labour
disputes, and then of political agitation linked to nationalist or other anti-government
activities, pushed the colonial police into a prominent internal security role from whence
it has not returned. “They continued to carry arms, and to be viewed as an important
element in the defence of the colonial state: coercion was a necessary element of control,
consensus at best a dim and distant goal.”237 Today, Africa, in reforming its police forces,
must learn from the community of consent and the accountability mechanisms that
changed colonial policing in Canada, Australia and New Zealand into relatively
233 Supra note 55, p. 12. 234 Supra note 53, p. 120-1. 235 Supra note 55, p. 10. 236 Ibid, p. 9. 237 Ibid, p. 11.
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functional police forces.
CONCLUSION
When the British set out to establish a Police Force in the Gold Coast, the reasons for
doing so were clear. The conquered peoples were restless and unwillingly or strategically
signed peace treaties and treaties of protection with the British.238 To govern, the political
class-the Governors and their officials-needed security. The Gold Coast Police Force was
to provide this needed security. Again, with the end of the slave trade and the beginning
of “legitimate trade”,239 there was the need to preserve peace and security for trade in
European goods and for increased agricultural and mineral production to feed the
industries in Europe, which produced the goods that were then sold in Africa. The police
were used to maintain this law, order, peace and security through the enforcement of the
“rule of law”. Flowing from this, the police were also used to enforce tax laws and other
laws, such as eviction and property laws that were meant to bring economic benefit to the
imperial powers.
In this chapter, I have located the emergence of the police in Ghana within the project of
empire building and the onset of industrial capitalism. The backward peoples had to be
conquered and then pacified; the wheels of capital had to be protected and kept moving;
238 My good friend Samuel Amadi, Director of the Centre for Public Policy and Research, a
Nigerian NGO, and an expert on Nigerian Political Economy and Sharia in Northern Nigeria
reminds me that when Northern Nigeria was overwhelmed by British Forces, the Leadership of the
area told their people to “Love them with their mouths and hate them with their hearts”. 239 It is very contested, how legitimate this trade was.
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and the nascent working-class had to be disciplined by new forms of coercion and
legitimation in order to ensure the stability of the social relations of production. Thus,
policing lay very much at the center of the ideologies of imperial rule that informed
political domination as well as economic and social construction. As private policing
increased in cost to the trade companies, the police institution was nationalized and its
cost transferred from the private to the public sector. This basic posture of the police has
continued to date. In the next chapter I bring the story up to the present, and reveal how
the state of affairs came to be.
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CHAPTER THREE
POST-INDEPENDENCE “BOME
KOTOKU”
INTRODUCTION240
In the previous chapter, I have shown how opportunities for the reform of the police force
were lost. The force, therefore, remained one for the preservation of empire through the
protection of the political class, the maintenance of peace and security for economic
exploitation, and the enforcement of the “rule of law” in aid of political, economic, and
social subjugation. True, there were the pre-nationalist forms of resistance and the
resulting wars. And there was the nationalist struggle, but these had a far broader agenda
of dethroning imperialism and not focused specifically on imperialism’s effects on
particular institutions such as the police. The nationalist movement was led by, and
independence ultimately negotiated by the upper-class elite, more interested in replacing
the colonial political class as controllers and managers of pre-existing institutions than in
the re-making of those institutions. The story of how the dysfunctional institutions the
240 A good but short summary of the development of the police in Ghana post independence, up
until the Rawlings era is contained in John A. Arthur and Otwin Marenin, “British Colonization
and the Political Development of the Police in Ghana, West Africa”, in CHARLES B. FIELDS
AND RICHTER H. MOORE, JR, Comparative Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional
Systems of Law and Control, (Waveland Press, Inc.: Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1996).
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independence leaders and their successors assumed control over, ultimately changed the
leaders, and not the other way round, will be noted.
In this chapter, I also bring the story of the institutional evolution of the police in Ghana
up-to-date. I will show that there were two main challenges that faced the new political
administration under the leadership of President Nkrumah. First, there was the need to
consolidate the hard-won political and economic freedom of the country and to build the
necessary infrastructure for economic and political development. A second challenge was
to establish social institutions that would foster the integration of diverse ethnic and clan
groups into the process of nation-building and development. It was toward the fulfillment
of these two objectives that the Ghana Police emerged as a powerful social and political
institution. To implement his agenda, Nkrumah called in aid the strongest institution of
coercion and governance that had been constructed by the colonial regime-the police.
Under his reign, Dr. Nkrumah used the police to shore up his fragile regime and to keep
political opponents as bay. However, he also mistrusted independent sources of power,
and so maintained strict political control over the police and divested it of several of its
powers when he sensed they were being disloyal.
By 1964, just seven years after the departure of the British, Nkrumah had transformed the
country into a one-party state and used preventive detention to imprison his opponents.
He used the police to enforce this and numerous other laws that curtailed civil liberties
such as political assembly and a free and independent press. Several police officers were
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expelled from the force for refusing to enforce these ordinances, or enforcing them in a
way and manner that was not pleasing to Nkrumah. When in 1964 an unsuccessful
attempt was made on Nkrumah’s life by a police constable, the president reacted by
disarming the police, reducing their size, and sacking the commissioner of police, nine
other senior officers, and detaining eight others. The police were instrumental in his
overthrow two years later and were active in the new administration.
The direct involvement of the police in Ghana’s administration led to the revamping of
the police institution. Its size and resources increased dramatically. Over three years,
from 1965 to 1968, the size of the force almost doubled. Through out the period of
political and economic decline, 1966 to 1981, the police used its increased human
resources and increased material resources from the United States, under the Office of
Public Safety (OPS) program to protect the political class, ensure peace and security at all
cost for economic activity, and to enforce the rule of law to particular ends. As would be
expected, the relationship between the police and the citizenry remained as strained as it
was during the colonial era and the Nkrumah period. During this period, issues of
corruption within the service also became central.
The Rawlings regime, which took over power after the OPS program folded up in Ghana,
attempted two contrasting reforms in the force. First, there was the leftist approach of
decentralizing policing functions and involving non-police officers in policing; and
second there was the hi-tecking of a force to police a new era of neo-liberalism and post-
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modern colonialism. The first set of reforms crumbled with the marriage of the regime to
the IFIs. The second set of reforms endured, and have continued to date. The
governments of the last two decades have thus preserved the police force in the basic
form in which it was created, and then improved its human, institutional, and material
resources. This has been possible because the colonial agenda and the agenda of post-
modern colonialism coincide in their basic tenets, and require a certain type of police
officer to be effective.
The very first attempts at reform were modest indeed and involved calls on the Supreme
Court, the highest and constitutional court of the land, to prune specific powers of the
police. Of late, and perhaps emboldened by various successes in piece-meal reform,
governmental reform agents, development partners, NGOs, and civil society groups are
calling for a complete overhaul of the police service. Consequently, there is a rush to
reform the Ghana Police Service, rather like the rush to reform the Ghana Police Force
beginning in 1948, which ended up hi-teching and militarizing an already brutal force.
There are many calls for extending the tentacles of the National Institutional Renewal
Programme (NIRP) and National Governance Programme’s (NGP) to the police.
These reform agents, overwhelmed by the symptoms of the problem as described in this
chapter, are all calling for a reform of the brutal, unfriendly and corrupt police officer.
Virtually no one is talking about the reform of the political economy that determines the
functions of the police, nor the reform of the police in the political economy of neo-
liberalism and post-modern colonialism.
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Two centuries after the beginning of the colonial agenda, and half a century after it
formally ended, the Gold Coast Police Force, now called the Ghana Police Service retains
the same basic objectives that were set for it by the imperialist powers. This is very
consistent with the thesis that colonialism was the single most important institutional
restructuring in the continent and should be the starting point of any agenda of
institutional change.
After independence, the Gold Coast Constabulary was renamed the Ghana Police Force,
and later the Ghana Police Service. The institution as created during colonial rule has
endured indeed, and remains patterned after the British imposed police system, enforcing
laws inherited from British colonialism.241 The police are still used mainly for the
protection of the political class; the key aim of the police is still stated as providing the
peace and security that is needed to attract foreign investors; and the police still enforce a
whole range of laws and conduct evictions of poor and powerless people in order to
create space and wealth for the powerful and the rich242. The reasons for this, and what
lessons it holds for institutional reinvention, are central themes in this chapter. They are
also the crux of the theory of institutional continuity.
241 Mathieu Deflem, 1994 “Law Enforcement in British Colonial Africa: A Comparative Analysis
of Imperial Policing in Nyasaland, the Gold Coast, and Kenya” Police Studies 17 (1): 45-68. Also
on the World Wide Web at: http://www.cla.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zcolpol.html. Visited on
26th October 2003. p. 5-6. 242 See for example ISSAH IDDI ABBAS and 10 Others V. ACCRA METROPOLITAN
ASSEMBLY AND THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, Suit No. Misc. 1203/2002, where the Center
for Public Interest Law (CEPIL) contested one such eviction in court. See also www.cepil.org,
CEPIL’s website for information on the case.
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THE NKRUMAH ERA, 1957-1966
THE POLITICAL-ECONOMY OF GHANA AT INDEPENDENCE
The years following the Second World War saw a rapid movement in the Gold Coast
from presumed model colony to a demand for self-government and then independence.
All these tendencies received full expression after independence. During the years 1957-
66, Ghana was ruled by the Convention Peoples’ Party (CPP) of Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.
There were serious attempts during this time to impose Party-Government over the
politics and economy of the country, culminating in the declaration of a one-party state in
1964. True, there was opposition to this agenda mainly from the Ashanti-based United
Gold Coast Convention (UGCC) and later the National Liberation Movement (NLM), but
these were generally crushed.
In the political sphere, for instance, the first years of independence witnessed a series of
constitutional and legislative measures, which were aimed at stifling political opposition
to the CPP. The Avoidance of Discrimination Act in late 1957243 forbade the existence of
parties on a regional, tribal, or religious basis. The Ashanti-based parties and the
Northern Peoples Party (NPP) were obviously affected, and opposition forces, formed on
ethnic lines, had to come together to form the United Party (UP) as a way of getting
around the law. The Preventive Detention Act of 1958244 gave the government the right
243 Avoidance of Discrimination Act, 1957 (No. 38). 244 Preventive Detention Act, 1958 (No. 17).
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to detain persons without trial for up to five years.245 The 1960 Constitution, the first
republican constitution that replaced the independence constitution of 1957, created the
position of Executive President, a position that was filled by Nkrumah, the Prime
Minister under the 1957 Constitution. The constitution gave the president a lot of powers,
and did not contain an actionable and enforceable bill of rights.246 Then in 1964, Ghana
was made a one party-state. A new era, based on a consistent, centralized government,
was now in place. But agitation against the system continued.
The Ga people in Accra, the national capital, were frustrated that they were being
overwhelmed by others who were moving into their midst and that the C.P.P. and
Nkrumah were not repaying them for their pre-independence support. As early as July
1957, the Ga Shifimo Kpee (the Ga Standfast Organisation) was officially born.
Nkrumah, returning to Accra from a Prime Ministers’ Conference in London, was met by
former supporters who now held banners of protest and hurled epithets at him. Marches
and demonstrations turned bloody as the police intervened. By late August arrests had
begun, though not exclusively of opposition figures. From the standpoint of the Ga
Shifimo Kpee, the police were shutting their eyes to C.P.P. terrorism, unfairly arresting
opposition supporters, offering false testimony in court, and not allowing them public
meeting or rally permits.247
245 Ibid, section 4. 246 As interpreted by the Supreme Court in the case of RE AKOTO [1961] 2 GLR 525. 247 RICHARD B. KRANZDORF, The Military and Police in the Gold Coast/Ghana Through
February 1966: A Study of Limited Institutionalization. Ph. D Dissertation, University of
California, Los Angeles, Political Science, 1973) p. 253-55.
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Ashanti had always had a history of opposition to rule from Accra, whether colonial or
indigenous. Though the National Liberation Movement had waned in the immediate post-
independence era, few government supporters were to be found in Ashanti. The
authorities dared not take actions against the Asantehene, but had no such trepidation in
regard to other leaders, such as those of the Muslim community in Kumasi. In the
summer of 1957 deportation orders were served against two of these leaders, though both
were Ghanaian citizens, and public disorders in both Kumasi and Accra resulted. Again
the police bore the brunt of the people’s anger. In Ashanti as in Accra there were protests
that the police were making it difficult for the newly formed United Party to hold rallies.
Then in the fall of 1958, four more deportations were carried out by the police despite a
court order delaying such action until the nationality of the men was determined. Large
scale hostility toward the police again was re-enforced.248
In the Volta Region, the bases of friction with the Nkrumah regime were both political
and economic. Some “voltarians” wished the area to merge with what would become an
independent Togo, whilst others wanted all Ewes in Eastern Ghana to join their brothers
across the border in a new nation-state. Yet others wished to keep and strengthen ties to
Accra.249 On the economic front, a long –standing, lucrative smuggling operation
between Ghana and Togo, had been endangered for the first time.250
248 Ibid, p. 255-6 249 Ibid. 250 FRANCIS AGBODEKA, African Politics and British Policy in the Gold Coast 1868-1900: A
Study in Forms and Force of Protest, (Longman: Northwestern University Press, 1971) p. 62-76.
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“While clashes between Government and Opposition grew in the first years and more
restrictive legislation was passed, many of the pre- 1957 trappings were to be seen,
complete with a functioning parliamentary democracy and an economy in which
expatriates had even more of a controlling interest than before”251. By 1960-61, there
were complaints that a once-healthy economy was in trouble, attributable by the Left to
foreign and domestic exploitative interests. Economically, Ghana was in decline and her
foreign policy was meeting with rebuffs, both elsewhere on the African continent and
overseas, even from some who had been thought of as her friends. This was not helped by
a widening wealth gap and rumors of ostentatious living by state officials.
All this led to the general strike in September of 1961. This not only provided grounds
for arresting opposition leaders or driving them into exile, but for a Government shake-
up. An assassination attempt against the President at Kulungugu in Northern Ghana on
his return from a visit to Upper Volta (now Burkina Fasso) in August 1962 was followed
by months of uncertainty. Here again the ferociousness of the in-fighting led to the use of
Preventive Detention against three nationally known politicians. They were held for trial
on the basis of very tenuous links between them and evidence uncovered in connection
with the assassination attempt. Almost a year and a half later the Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court found the three innocent. The President responded by calling for a
plebiscite to change the constitution, giving him power to dismiss any judge whose
decision he questioned, as well as sanctifying Ghana as a single-party state and himself as
251 Supra note 247, p. 243.
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lifetime chief executive. The plebiscite overwhelmingly passed, but instability remained.
When in 1965, it was announced that the first parliamentary elections since 1956 were to
be held, and that the 198 candidates were all personally selected by the President and the
C.P.P. Leadership, many knew that the CPP government was set to develop a centralized
one-party state with limited opportunity for dissent.252
THE POLICE IN THE IMMEDIATE POST-INDEPENDENCE ERA
The police underwent an increase in size in the wake of the 1948 demonstrations and
intelligence procedures were updated, but these measures were insufficient to keep up
with the national situation just described. The force was increased from 4,000 in 1957 to
7,000 in 1960. The force faced several challenges during this period. Generally, they
adapted to a surprising degree, British police practices, but these were modified by the
influence of a mélange of expatriate officers with experience in Palestine, Malaya and
elsewhere.253 Also, the European members of the police force were facing new challenges
as they realized they would soon be forced to leave. At another level, local nationalists
and politicians were calling to indigenous forces to be less loyal to the colonial
Government. All this was complicated by a rise in competition amongst the Ghanaian
forces because the years leading to independence witnessed a transition, with the
European members of the force being phased out and the Africans moving ever more
252 Ibid, p. 247. 253 L.H. GANN AND PETER DUIGNAN (eds), Colonialism in Africa 1870-1960: Volume 2 The
History and Politics of Colonialism 1914-1960, (Cambridge University Press, 1970) p. 315 and
Supra note 8 p. xi.
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quickly into higher positions. The internal divisiveness that this caused, and the various
political pressures that were a function of nationalist activity, were carried into the
independence era.254
This is not to say that all or even most of the activities in which the police were involved
differed from what they had been before 1957. For the most part, the police went about
its business of apprehending criminals, patrolling highways, and aiding relief efforts in
civil disasters. During the nine years of Nkrumah’s rule, the police grew from
approximately six thousand, to fourteen thousand. Aside its traditional duties, this growth
was aimed at dealing with overtly political activities of the opposition forces and other
functional matters such as smuggling. The volatile areas of Accra, the Volta Region, and
Ashanti had been simmering before independence, but had been controlled by the
expatriate-run police. After independence, they needed to be contained. The containment
involved renewing intimate and sensitive police relations with the local populations,
which I shall discuss in some detail in the next section.
The event in the three sites just referred to (Accra, Kumasi and the Volta Region)
occurred mainly in the first three years of independence and led to a stress in the
traditional functions of the police for preserving order. The police was already under
stress occasioned by the new political climate in the country. It was difficult for the
African police officers to remain impartial or above the battle between government and
254 Supra note 247,, p. xi.
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opposition, even if they so wished. The new independence government believed the
police were relics of colonialism, while their opponents in the opposition parties saw
them as tools of an oppressive regime. Whichever way they turned, the police were
roughly criticized for their action or their inaction, and some succumbed to the pressures.
Plots against the government were seen as rooted within the military and police and, in
truth, some of the men were so involved, either because they believed legitimate
channels for grievances had been closed or for more parochial reasons.255
By 1961, the independent Government was demanding political commitment from the
force and some police officers heeded the call. Later in 1968, Nkrumah clarified the
impetus for this:
…I… had to accept a police force many of whose higher officers were
politically hostile to the new Ghana. They, after all, had been those chosen
for promotion by the colonial regime and they had thus a monopoly of the
specialist training required. Further many of them were corrupt but to obtain
proof of this was a difficult matter. …256
The General Strike of 1961 depicted the situation graphically. In mid-August President
Nkrumah left on a trip to Eastern Europe, appointing a three-man Presidential
Commission to rule in his absence. Two days before his departure, a compulsory savings
scheme was introduced, with five percent of the worker’s wages withheld. Labor, the
backbone of C.P.P. support, was very displeased. The cost of consumer goods was sky
255 Ibid, p. xi to xii. 256 Ibid, p. 189.
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high and now the rank-and-file felt it was being made to pay for the excesses of fancy
living by government bureaucrats. Bomb blasts began in Accra that November. By
December, a strike had begun and as discontent rose, a limited state of emergency was
declared, with both military and police called upon to take a more active role. The army
was to be held in reserve. But for the police there was no hesitancy. Several thousand
men under Commissioner Madjitey searched for the ringleaders of the strike. When few
arrests were immediately forthcoming, the Commissioner and Assistant Commissioner,
Harlley, were chastised by the President. Deputy Commissioner Amaning was personally
put in charge of the intensive man-hunt. Civil liberties were severely abridged, and any
code of decency discarded. In the aftermath, hundreds of figures, large and small, were
jailed by the police.257
It is clear from the above that Nkrumah used the police to shore up his fragile regime and
to keep political opponents at bay, in his bid to establish centralized control over the new
nation-state. He completely mistrusted independent sources of power, and his mistrust for
the police was evident in several of the changes that he introduced. First, he used party
loyalists from the ruling Convention People’s Party (CPP) to infiltrate the ranks of both
the police and the military. Second, he replaced the police on guard duty at Flagstaff
House, the official residence of the president, with Chinese and Russian trained officers.
Third, he established the Special Branch, a specialized unit within the Ghana Police, to
monitor the activities of political opponents. As noted earlier, matters got to a head when
257 Ibid, p. 257-8.
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in 1964, an unsuccessful attempt was made on his life by a police constable. The
president reacted by disarming the police, reducing their size, and sacking the
commissioner of police, nine other senior officers, and detaining eight others.258
In the same year, Nkrumah transformed Ghana into a one-party state and used preventive
detention to detain and imprison his opponents. He moved the country ideologically more
to the left, and the country became a benefactor of Soviet and Chinese military and
economic assistance. Increasingly, his concept of Pan-Africanism and his successful
courting of socialism, alienated the country from the West. Frequently, he used the
somewhat reluctant police to enforce numerous ordinances that curtailed civil rights such
as political assembly and a free and independent press. Several police officers were
expelled from the force for refusing to enforce these ordinances, especially the frequent
dusk-to-dawn curfews that were imposed. The police were confused. They were not sure
if they should allow themselves to be used by the government to suppress democratic
rights of the citizens. Yet they knew their role was to ensure public safety and enforce the
law, what ever it was. Some even considered remaining passive.
Two senior police commissioners, John W. Harlley and Anthony Deku, both trained in
England, were the first to suggest that the president be overthrown. They managed to find
sympathizers in the army. This was the genesis of the police-cum military alliance that
258 John A. Arthur and Otwin Marenin, “British Colonization and the Political Development of the
Police in Ghana, West Africa”, in CHARLES B. FIELDS AND RICHTER H. MOORE, JR,
Comparative Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional Systems of Law and Control,
(Waveland Press, Inc.: Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1996) p. 170-2.
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was to change the political landscape of Ghana. The Ghana police participated
extensively in the planning and execution of the February 1966 coup that overthrew
Nkrumah. This was evident in the composition of the new military government, the
National Liberation Council (NLC). The NLC comprised eights members, four of whom
were senior police officers, including the then Inspector General of police, John Harlley.
Senior ranking members of the police were also made regional and district political
administrators. Thus emerged the police as a broker in political affairs in Ghana,
overseeing the disbanding of the proscribed Convention People’s Party of Nkrumah.259
POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE NKRUMAH ERA
The political tensions of the 1948 riots and the Positive Action of 1950 continued into the
independence era. Only this time, it was between Nkrumah’s party, the C.P.P., and the
opposition parties. Nkrumah used the police to his advantage during this era. In the
circumstances, the basic functions of protecting the political class, ensuring peace and
stability for development and enforcing the “rule of law”, including deportation and
detention orders against political opponents, continued. There was still the standard
excuse that the police was necessary for curbing crime and ensuring social stability. A
wave of burglaries in Kumasi, for example, led to the creation of the Zongo Volunteer
Force, a group of volunteers from the North, which formed a local defense force. They
were illegal but they were useful in aiding the police in their never-ending duties. They
259 Ibid.
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also clashed with the Ashanti based NLM (a key opposition group to Nkrumah’s CPP)
and acted as a semi-vigilante committee, but overall the regular officers winked at such
excesses260
Post-1948, the regular Force, which was still far too militaristic, embarked on intelligence
functions which obviously did not help its standing with the people. The Mobile Force
which was formed after the riots, and used to quell real and imagined riots, meet with the
people’s displeasure so much so that it had to change its name. The complaints against
the police in the pre-independence era were the same as those in the post-independence
era and more. One commentator noted:
A rising crime rate brought in its wake renewed condemnation of the
organization. Further, there were charges of being impolite, using harsh
methods, telling plaintiffs or witnesses to “go and come,” however many
miles they might have traveled, spontaneously altering complaints against
those accused, being quite authoritarian and brooking no opposition, locking
people up in cells and trying to force confessions, jailing people for making
false accusations when they issued complaint, and generally beating,
detaining, and bullying individuals when possible. From the public’s
standpoint, therefore, it was not wise to help the police in tracking down
criminals, nor to go to court and become mixed up with police officers. In the
rural areas the view of the regular police was even worse. A member of the
Legislative Assembly commented in this regard:
The Policemen are a terror in the rural areas. …
The Policemen do not in fact respect the views of the common
people, and in my own constituency, a Policeman…will never
respect whatever views are put before him.261
260 Supra note 247, p. 236 261 Ibid, p. 196
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By late 1957, the year of independence, the Ga organization had joined the United Party
and the Special Branch was calling for Preventive Detention for large numbers.
Independence week itself had seen first the military and then the police called in to quell
disturbances and guard against an armed uprising, with the ringleaders subsequently
receiving three-to seven-year jail sentences for their efforts. Later in the same year two
Members of Parliament were arrested and imprisoned for conspiring with others to
prepare for an insurrection. In December 1958, some forty-three members of the United
Party were arrested under the new legislation on changes of holding secret meetings and
plotting the overthrow of the government. Three months later, all major leaders of the Ga
Shifimo Kpee were behind bars and the movement was in decline. Obviously, antipolice
sentiments did not decline, and the people were now more hostile than before. Relations
between police and public plunged still lower in 1960 when Preventive Detention orders
were issued for some two dozen men who were charged with planning another uprising,
this time to coincide with Togolese independence.262
By 1959, with one plot to overthrow the Government already uncovered, the Special
Branch of the police service became the executors and sometimes also the originators of
imprisonment without due process. Individual policemen were able to act more and more
often on their own, or with District or Regional Commissioners in the rural areas. This
was especially so in late 1962 and 1963 when different sections of the police began
262 Ibid, p. 254-8.
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acting in a semiautonomous manner. There were now criminal, political, and unclassified
detainees. Enforcement authorities included the Special Branch, C.I.D., Uniformed
Branch, and a non-police intelligence unit under Ambrose Yankey, Sr., a close confidant
of the President. And in those years, lifetime detention became a possibility. All of these
variations took place in a worsening political climate with the Special Branch now having
almost carte blanche.263
From the Usher Fort Prison in Accra, there were reports that police practices included
banging on doors in the middle of the night and hauling off those whose names appeared
on some new list, without even allowing the unfortunate persons to dress or say good-bye
to his family, and with the lack of any court procedures to justify the arrests. Police
functions were certainly growing.
A former colleague of Nkrumah, indeed, the one who called him back to Ghana from the
United States to assume post as the General-Secretary of the UGCC, the party from
which Nkrumah broke off to form the CPP, himself in detention, wrote the following to
the Clerk of Parliament:
…As Mr. Wiafe, as an MP, represents anything between 30,000 and 50,000
registered voters of Ghana, three or four times greater than the total number
of 10,000 paid persons in the Ghana Police Service, one had to wait, but wait
in vain, for the particular law under which a police constable or a police
officer could proceed to place a member of our Ghana Parliament in his own
custody for 34 days. The only law in Ghana on the subject being one which
263 Ibid, p. 262.
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allowed the Police to arrest a citizen (but not an M.P.) for a suspected offence
and keep him in his own custody for 24 hours (not 24 days), taking him, as
soon as might be possible within that period before a Magistrate for an order
as to custody or bail. It is in fact the statutory position in Ghana that in the
case of an M.P., no arrest is to be effected without specific permission of the
Speaker, the reason being that an M.P. is not just an individual but the elected
representative of a sovereign constituency entitled to the requisite immunities
which Ghana and other civilized nations accord to all ambassadors or
representatives. But perhaps our country is in such a sad condition our police
are not aware of this fundamental guarantee without which no representative
democracy can claim to have legs, not to talk of possessing a thinking brain.
…Sir, You are in a position to appreciate that the contemplation of the
possibility of 10,000 officers and men of the Ghana Police Service being let
loose on 104 elected representatives of the people, plus 10 (ten) appointed
women members, a total of 114 M.P.s (about 87 Police to each M.P.), does
not make it easy for any Ghanaian to be sure that Parliamentary seats are
what they are under the law.
…According to current practice any Policeman, or any number of Policemen,
could at any time, and, in particular, in the middle of the night, surround an
M.P.’s house and, without the Speaker’s Warrant, take the M.P. to a Police
Station, lock him or her up in a Police cell, and not tell any judicial authority
or Court about it, but keep him or her there for as long as 34 days at his
Police Pleasure. Has Ghana then, under her new dispensation, her hard-worn
freedom, been sentenced to Police servitude for life? Where the laws of a
country passed by the democratic Parliament of the people (“one man, one
Vote”), come to be treated so easily with utter contempt by the executive arm
of the law, that country has ceased to be classified by civilized people as
Democratic and has become a Police State or a savage country.264
At the time of independence, Ghana had two types of forces: the “modern” Gold Coast
Police Force, which was divided into General and Escort Police, and the “traditional”,
local-authority forces.265 The story of the native authority police during this period was
264 Excerpts from a Statement Dr. Danquah Wrote To the Clerk of the National Assembly from
Ussher Fort Prison on April 30, 1962. The excerpt begins with Danquah referring to the case of a
Member of Parliament, W.A. Wiafe, CPP, who had told him he had then been in jail for 34 days
without any justification for his interment being given. Dr. J.B.Danquah, Detention and Death in
Nsawam Prison, pp. 93-94, quoted in Kranzdorf, supra note 247, p. 455-6. 265 Supra note 258, p.169.
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no different. A national commission in the late 1940’s had recommended against the
retention of any such force. Shortly thereafter, Colonel Young touched on this subject in
his overall assessment of the police in the Gold Coast in 1951, also recommending that
the Native Authority Police be assimilated into the Escort Police branch. Instead, a
compromise was reached in 1952-53 when the central government set down some
guidelines for these men, putting them under a Local Government Ordinance.266 The
inhabitants of rural areas continued to view local policemen with fear and scorn until
their final absorption into the regular Force in 1962.
Control over local-authority forces had rested with local leaders whose interests were
often at odds with those of the independence leadership and, later, post-independence
governments. Although in 1953, local-authority forces were brought under the
supervision of the central government, operational control remained with the chiefs.
Their functions were “to maintain and safeguard the public order and the safety of
persons and property within the administrative area; to execute the process issuing of
local courts; [and] to assist the Ghana Police Service in the execution of their duties”.
Bringing these forces under local government control did little to improve their habits.
They now served local government “with the same disregard for the law as they had
exhibited in the old days when they were under chiefly control”267
266 Ibid, p. 169-70. 267 Ibid, p. 169.
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The forces existed until 1963 when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, the president of the country,
acted upon the recommendation of a committee of inquiry into abuses of power during
elections preceding political independence and ordered that the local forces be abolished.
Local forces did not only brutalize the citizenry. They had become a hindrance to
effective policing and also posed political problems to the president, since they continued
to be controlled by local governments, many of which were in opposition to the
president’s policies. Members of the local forces who met certain educational and
training criteria were absorbed into the Ghana Police Force.268
In sum, the police role in intelligence operations and the enforcement of deportation and
detention edicts, reinforced public fears, and almost collapsed police-civil relations The
situation at this time was the same as it was in 1951. Colonel Young who investigated the
police force in that year complained in his report that “it is difficult for the public to
esteem the police as a public service when they realize that it can so easily be turned into
a military force.…”269 The Colonel pointed out that the police had started out as an
occupational, paramilitary force and had continued as an internal backer of civil
authority, a stance which had to change. As we have seen, it did not change in the
immediate post independence era. The coup of February 1966 terminated the Nkrumah
regime, but no assurance could be given that the difficulties from which the police
268 Ibid, p. 169-70. 269 COLONIAL A.E YOUNG, A report upon the Gold Coast Police (Accra: Government printer,
1951).
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suffered were also at an end. I shall now examine whether or not the police changed in
the period after that.
THE PERIOD OF POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY, 1966 TO 1981
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME
This period was the severest in terms of political and economic depression. In the
difficult post-independence period, the indigenous elite and the overseas scholar,
disillusioned with the concept of the political party as the institution to promote rapid
beneficial change, turned their hopes in another direction-the men on horseback and those
in patrol wagons and their ability to intervene and to rule.270
In Ghana, at least, the first generation of post-independence military and police leaders
faced several leadership problems. There was the wave of independence of several
African countries in the late sixties and seventies, and the continuing struggles for
independence by several other such states, with the attendant crisis and their calls for
support from their brethren on the continent. And there was the global economic
downturn of the 1970s and the cold war. Added to all this was the temporary nature of the
military (and police) regimes. All of them took over power with a proclaimed aim of
cleaning up and returning the country to constitutional democratic rule. They were thus
270 Supra note 247, p. 3.
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from the very start, temporary regimes. Again, the ethnic, class and political divisions
they inherited did not just go away and were not responsive to the quick fixes the men on
horseback and patrol wagons imagined would do the trick. Neither did corruption. In fact,
in 1974, the “Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Bribery and Corruption”
called the phenomenon an “endemic canker”271, and listed the police as the most corrupt
institution in the eyes of the public.
THE POLICE FORCE IN THIS ERA272
The direct involvement of the police in Ghana’s political administration after Nkrumah
led to the revamping of the police institution. Its size and resources increased
dramatically. Over three years, from 1965 to 1968, the size of the force almost doubled,
from 10,709 to 19,895.
Ghana also invited the United States to supply assistance to Ghana under the Office of
Public Safety Program (OPS), which had been established in November 1962 to help
271 See pages iii and 103 of the report. 272 Most of the material from this section is taken from: United States, Department of State, Ghana
Police Assessment: Summary of Findings, Conclusions, Recommendations and Equipment
Specifications-Sept. 12- Oct. 23, 1968, Reviewed and Declassified by John Weiss, OPS, February
24, 1975.; United States, Department of State, “Termination Phase-Out Study: Public Safety
Project Ghana (Agency for International Development, Washington D.C., March 1974): Otwin
Marenin, “United States’ Aid to African Police Forces: The Experience and Impact of the Public
Safety Assistance Programme”, African Affairs, vol. 85, no. 341 (October 1986) p. 509.; John A.
Arthur and Otwin Marenin, “British Colonization and the Political Development of the Police in
Ghana, West Africa”, in CHARLES B. FIELDS AND RICHTER H. MOORE, JR, Comparative
Criminal Justice: Traditional and Nontraditional Systems of Law and Control, (Waveland Press,
Inc.: Prospect Heights, Illinois, 1996).
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train and equip the police forces of developing countries. I will analyze the OPS program
in some detail since it was one of the most important aspects of Ghanaian policing during
this time.
The Office of Public Safety was created in the United States during the Kennedy years
when concerns about insurgency movements and guerrilla wars reached new heights.
Kennedy, after noting the fall of Cuba to Castro and Che Guevera’s peregrinations in
Latin America and Africa, the chaos in the Belgian Congo and the defeat of the French in
Indochina, decided to look for ways to deal with such threats. Neither direct military aid
or intervention, nor secret and frequently illegal assistance passed through CIA operatives
were favored. The Kennedy government decided on a middle ground-assistance to police
forces.273 There was another reason for the choice of the police. The advisory group
which Kennedy had set up to study how best to determine internal security needs and
design programs to deal with them, had decided that ‘the chief role of police assistance
programmes is to counter Communist emphasis on subversive aggression. Indeed the
police constitute the first frontline of defense and are the ones on whom the greatest
burden falls in the pre-insurrectionary stage’274.
There were three types of assistance programs under OPS: training for middle and upper
level police officers in the USA (either at the International Police Academy (IPA) or by
273 Otwin Marenin, “United States’ Aid to African Police Forces: The Experience and Impact of
the Public Safety Assistance Programme”, African Affairs, vol. 85, no. 341 (October 1986) p. 516. 274 Cited in Lobe, U.S. Police Assistance, p. 52, and quoted in Marenin, Ibid, p. 516.
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contract with other federal government agencies, local police departments, private firms
and universities); commodity assistance in transportation, communications, arms and
ammunition, and miscellaneous items such as books, educational equipment and
uniforms (but excluding certain items such as automatic rifles, electrified batons and
sickening gas which were prohibited); resource persons from the United States, usually in
the form of two-and-three-men evaluation teams sent to assess the state and needs of
public safety and police forces in countries which requested assistance, or advisors and
liaison officers to supervise and train home-country police officers in the proper
utilization and maintenance of the equipment which had been supplied or to advise on
general principles of police administration or the organization of specific tasks, records
management, investigation, riot control.275
The overall official impetus for spending United States dollars on these countries was
this: without stability and order, that is an effective police force, “efforts to promote
political and economic developments”, democratic norms and the legitimacy of
governments were likely to fail. A legitimating order, it was argued, is best provided by a
police force, which “protects people and their property”, deals with them politely, helps
them in times of emergency, “abides by the rule of law” and “uses violence as a last
resort”. This legitimizes the prevailing order. Such a police force will “reduce unrest”,
lead to “fewer riots” and “lessen the chance that malcontents can stir up and organize
275 Supra note 273, p. 514.
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subversion or insurrection.276 Police aid also aimed at establishing effective, humane and
civil police institutions. These reasons and the words in quotations are very very familiar
from our analysis of the colonial and immediate post-independence police force. Also
familiar are the seemingly conflicting goals of the police assistance program: on the one
hand, a para-military force for suppression, repression and counter-insurgency; on the
other, effective institution building of a humane and civil force:
One perspective stressed an armed, militarized, secretive, non-uniformed and
intrusive police which could act as a fighting unit when necessary; the other
perspective led to a less well armed, dispersed, visible, accessible and
service-oriented force which interacts freely and gently with its community.
This conflict over basic goals was never resolved.277
The quandary was reflected at the very top of officialdom in the United States. Testifying
before Congress in 1964, Daniel E. Bell, then administrator for AID, stated these
objectives of public safety assistance:
1. strengthening the capability of civil and para-military forces to enforce the
law and maintain pubic order with the minimum of physical force, and to
counter Communist-inspired or exploited subversion and insurgency; and
2. encouraging the development of responsible and humane police
administration and judicial procedure to improve the effectiveness of civil
and para-military forces and enable them to become more closely integrated
into the community.278
276 Ibid p. 517. 277 Ibid. 278 Ibid.
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OPS aid to Africa exhibited the conflicts over goals and objectives and resulting program
mix which characterized the venture as a whole. Africa being peripheral to US concerns,
OPS aid was limited indeed. The vast influx of advisors, equipment and associated
military assistance, which occurred in South East Asia, and to a lesser extent, in Latin
America, simply did not happen in Africa. In Zaire, the country that received more OPS
assistance than any other sub-Saharan country, aid amounted to about $600,000 annually
between 1964-1974, with about forty per cent spent on salaries for US advisors. Only five
countries received over one million dollars in aid and by 1973 only four OPS programs
were still in place- in Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia and Zaire. And even then, an internal OPS
study, conducted in 1973, found that the global OPS program had generated private sales
of $32,470,915, of which $6,996,219 was equipment sold to Ghana, Liberia and Zaire.279
Aid to Africa included all three components: participant training, commodity assistance
and US advisors. Another difference between OPS in Africa and in other parts of the
world was a lesser emphasis placed on counter-insurgency. The main thrust of OPS aid to
Africa sought to create effective civil police institutions by promoting “the development
of leadership, organization and administration; training systems; transportation and
communication systems and the training of technicians to operate and maintain such
systems; urban, rural and border patrol operations; and humane civil disturbance control
279 Ibid, p. 522.
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capability”. Of course, increased efficiency in transportation, communications,
management and disturbance control can have counter-insurgency applications.280
OPS had little positive impact. The large presence of OPS in Ghana, Ethiopia, Somalia,
and Zaire did not help improve the performance or image of the police. OPS was doomed
to fail in its police civilizing mission even before it started. The small size of the
program and the conflicting and uncertain goals of the venture have already been noted.
There was also an over-estimation of the capacity of outsiders to affect local
implementation of the program. Other reasons were political naivety and the basic
autonomy of politics.
A few foreign police advisers stationed in a country for a short period of time could really
to nothing to change the police of that country. Commodity assistance helped set up
specific programs which probably worked for some time but then fell into disuse when
spare-parts and training were in short supply. Training of police officers of beneficiary
states abroad could have made the largest impact, since there was a concentration on
middle and higher level officers, but this suffered from superficiality in teaching, too
much anti-Communist rhetoric and only had a sight-seeing effect. Foreign officers were
glad to be selected and sent to the United States and not because they would be taught
how to be good police officers and train their junior ranks when they got back.
280 Ibid p. 516-518.
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Secondly, it was not easy to have the two antagonistic goals of building a para-military
counter-insurgency force for easy deployment to crush rebellion and breaches of the
peace, and a humane civil police running simultaneously. These competing perspectives
led to clashes among bureaucracies and personnel in Washington and host countries over
the extent, distribution and format of OPS aid. The State Department and embassies in
host countries were on both sides of this conflict as personnel and views shifted. OPS
programs were consistently caught up in bureaucratic struggles over whether they were
being too military or not military enough.
A third reason why OPS failed was the overestimation of its capacity to make a
difference and the underestimation of obstacles to successful implementation and impact.
One obstacle arose simply from the continuity of policing practices. Police forces were
ongoing concerns when aid reached them; they had established routines, an ethos and
culture of policing which was not easily changed as it reflected long-standing local
adaptations by the police to their environment, the requirements of the work and their
won interests. OPS helped change organizational structures, modernize equipment, and
establish training programs, but did nothing to change the most important factor in police
reform efforts-police culture, their ways and justifications for doing things one way and
not another. Again, the police officers in aid recipient states with whom advisors dealt, as
counterparts or in teaching, were powerful officials at the national level who often came
from the educated elite, had high status, and had participated in and were intimately
familiar with national politics. To them, foreign advisors often appeared as uncivilized
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boors who possessed some specific practical knowledge, and were useful for that, but
with whom one would not otherwise associate. It is hard to be effective when the people
one deals with do not think much of you. There was also a lot of political naivety on the
part of police advisers. They had a circumscribed notion of the political role of the police
and had no experience of national politics. Nor did they appreciate the importance and
high political stakes attached by political leaders to controlling the police. Personal
relations, naivety, and contrasting environments limited the capacity of the foreign
advisers to implement their vision of change.
The fourth reason for the failure of the OPS program in Africa was the inapplicability of
the professional model of policing promoted by advisors and taught during training of
African policemen abroad. OPS tried to develop in aid recipient states, the professional
model of policing that replaced the corrupt and inept politicized machine police in the
United States. Proven practices in the United States, e.g. centralized and hierarchic
administrative arrangements, were offered and taught as if their universal validity were
established and obvious. Yet, professional policing needs a supportive environment, in
the mind set of a police force interested in promoting public order, in the capacity of the
police to oppose partisan and other sectarian demands, in organizational cultures, in
political processes and the like. And these were absent in the police forces in Africa
because they were established for very different purposes. Making policing more
effective and efficient without such supportive environments merely enhanced the
efficiency and effectiveness of what the police was doing before OPS.
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The fifth reason, political naivety by OPS strategists and implementers, is very well
captured by Marenin thus:
Both the counter-insurgency and the institution-building model of police
assistance rest on distorted perceptions of the political process in Third
World countries. Counter-insurgency thinking rests on the simplistic
assumption that no internal shove against the ruling government would exist
without external push, that insurgencies and unrest arise more from external
interference than internal causes. The institution building focus rests on the
false assumption that the police can be neutral agents of the law and thereby
help reproduce the legitimacy of governments, an assumption also central to
the professional model. Clearly the police cannot be non-political even when
they enforce existing law fairly and civilly, nor are they perceived by people
they deal with as neutral. Both misperceptions-all politics is subversive and
all policing is non-political—enhanced the powers of local police and
politicians who could use either justification to argue for their preferred
policies, and the resources to make them effective.281
The last and most important reason why OPS had little impact can be found in the politics
of the receiving countries. In these states, decisions as important as policing are very
political. Despite the strings attached to OPS aid, how it was utilized and the effects it
had, were determined largely by the actions of recipients who had different priorities than
United States donors. This was all the more possible because of the naivety of the donor
discussed in the previous paragraph. With the political stakes of controlling the nature
and functions of the police very high, OPS planners and advisors lost out and the aid they
delivered served the interests of the powerful in countries receiving aid. Aid was used by
281 Ibid, p. 543.
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the elite in these countries to protect themselves at all cost, whilst making repression
more effective. Because OPS in Africa neglected to deal explicitly with the political
functions of policing in African states, the basic autonomy of local politics ensured that
aid was channeled towards projects and goals which were not those of donors, but those
of an elite that was interested in protecting themselves and their property, ensuring peace
and security for economic exploitation, and enforcing a particular type of rule of law that
worked to their benefit.282 As agents of post-modern colonialism, the local elite were
indirectly serving their masters. We will now turn to how OPS fared in Ghana.
Before the start of the program, a study mission sent to Ghana in 1968 concluded that the
“Ghana Police Force has not yet completely emerged from the trauma of the Nkrumah
regime.” The communications, transport, and criminalistic resources of the Ghana Police
were found to be virtually nonexistent. The mission observed “no research and planning
element” nor statistical documentation for the work of the police. But, “paradoxically, the
police officers and men are most impressive; they fully understand the scopes of their
responsibilities and are cognizant of the many internal security problems facing the police
today in their emerging society”.283
282 Ibid, p. 511-44, especially 540-4. 283 United States, Department of State, Ghana Police Assessment: Summary of Findings,
Conclusions, Recommendations and Equipment Specifications-Sept. 12- Oct. 23, 1968, Reviewed
and Declassified by John Weiss, OPS, February 24, 1975.; United States, Department of State,
“Termination Phase-Out Study: Public Safety Project Ghana (Agency for International
Development, Washington D.C., March 1974.
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The study mission recommended that the necessary communications and transportation
facilities, coupled with the training of specialists, be implemented. Based upon the
recommendations of the mission, the United States government started to provided
resources and guidance to the Ghana Police in key areas such as police management,
records managements, and training. A number of officers also attended the International
Police Academy in Washington, D.C. Equipment was also provided.
In 1973, an evaluation team found that a lot of the equipment supplied by the United
States had not been effectively utilized or maintained. The team also noted that the
internal regulations of the police did not recognize or reward specialized training, and
promotion based on professional merit had not yet permeated the Service; promotion
being based on arduous examinations in British law as adapted to Ghana.284
The OPS program was not very successful in reforming the police and making it more
effective. The global failure of the program discussed in this section hold true for Ghana.
Specifically, it was “charged with the following transgressions”:
…that OPS advisors worked hand in hand with secret intelligence agencies
and frequently were but frontmen for the CIA; that OPS programmes assisted
repressive and reactionary regimes and helped them stay in power (more
specifically, that OPS programmes helped set up national intelligence
systems, trained riot and secret police forces, and propagated a Cold War
view which identified any progressive group in society as subversive and
communist elements which deserved repression and extinction); that OPS
was designed to maintain the exiting imperialist and exploitative international
284 Supra note 273, p. 172-3.
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system by shoring up friendly governments and protecting US investments
and personnel; and that OPS advisors helped train police forces (or actually
participated in inhumane and barbaric practices, torture and killings). 285
One commentator has noted that the growth of police assistance programs is linked to
crisis conditions in the world system, particularly the decline of hegemony experienced
by the dominant power, the United States. As a consequence, exporting good policing:
“becomes necessary as crises undermine the legitimacy of peripheral elites
and states, as economic rewards are inadequate or unavailable and as ‘legal
and other ideological concepts and constraints may be insufficient to
maintain this order’ and ward off dissent and pacify the exploited. The
incorporation of peripheries into the system and the participation of local
allied classes in the exploitation of their people must be supported by force as
the social and economic consequences of incorporation increasingly disrupt
the lives, hopes and futures of people.286
Another commentator notes the following:
Political repression in the periphery is a logical extension of colonial
repression in a new and more sophisticated form…Direct repression is still
required to insure the integration of the dependent state into the imperial
system. The metropolis finds it necessary to guarantee the creation of the
formal machinery of public administration and the economic infrastructure
and the suppression of internal dissent by efficient military, police and
intelligence networks. Economic loans and aid accompanied by military and
counterinsurgency aid and the training of police, intelligence and armed
forces are the foremost means to achieve these goals. The creation of such a
system in the periphery is absolutely essential…. The creation and
285 Ibid, p. 511. 286 Ibid.
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perpetration of puppet regimes that repress their people is, then, the last
alternative for international capital in the periphery.
Marenin has tried to tame the debate on the value of OPS in this way:
Much of the critique and the defense of police assistance is based more on
ideological preferences than systematic and empirical analysis of
international police assistance programmes. Both defense and critique have
been extremely selective in choosing reasons and episodes to defend or attack
international assistance; both have been based on extremely simplified
images of the police at work; and both radical critics and defenders of police
aid seem to accept the rhetoric of police assistance programmes as accurate
descriptions of the motives, implementation and impacts of assistance and
neither seem to know much about the police.
My main argument is this. OPS programmes failed to achieve their goals or
make any significant beneficial or harmful impact on police forces in African
states largely because goals for OPS programmes were continuously
reconstituted in the process of implementation (implementation necessarily
distorts rhetoric and policy goals), because conceptions and practices of
‘good’ policing are not easily transferred and, most importantly, because the
people charged with implementing specific programmes were politically
naïve. They did not understand the political realities of countries which they
assisted and in which the police forces they aided worked. In short, both
critics and defenders of police aid understate the constraints and exaggerate
the impact of international police assistance.287
Even if we accept Marenin’s synthesis, one thing remains clear. There was not very much
impact by OPS on the police. This means that the post-independence police, itself a
replica of the colonial police in its orientation and functions, remained basically the same
during this period, but with one important addition. It was now equipped under the OPS
287 Ibid, p. 152-3.
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program to do what it was first established to do, and even better. We shall now turn to
how the police used OPS assistance during this period to brutalize the citizenry to various
political, economic and “rule of law” ends.
POLICE BRUTALITY AND CORRUPTION IN THE PERIOD OF
POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC DOWNTURN
It is said that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is true for the
police in Ghana in this period. By getting close to government during this period, the
police gained political power. The training and other resources they received under OPS
were another source of power. The police became more corrupt than ever and used the
new resources to brutalize the citizenry.
During the period under review, the police became the king of dash “whether he worked
in the licensing office, on the roads, near the borders, or along the coast. Even at the
Police Depot there was a widespread belief among public and recruit alike that unless a
potential member of the Force gave a bribe he would not be accepted.” 288 The police
soon gained notoriety as the most corrupt institution in the country. A former Deputy
Police Commissioner, John Coles, suggests the basis for this legacy of bribery among the
Gold Coast/Ghana Police.
288 Supra note 247, p. 196
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Bribery and corruption must be understood in the climate of opinion and
traditional feelings in the country. The dash (i.e., gift) system goes back to
the time of the Portuguese explorers and before. In the days of the silent
trade, a system by which the trading ships put goods on shore under
observation of Africans and then came back later to pick up an equivalent
amount of local goods which had been left, such dash was already well
established. By Akan tradition, one brought a customary present when
visiting an important figure. The gift, however, was not intended to influence
judgment being of negligible financial value, but rather out of courtesy and
supplication.
The Portuguese would bring gifts to show they wanted new or more
extensive contact with a particular coastal group. But they had an imperfect
idea of the custom and brought gifts which were acceptable in their terms.
The chiefs safeguarded themselves from such contacts by creating
ambassadors and linguists who acted as go-betweens though the Portuguese
did not realize this. These go-betweens of course liked the practice and
perverted its original purpose, since it was lucrative for them to do so. Thus
the gift as the basis for bribery and corruption was initiated.
Since the practice had some respectability, the more blatant forms did not
attract the same perfidium as would otherwise be the case. Expatriate police
tried to decide each individual case on its merits, determining whether the
gift was within traditional behavior patterns or was meant to influence. In
other words, what was the gift’s value? To refuse all gifts would have given
utmost offense. …
Certain government departments were notorious for the dash system, for
instance the medical department in hospitals and dispensaries where the
nurses charged for pills, drinking water and injections. On a petty level
within the police, bribery and corruption was impossible to suppress in its
entirety. The most one could do was lay down the machinery and framework
for detecting excesses and swiftly investigating all complaints. …what
remained after all this was still a good deal of gift-giving but with a general
struggle to make sure it remained within tolerable limits. But since such gifts
were not alien to indigenous tradition, it was incredibly difficult to get rid of.
Of course the descending of an extended family upon an African policeman,
thus increasing the overall demands upon him, didn’t help the situation.289
289 Ibid, p. 423-4.
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On this latter point, J.A Braimah, an opposition Member of Parliament, argued in the
early 1960’s that:
We must…recognize the fact that as members of the community, in common
with all other civil servants, members of the Police Force have friends and
relations in all walks of life…….290
At another level, the police remained as brutal as they were since they were created. True,
a public relations bureau was established in 1969291 and in 1976 the “Police Week” was
introduced so that policemen might have the opportunity to rethink their role in society
and “the public educated about what they could do to help the police help society to live
in peace and tranquility”292. But there was obviously no opportunity for the public to
educate the police on what the police could do to help the public-it was a one way street.
The consuming public had to remain docile recipients of the largesse of the strong and
mighty police. From this perspective, the introduction of the public relations bureau and
the police week were sophisticated ploys to salve the wounds of a public that was
thoroughly displeased with the police. These ploys could be dramatic indeed. The police
band “entertained the public from time to time free of charge” and this was meant to
“merit the goodwill of the public”293. And from the late 1970s’ virtually every police
station has a notice with the following seductive message to the public:
“Every caller at this Station is a potential ally. He will describe his treatment
to his friend, thus the fabric of public opinion is woven. The Police can only
290 Ibid, p.62. 291 J.B. POKOO-AIKINS, The Police in Ghana 1939-1999 (J.B. Pokoo-Aikins, 2002) p. 55. 292 Ibid, p. 57. 293 Ibid, p. 58.
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function properly and effectively with the accord and goodwill of the public.
Let us therefore merit this goodwill”294.
It is not only that these posters do not seem in the most part to have been changed for
fresher notices so that they are weathered, worn and torn, the atmosphere at the Police
Stations and the treatment citizens generally receive there make a mockery of the notice.
Some police stations have allowed the notice to wither away and have been honest
enough not to replace them.
During this period, police training still concentrated on practical police training in
weapon handling, map reading and law related courses such as Criminal Law, Criminal
Procedure, and Law of Evidence295. It was only in the 1980s that the curriculum of the
officer class of the Force was changed to include liberal arts subjects such as Psychology,
Sociology, Community Relations, and Management.296 In 1971, a key recommendation
of the Boyes Report was the reduction in the arms training component of police training
in order to moderate the militaristic aspects of the training.297 As late as 2001298
commentators were still calling for human rights training for the police to ensure that the
“tough cop culture” developed in the Service over the decades would be changed.
294 Ibid. 295 Ibid, p. 89. 296 Ibid, 92. 297 A Report on the Ghana Police Service, December 1971 referenced in EMMANUEL KWESI
ANING, post, note 59 p. 7, 24-25. 298 EMMANUEL KWESI ANING, An Overview of the Ghana Police Service (Paper prepared for
the African Security Dialogue and Research, October 2001), (Unpublished, on file with author) p.
42
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The police used their type of training effectively. In 1970 the Police Striking Force was
formed as a “special unit to fight crimes and to quell riots, conflicts and other civil
disorders which tended to slow down the socio-economic development of the country”299.
And on the softer side, a police research unit, set up in 1976 to look into matters
adversely affecting the police, and make relevant recommendations, disbanded in
1980300. Only tough things survived during this period. The Acheampong regime (1972-
1978), attempted to establish a Union Government (UNIGOV) that would have a
military, police and civilian triumvirate to rule the country. The effort to retain the direct
involvement of the security agencies in political administration aroused much resentment
among the civilian population that saw the proposal as a ploy to legitimize and perpetuate
military and police rule. Workers and student groups organized demonstrations and
boycotts against the UNIGOV scheme. To settle the crisis and escape the political
quagmire, the regime scheduled a referendum and immediately a Movement for Freedom
and Justice was formed to mobilize opposition against a “yes” vote. The Association of
Professional Bodies (an amalgam of several professional organizations) and the National
Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) were particularly vociferous in their opposition to
UNIGOV and waged a relentless campaign to defeat it.301 The police were used to silence
all these dissidents.
The panthers units formed in 1980 was tasked to hunt down hardened criminals engaging
299 Supra note 291, p. 73. 300 Ibid, p. 74. 301 BAFFOUR AGYEMAN-DUAH, Civil-Military Relations in Ghana’s Fourth Republic, Critical
Perspectives No. 9 (Ghana Center for Democratic Development, CDD-Ghana, June 2002). p. 4.
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in armed robbery and homicide, clamp down dissidents and anti-government elements
and combat riots, civil conflicts, chieftaincy disputes and land disputes. In 1984 a
“Commando Unit” derived from the Panthers Unit. It consisted of men from the unit who
were specially trained to combat crime, civil disorder and government dissidents or anti-
government activities302. It is difficult indeed to see any difference between the police
force of this era and the colonial police force that was used to quell the 1948 riots and the
contain the civil disorder in the years preceding independence, or the police of the
Nkrumah era.
Before we turn to the period after political and economic decline, it is essential to narrate
certain critical developments in the history of the police force at the end of the period of
decline. In 1981 the military coup led by President Rawlings brought a “revolutionary”
military government into power. It established populist institutions at all levels of
government to defend the revolution and the government. Populist tribunals were set up
alongside the regular courts and Revolutionary Defense Committees were created to
assume the “function of protecting the poorest strata of the population” and to help
enforce the “observance of revolutionary law”.303 For about six years, these committees
became involved in all economic, political and law-and-order policies at the local levels.
Their activities severely subordinated the regular police and delegitimized them to an
extent. When the defense committees were disbanded in about 1988, the police had to fill
in the void. When, in 1997, the Rawlings regime set up a high level commission to
302 Supra note 291, p. 74-5. 303 Supra note 258, p. 173.
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inquire into the affairs of the police and make recommendations for its reform, it was
conceding the incapacity of the police to perform the revolutionary and populist functions
that the Revolutionary Defense Committees were meant to perform.
SAMPLE EVIDENCE OF THE YEARS OF POLITICAL
AND ECONOMIC DECLINE IN THE POLICE FORCE
That the years under review in this section are really the years of political, economic and
social decline can be illustrated by looking at women in the police force. During this
period of decline, very little, if anything was done by way of developing the status and
career prospects of women in the force. In my estimation, this is the greatest evidence of
the years of decline.
The story of women in the police force not only depicts the enduring institutional form of
the police, post-independence. It also shows the periods of progression and retrogression
in the force. A June 1952 Memorandum by the Commissioner of Police on the present
role and statutory functions of the Ghana police force, its organization and distribution of
the force, staffing, training and equipment was very gender insensitive.304
On 1st September 1952, however, 12 Women Police Recruits were enlisted from about 70
304 In Emmanuel Kwesi Aning, supra note 298, p 11. The document was: Memorandum by the
Commissioner of Police on The Present Role and Statutory Functions of the Ghana Police Force,
Its Organisation and Distribution of the Force, Staffing, Training and Equipment. (Accra, June
1952) Para. 2 (Unpublished).
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applicants. Women Police recruitments, by way of comparison, started in Kenya in
1944305 and in Barbados in 1950.306 Like their counterparts in Mauritius who were
assigned clerical duties 307 and perhaps in other colonies, they were assigned to cases of
“juvenile delinquency, female criminals, searching of females, taking care of people at
the Zebra Crossing, as well as performing Station Orderly duties.”308. When the branch
“was increased by 12 constables during…[1954] and now [consisted] of three non-
commissioned officers and 21 constables”, “they continued to be employed on duties in
connection with juvenile delinquency and offences committed by women.”309 “In recent
years female Police have additional responsibility of taking charge of missing children
until their parents are located.”310
The Police Squad Notes used to train Policemen and women has the following in its page
7:
“UNIFORM BRANCH- WOMEN:- They may perform station duties like
station Orderlies, Telephone Operators, Clerical duties, search and Escort of
female prisoners. They are chiefly employed in dealing with women…and
juvenile delinquency.”
It is intriguing that women in the force were always classified as a branch, as in
305 Sir Charles Jeffries, The Colonial Police, (Max Parrish, London, 1952) p. 104. 306 Ibid, p. 62. 307 Ibid, p.143. 308 Supra note 291, p.58 and Police Squad Notes, p. 2. See also EMMANUEL KWESI ANING,
supra note 298, p. 11. 309 Colonial Reports, Gold Coast 1954 (London, Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1956), p. 95. 310 Supra note 291, p. 61
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Jamaica311 and perhaps in other colonies, on its own with very specific and very limited
powers and duties, which mostly related to dealing with their womenfolk and children
and other, almost menial tasks. According to the Squad Notes, the “Force Orders”, which
are weekly publications compiled in the office of the Inspector-General of Police dealing
with items of news from all the Police Regions respecting administrative matters, has a
separate section on “Women Police”312. There appears to be no justification for this
because in Singapore women police “formed part of the regular force” and were “found a
great success”, 313 and by 1950, Hong Kong had a woman Police Inspector.314
The first female recruits to the Ghana police had only 3 months of training because of
“the pressing need for policewomen at that time”.315 Both the Criminal Procedure
Code316 and the Police Standing Orders No. 171 (3) provide that no female prisoner shall
be searched except by a female. “In the light of this, the Women Police Branch was given
prominence to ensure that the requirements of this enactment were fully adhered to.”317
The post independence Police Five-Year Development Plan (which was part and parcel
of the Government’s Second Five-Year Development Plan) included a program to
“Increase the strength of the Women Police Section which was only 36 strong in order to
311 Supra note 305, p. 67. 312 Ghana Police Squad Notes, p. 9. 313 Supra note 305, p. 82. 314 Ibid, p. 86. 315 Supra note 291, p. 58 316 Criminal Procedure Code, 1960, (Act 30). 317 Supra note 291, p. 60
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take more effective measures to combat juvenile crimes and delinquencies”. 318
The idea of engaging women to prosecute at the Magistrate and Circuit Courts was
hatched in the late 1960s and implemented soon after.319 It is abundantly clear that there
was a scheme for keeping women out of what was then considered main stream police
functions.
Only in 1991 were women engaged as dispatch riders and in “routine duties including
highway patrols, dispatching and escorting”.320 By 1999, out of a total of 16,212 police
personnel, only 12.5% were women. And women were still considered a distinct
“Branch” of the police.321
A male police officer observed in 1999, that policewomen are treated equally with their
male counterparts as far as salaries, allowances and other remuneration are concerned.
“However, in practice, and not as a matter of policy, women in the Service were scarcely
considered for the post of District, Divisional and Regional Police Commanders as well
as International Peace-Keeping Operations.”322 Such forms of discrimination were not
new. In 1968, policewomen who were married to senior police officers were asked to
resign from the service. The general contention was that the policewomen refused to take
318 Ibid, p.19. 319 Ibid, p 58-9. 320 Ibid, p.61. 321 Ibid, p 47. 322 Ibid, p.60.
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instructions from other Senior Officers.323
This story is a good example of how the recruitment of women into the police force
became a receptive avenue for new outlays of culture and patriarchy. There was at first a
complete exclusion of women from the force and when they had to be brought in there
was strategic non-incorporation of women into mainstream policing. All except the
limited and specific aspects of police work for which women were needed, plus a few
other more menial police tasks, were insulated from female participation for a long time.
To date, women police officers do not have the opportunity to perform all the tasks their
male counterparts are assigned. This is how female participation in policing acquired and
retained the character of tokenism and restriction to particular functions.
Another key point that should be noted is this. During the years of decline, there were
practically no positive steps taken towards addressing the gender issue in the police force
beyond those taken before that time. This is some evidence of the stagnation that
occurred in the police force during that time. It was only in the late 1990s that there was a
renewed interest in the women police with the establishment of the Women’s and
Juvenile’s Unit of the police force, (WAJU) on October 26, 1998. Sadly, this
development shows the historical continuity of the separate treatment of women and the
limited functions of women in the police force.
323 Ibid.
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THE RAWLINGS ERA AND THE PERIOD OF THE ERP, SAPs, AND CONSTITUTIONAL RULE-1982 TO 2000
THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE TIME
Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings became Head of State in 1979 following a military coup
d’etat. He handed over power to a civilian democratically elected Head of State who was
installed with the coming into force of the 1979 third Republican Constitution. On 31st
December 1981, Rawlings overthrew the government he handed over to in another coup
d’etat and became Head of State again till 1993, when the fourth Republican Constitution
came into force following elections. Rawlings became President under this constitution
and ruled from 1993 to 1997. He was reelected for a second and final term that ended in
2001. The main opposition party during the Rawlings era won the elections of 2000 and
was installed in 2001. The term of that government ends on the 6th of January, 2005.
The Economic Recovery Programmme (ERP) and Structural Adjustment Programme
(SAP) that were initiated by the Rawlings government from the mid-1980s, under the
tutelage of the World Bank and the IMF have basically been continued to date, if even
under different names and with minor substantive changes.
The second Rawlings military regime took over the reins of government on 31st
December 1981. They inherited a weak economy that had been so for many many years,
thanks to the period of global economic decline. Ghana was debt-ridden. His regime
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began by moving the country ideologically to the left, but this was not for long. Dry
national coffers, the depletion of the nations foreign reserves, a mounting debt service
burden, shortages of essential commodities, drugs and equipment, and in the mist of all
this, severe drought, caused the Rawlings regime to strategically rethink their ideological
leanings. Lest than two years into the regime, the regime called for food aid to deal with
the threat of famine, and with this, all forms of aid was offered. The World Bank and the
IMF offered tempting assistance if only the regime will divest itself of its ideological
trappings. Internecine conflict within the leadership of the regime led to the expurgation
of the ultra left-wing guard of the regime, and the assumption of full control by the
moderates. There were also new centre and right-wing recruits into the regime. With this,
a new era of liberalism, some will say post-modern colonialism, was born. The fanciful
code names for the new trend of affairs were Economic Recovery Programme and
Structural Adjustment Programme. These code names have been variously changed over
the years, but have retained the same essential characteristics and the same tutors (the
World Bank and the IMF) over the Rawlings era and the present. What then is the
political economy of post-modern colonialism?324
Under post-modern colonialism, state institutions in general are subjected to strong
globalizing pressures, which at once call for the strengthening of state power, in say the
324 The term post-modern colonialism, which I have borrowed from Susan Silbey, ‘ “Let Them Eat
Cake”: Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism, and the Possibilities of Justice’ 31 Law and
Society Review, (1997) p. 207, is apt here because it captures the theory of historical continuity
which I have endeavored to establish in this dissertation, by drawing the linguistic relationship
between colonialism and post-modern colonialism.
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enforcement of the “rule of law” and the fight against crime, and the weakening of state
power in areas such as economic regulation and welfare policies.
The basic principles of post-modern colonialism, as the term connotes, are not new. In
the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century, the model of European modernity
and its civilizing practices-economic, political, religious, familial- extended its reach
around the globe, displacing local beliefs, identities and social forces, which were labeled
as “traditional” or “backward” in the name of an alternative attaining then a global reach.
Today the forces of post-modern colonialism are the English language, fast food, the
Hollywood star system, the new intellectual property rights, free-trade zones,
deforestation to pay the foreign debt, or vernacularization of historical and religious sites
for tourists.
Since 1945, and most intensively since 1989, the architects of post-modern colonialism
have promoted the idea that United Statesian and European-style modernity equals
progress, and therefore should be everyone’s goal. They claim that democracy, whatever
that means, has triumphed over other forms of political and social organization of nation
states and that we are at the end of history.325 They also claim that history, at its end, has
taught us that market regulation is superior to state and political intervention. The project
in the last decade has been to replace the other side of the cold war with Islam and its
325 FRANCIS FUKUYAMA, The End of History and the Last Man, (Perennial, 1992).
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proponents, the west, representing civilization, pitted against Islam, representing
traditionalism.326
The project of post-modern colonialism, also called the Washington consensus, has four
dimensions: a neo-liberal economic consensus; a weak state consensus; a liberal-
democratic consensus; and a consensus about the rule of law and the role of courts.
Neo-liberal economics envisages a global economy, characterized by global production
and global markets for goods, services and finance. The institutional underpinnings of the
new social relations of production and commerce are international free trade,
deregulation (especially of labor markets), non-regulate (especially the environment),
privatization, macro-economic policies that favor control of inflation over employment
creation, and an export-oriented development strategy. The state is supposed to withdraw
from direct participation in the economy and provide an enabling environment for the
market to operate. And it must withdraw from many areas of regulation or else encounter
regulatory capture. Finally, the state must reduce social expenditures.
Flowing from the above, post-modern colonialism favors a weak and limited state. Yet,
the very definition of the state is its capacity to exercise sovereign power over a given
territory, thus, accession to statehood, including the movement out of colonialism or
other statuses linked to imperialism, required the capacity to exercise sovereignty in
326 SAMUEL P. HUNTINGTON, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order
(Touchstone Books: London, New York, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto, Singapore, 1996).
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terms of the use of force and regulation. The consensus of the limited state, abandons this
second dimension of state sovereignty. It however retains the first for certain purposes.
Under post-modern colonialism, the weak state must be strong in at least one respect. It
must be capable of ensuring the survival of the formal structures of post-modern
colonialism at all cost. There must be periodic elections, and administrators and judges to
oversee electoral processes to ensure that formal legal norms and formalities are fulfilled.
These empty formal structures are then filled with a “rule of law” that is conducive for
post-modern colonialism. Such an enforceable framework depends on the state providing
a judicial system, which can maintain the rule of law. A well-functioned judiciary in
which judges apply the law in a fair, even, and predictable manner without undue delays
or unaffordable costs is part and parcel of this rule of law. The state, which retains it
monopoly over the use of force, then enforces this “rule of law”. This elevation of
formal, state law and judicial adjudication to the status of sole criterion for the evaluation
of political, economic and social action requires “the rule of law” to be effect.
Without a sound legal framework, an independent and honest judiciary, the economic and
social agenda of post-modern colonialism risks collapse. The alternative to the rule of law
is chaos. Only if the rule of law is widely accepted and effectively enforced can there be
confidence that certainty and predictability will be guaranteed, transactions costs
lowered, property rights clarified and protected, contractual obligations enforced, and
regulations applied. These are the building blocks of post-modern colonialism, the
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framework that is then filled with the substance of the project. From this perspective, the
judiciary becomes responsible for delivering equitable, expeditious and transparent
judicial services to citizens, the state, and corporations, both domestic and foreign.
It is clear from the above analyses that the rule of law, while being an old feature of
western dominance, as we have seen in its critical role in the era of colonialism, has
recently assumed new prominence as global capitalism subjects more and more social
interactions to its logic. Thus, the judicial system-which has in most countries been up
until now an obscure, weak and often corrupt institution-has been called upon in the last
two decades to take a prominent role in the expansion of both global capitalism and
liberal democracy.327
In Ghana, the police, the visible arm of the state that is used to enforce the rule of law as
provided in the codes of law and as interpreted by the judiciary, has also been receiving
serious attention. Whilst the judiciary is sought to be reformed in order to give it a more
prominent role in the project of global capitalism and liberal democracy, the police,
whose historical role has been consistent with global capital is sought to be retained in its
basic form, only better trained and equipped to do what is has been doing since its
creation in the early nineteenth century-the protection of the owners of capital, the
crushing of dissent in the name of the preservation of law and order for the exploitation
327 JANE JENSON AND BOAVENTURA DE SOUSA SANTOS (eds), Globalising Institutions:
Case Studies in Regulation and Innovation (Ashgate: Burlington USA, Singapore, Sydney, 2000)
p. 10-25.
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of resources and for trade, and the enforcement of “the rule of law” to the above stated
ends. These remain the elements of post-modern colonialism. The story of the police
force in Ghana during the period under review is the story of how this agenda was
operationalized, and some efforts at taming same.
THE POLICE FORCE IN THE RAWLINGS ERA
The use of Revolutionary Defence Committees to perform various aspects of police
duties ceased by 1988. Conceivably, the police assumed full control. In any case, on 7th
January 1993, a new constitution came into force in Ghana, marking the end of the
military regime of Jerry John Rawlings. Rawlings contested and won the presidential
elections and was sworn in as President of the Republic on the day the constitution came
into force, and his party had an overwhelming majority in Parliament.328 Because the
fourth republican constitution is liberal indeed and contains a comprehensive bill of
rights, to a great extent, various military-style excesses were either nipped in the bud,
executed clandestinely, or vociferously resisted as we shall see in the “bome kotoku case”
close to the end of this chapter. During the period of military rule, and despite
constitutional guarantees in the period afterwards, the Rawlings regime used the military
and the police to suppress dissent to its regime and its policies, as we shall see in the next
section. There was severe, if muffled opposition to the regimes’ sudden marriage to the
328 The opposition parties boycotted the Parliamentary elections, the result, Ghana started its
fourth attempt at constitutional democratic governance with an almost one party state.
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IFIs and the few who voiced their dissent openly, were arrested and imprisoned. A good
many of them claim they were tortured.
On the police institution itself, the Rawlings government329 set up a high level
commission of inquiry into the police service in 1996, just three years into the new
democratic dispensation. The commission presented its report in March, 1997. The terms
of reference of the commission, its methodology, and its conclusions, were very
consistent with the post-modern project of post-modern colonization that required a hi-
tecking of a police force to protect the political class, ensure peace and security for
economic exploitation, and enforce a rule of law whose interstices were now populated
with the agenda of post-modern colonialism.
The terms of reference of the Presidential Commission were revealing indeed:
a. To review the structure and operations of the Service and determine its
response to the law enforcement needs of the nation.
b. To consider the report of the Chief Constable of Nolfolk Constabulary on
the Assessment of the Police Service in 1992 and make the necessary
recommendations.
c. To assess the manpower needs of the service and determine appropriate
ways of securing and maintaining a motivated service.
d. To examine ways and means of decentralizing aspects of Police
administration so that Regional and District Organisations can be
involved in the provision of the logistics needs of the Service.
329 “Rawlings regime” refers to the military rule of Jerry John Rawlings as Head of State between
31st December, 1981 and 6th January, 1993; “Rawlings government” refers to the democratic
constitutional rule of Jerry John Rawlings as President between 7th January, 1993 and 6th January,
2001.
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e. To look into all other matters that would enhance the effectiveness of the
Service.330
The Commission almost completely disregarded the first and last Terms of Reference.
These would have served as effective vehicles for examining issues such as the historical
construction of the police, police culture, and the police as agents of governance. In the
event, no fundamental change in the nature, orientation, posture, and functions of the
police were inquired into. These, consistent as they were with post-modern colonialism,
were to remain intact. The priority for the Commission was to make the police more
effective at doing what it has been doing since the 1830s. Effectiveness was seen in terms
of more and better human and material resources.
The Commission proved equal to the narrow task it set for itself and was more exuberate
than the government might have bargained for. It decided that certain critical human
resource and material needs of the police could not await the final report of the
Commission. It therefore “submitted five (5) interim reports to his Excellency the
President for the purpose of his office initiating prompt action on them. These covered
proposals on the Special Monitoring Team, the deteriorated condition of the National
Police Academy and Training School, the issue of police uniforms, police promotions
and accommodation.331
330 Report of the Presidential Commission into the Ghana Police Service, March 1997, popularly
called the Archer Report, p. 2. 331 Ibid.
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The Commission presented its Report in two parts. The first part covered areas such as
the Command structure, devolution of powers, relationship between the Service and
Regional/District political authorities, recruitment and training, promotions, transfers,
civilianization, appraisal system and discipline. The second part covered issues such as
accommodation, transportation, communications, remuneration etc. The report, and the
government statement on the report, are detailed indeed and contain recommendations
that go to the length of providing specific numbers, proportions and cost figures.332
Witness the following:
“46. MOUNTED SQUADRON
46.1 The Commission noted the following:
1. That the current number of horses is inadequate for ceremonial
occasions….
2. The stable is in a deplorable state and the horses are not properly
fed…
3. The riding accessories are inadequate and the ceremonial dress for the
riders is unpresentable…
4. Heads of units are not given any preparatory training before they are
posted to the Mounted Squadron…
46.2 The Commission made the following recommendations, which
Government endorses:
1. The deplorable condition of the stable should be improved as a matter
of priority…
2. Feeding of the horses should be improved and sustained with the
release of funds at the appropriate times…
3. Additional horses should be purchased to enable the Service acquire
the full ceremonial complement of 36 horses…
332 Ibid, passim.
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4. A civilian veterinary officer should be employed to take care of the
animals under the overall supervision of the head of the Squadron
…333
The commission went on to characterize the “basic requirement of the Service” as follows:
a. adequate accommodation
b. provision of transportation ie. Staff cars and operational vehicles such
as transfer/troop carriers, land rover, bicycles etc.
c. workshop/maintenance apparatus
d. radio communication and teleprinter links with the regions and hand-
held radios
e. general supply –e.g. stationery
f. ration (food) for emergency operations
g. medical supplies
h. arms and ammunition
…In addition to the above, there is also the crucial need to modernise the
means and methods of crowd control using modern equipments such as
smoke bombs, water-cannons etc. instead of truncheons and firearms as a
present.334
Although the thrust of the Commission’s report was how to make the police effective at
doing what it has been doing, there were statements littered around the report, which
pointed to an appreciation by the Commission of the more systemic causes of the malaise
in the police institution, as when they observed thus:
Not much time is devoted to the objective of making recruits understand the
responsibilities of a Police officer and the proper realisation of the
relationship between the Police and the public…335
333 Ibid, p. 31. 334 Ibid, p. 38. 335 Ibid, p. 9.
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Alas, not much was done on these more systemic factors by the Commission.
Another important event relating to the police that occurred during the Rawlings era was
the enactment of the Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 1996 (Act 526). In 1963,
during the Nkrumah period, a law was passed, the Security Service Act, giving the
President enormous powers to set-up, discipline, dismiss and generally control a security
service and use it to “defend the Republic from external and internal dangers arising from
activities directed from within or without Ghana which are subversive of the Republic,
and to perform any other functions relating to the Security of the State assigned to the
Service by the President”.336 The new Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, is less
centered on the President, although the President remains the Chairman of the Council
and largely determines who should be a member of the Council. The new Act also
establishes branches of the Security Council in every region and district of the country. It
also contains safeguards, though limited, against abuse of power by security agencies.
Instances of alleged abuse of power are resolvable by written complaints that may be
considered by an ad hoc Tribunal under the Act to be set-up by the Chief Justice. The
functions of the new security service are essentially internal and external police
intelligence functions, and their retirement benefits are equated to those of the Police
Service:
…an employee of any of the Internal Intelligence Agencies shall in the
performance of his duties under this Act, have the same rights and powers as
336 Security Service Act, 1963 (Act 202), Section 3.
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are conferred by law on a police officer in the performance of his duties and
shall have the same protection.337
It is true that the Special Branch or Bureau of National Investigations and the Research
Department had been performing internal and external security intelligence activities
before this act. This Act, however, streamlined their structure, composition, functions,
activities, and therefore, their relationship to the police. What did the Rawlings regime
use the police and the other security agencies to do?
POLICE BRUTALITY IN THE RAWLINGS ERA
During the period of decline, the police emerged as a paramilitary force in concert with
the military, in a political equation characterized by political and economic domination,
corruption, abuse of power, and the violation of basic human rights. Together with the
military, the police emerged as the new internal colonizers, using the force of the gun to
obtain complete compliance and conformity from powerless citizens. Having tasted
political power with the military and found it to be “sweet,” the Ghana Police provided
support to shore up unpopular and repressive regimes. They used the force at their
disposal to crush the student uprising in the late 1970s. During this time and throughout
337 Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 1996 (Act 526).
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the 1980s, the police became the state apparatus for the enforcement of decisions of
fragile or ideologically doctrinaire governments. 338
The police, the security services, and the military, brutalized, arrested and tortured
opponents of the Rawlings regime, including those who were opposed to the marriage of
the country to the Breton Woods institutions. Like in the 1970s, the police were used to
quell riots, including various student demonstrations against government policies.339 As
opposition increased, the range of prohibited actions broadened and rights under the laws
were becoming eroded and more restricted.340 In 1991, the Special Police Command was
created within the service. This unit was tasked with investigating public complaints and
reports of unprofessional conduct against police personnel and checking police abuse of
power. The unit was also to make spot checks at Police Stations, Police Posts and other
Police duty posts.341 The unit is generally seen as ineffective, and this has been attributed
to the fact that it is internal to the police service.342
338 Supra note 258, p. 177-8. 339 These include demonstrations by the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) against
commercialization of residential halls in Universities on Friday, May 29, 1998; a demonstration by
students of the University of Ghana against residential user fees in August 1998. Recently,
Polytechnic Students demonstrated against irregular polytechnic policies in terms of grading,
academic progression and job description of polytechnic graduates. This demonstration turned
very violent when the police tried to stop the students. They threw missiles at the police, the police
retaliated, there was disorder and 20 students were arrested. See The Ghanaian Chronicle,
Wednesday, February 27, 2002., vol. 10 no. 71; The Free Press, Tuesday, March 5, 2002, vol. 25
no. 8. 340 Supra note 258, p. 178. 341 Supra note 291, p. 75. 342 This view has been expressed at various workshops and fora on Police Reform held in Ghana
in the last three years by the Africa Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR), the Center for
Democratic Development (CDD) and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC).
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The story did not change after the return to constitutional democratic rule, as the country
struggled to sustain its fragile democracy. In 1995, during a public demonstration led by
opposition forces, against the introduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT) by the
government, and code-named “Kume Preko”343 , a number of lives were lost when the
police intervened.344
For a decade, opposition to the ill effects of SAPs was crushed mostly by the police and
other security operatives. With the coming into force of the 1992 Constitution, the brutal
antecedent role of the police, the oppressive arm of the regulatory state, came into
conflict with the new constitutional human rights guarantees that were in force from
January 1993. The “bome kotoku” case illustrates this conflict and gives a sense of how
such matters were resolved. We will now turn our attention to the “bome kotoku case”, as
a classic example of how the police was used to enforce the agenda of post-modern
colonialism in this era.
THE “BOME KOTOKU” CASE
As noted in the last section, as late as 1997, the Presidential Commission was still
recommending processes for making the police effect at riot control. The policies of the
post-modern colonialist state excited dissent from various quarters, and these had to be
343 Kume Preko is Twi for “You may as well kill me” and encapsulates the hardships faced by
Ghanaians under SAPs and the absence of avenues for ventilating them. 344 ALEX AKURGO and CAMILLUS ABONGO, May 9 at Accra Stadium: A gripping story of a
Disaster that Turned Ordinary People into Heroes (Blue Volta Associates, 2001), P. 52.
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quelled. The “bome kotoku” case is an example of how policy contestations were sought
to be resolved through demonstrations, the difficulties the dissenters encountered in the
face of a “rule of law” that was unfriendly to dissent, and how the dissenters used the
liberal democratic constitution-a function of post-modern colonialism-to contest that
“rule of law”. As we have seen, police functions changed from period to period. The
“bome kotoku” case is a logical last step in the evolution of police public order control
from the colonial era through to the era of post-modern colonialism.
On the 3rd of February 1993, the Police in Sekondi in the Western Region had granted
the members of the plaintiff party, the New Patriotic Party (NPP), then the main
opposition party in the country, a permit to hold a rally on 6th February 1993 in Sekondi.
However, on 5th February 1993, the police withdrew the permit and prohibited the
holding of the rally. Again, on the 17th of February 1993, the Kyebi Police in the Eastern
Region granted the plaintiff a Permit to hold a rally at Kyebi to commemorate the 28th
anniversary of the tragic death of Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah On the day when the rally
was to be held, the police withdrew the permit and prohibited the holding of the rally.
On 16 February 1993, members of the NPP in conjunction with other political parties,
embarked on a peaceful demonstration in Accra to protest against the 1993 budget of the
government. While they were peacefully demonstrating, they were violently assaulted by
the police and some of them were arrested and charged with the offence of demonstrating
without a permit and failing to disperse contrary to sections 8, 12 and 13 of The Public
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Order Decree345.
The plaintiff therefore filed a writ in the Supreme Court for a declaration that Section 7
of the Public Order Decree, which gives the Minister for the Interior the power to prohibit
the holding of public meetings or processions for a period in a specified area; section 8 of
the said Decree which provides that the holding of all public processions and meetings
and the public celebration of any traditional custom shall be subject to the obtention of
prior police permission; section 12(c) of the said Decree which gives to a Superior police
officer the power to stop or disperse such a procession or meeting; and section 13 of the
said Decree which makes it an offence to hold such processions, meetings and public
celebrations without such permission, are inconsistent with and in contravention of the
Constitution, 1992 especially the freedom of assembly and demonstration provisions
thereof. In sum, the plaintiff, contended before the Supreme Court that the Public Order
Decree was inconsistent with article 21 (1)(d) of the Constitution, 1992 that guarantees
the freedom to assemble and to demonstrate. The defendant, the Attorney-General, in his
statement of defense admitted the facts of the plaintiff's case but contended that sections
7, 8, 12 and 13 of the Decree are reasonable and lawful restrictions on the freedom of
assembly granted under the Constitution.346
In their unanimous judgment, the seven justices of the Supreme Court did, in my opinion,
345 1972, (NRCD 68). 346 NEW PATRIOTIC PARTY v. INSPECTOR GENERAL OF POLICE [1993-94] 2 GLR 459,
at 460-1 and 484, per Hayfron-Benjamin JSC.
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a better job than those in the “akpeteshie case” which we shall discuss in the next chapter.
Indeed all the judges in this case were older judges who were appointed to the bench in
the 1960s and 70s and are now either dead or retired. By contrast, all the judges in the
akpeteshie case were appointed in the 1990s. Only Bamford-Addo JSC was on both
panels. Not surprisingly, the panel made up of the older judges took a very historical
institutionalist approach to the case. In his lead judgment, Charles-Hayfron Benjamin
JSC set the tone thus:
Before coming to [the Decree] itself, some account should be given of the
history leading up to it. This court cannot be insensible to the fact of the
colonial status from which we have evolved into a nation; nor can we be
oblivious of the fact that while in the main we have received the laws from
our British colonial masters-the common law-these laws were often qualified
by Ordinances and regulations designed to remind us of our subject status
and to ensure that our colonial masters had the peace and quiet necessary to
enable them live among us and rule us.347
The court noted that the first Criminal Code was passed on October 1892348 and included
such common law offences as sedition, unlawful assembly, rout, and riot. The nearest
mention of a “permit" was contained in section 142(10) where it was stated that who
ever:
…in any town, without a licence in writing from the Governor or a District
Commissioner, beats or plays any drum, gong, torn-torn, or other similar
347 Ibid, p. 487, per Hayfron-Benjamin JSC. 348 Ordinance No 12 of 1892. By various later arrangements in the order in which it stood in the
statute book, the Criminal Code became Ordinance No. 50 of 1952 and was until 1960 known as
"Cap 9".
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instrument of music between eight o'clock at night and six in the morning
shall be liable to a fine of forty shillings.
It is clear that ritual and festive occasions in the colonial era became opportunities for
political resistance and so the colonial government sought to control them. Again, the
various musical instruments, especially the drums, could be used for mobilization
purposes by sending out coded messages of resistance to the whole village.
A clearer concept of a permit, however, first appears in regulations349 made by the
Governor under the Police Force Ordinance350. Section 2 of the regulations states:
…Any person who desires to hold or form any meeting or procession in a
public way shall first apply to a police officer not below the rank of Assistant
Commissioner of Police, or, if there be no such officer, then to the District
Commissioner, for permission to do so; and, if such police officer or District
Commissioner is satisfied that the meeting or procession is not likely to cause
a breach of peace, he may issue a permit authorising the meeting or
procession, and may in such permit prescribe any special conditions,
limitations, or restrictions to be observed with respect thereto.
Thus started the use of law for the social penetration and remaking of Ghanaian society,
together with the development of patterns of resistance. It is indeed possible to tell a story
of the regulation of drumming and dancing in the Gold Coast in the same manner and
with the same themes as is now being told for the police, alcohol and public order. The
social penetration and control imposed by colonialism through law was pervasive indeed.
349 Public Meetings and Processions Regulations, 1926 (No. 10 of 1926) made on 26 April 1926. 350 1922, (Cap 37).
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In 1961, after independence, the Public Order Act351 was passed, its long title read thus:
An Act to replace, with minor modifications, enactments relating to the
control of the procession or carrying of arms, the holding of public meetings
and processions and the imposition of curfews.
It contained provisions identical to colonial regulations of 1926 quoted above. However,
this new law related not to “public ways” but to the broader concept of “public places”
and applied to the whole country, not just parts of the country as did the Regulations of
1926. Lastly, it was passed under a Constitution, which, according to an interpretation of
the Supreme Court, did not contain an enforceable bill of rights.352
Thus the Public Order Act of 1961 lost none of its operational efficacy and the consent of
the minister or "permit" from the police remained a necessary prerequisite for the holding
or formation of "any meeting or procession in a public place." The Public Order
(Amendment) Act, 1963 (Act 165) restated section 16 of the 1961 Act and extended the
permit requirement to the celebration of traditional customs and the display of asafo353
company flags. The law, the validity of which was contested in this case, the Public
Order Decree, was in essence a consolidation of the previous public order legislations and
the public meetings and processions regulations.
351 1961, (Act 58). 352 RE AKOTO [1961] 2 GLR 523, (SC). 353 The Asafo companies of the Ashanti were groups of young men who were the focal points for
political mobilization, community economic and social activities, and security provisioning in the
pre-colonial era.
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If the newly independent governments maintained the legislative control over alcohol in
order to ensure economic rents from same and to regulate the use of a fluid that was
becoming the center of social mobilization and protest, leading to the akpeteshie case, as
we shall see in the next chapter, the same government maintained the legislative control
of public gatherings and the like in order to check the post-independence party and ethnic
rivalries between the ruling government and the mainly Ashanti parties and political
movements.354
The public order laws in one form or the other have existed during the period up to 1993,
and through four Republican Constitutions. The first republican Constitution did not
contain an enforceable bill of rights. The second and third republican Constitutions did
contain same, but these were not as elaborate as those in the fourth republican
Constitution, and those Constitutions lasted just 27 months each.355
Not surprisingly, the Supreme Court, interpreting the 1992 Constitution, which contains
the most elaborate bill of rights of all Ghanaian Constitutions, held that the concept of
consent or permit as prerequisites for the enjoyment of the fundamental human right to
assemble, process or demonstrate are unconstitutional. Although some restrictions as are
354 Jean Marie Allman, “The Youngmen and the Porcupine: Class, nationalism and Asante’s
Struggle for Self-Determination, 1954-57. The Journal of African History, vol. 31, no. 2 (1990),
263-279. 355 The last reason is not particularly strong because the 1992 Constitution came into force on the
7th of January 2003 and by February of that year, this and similar court cases were already
brewing.
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provided for by the Constitution may be necessary from time to time and upon proper
occasion, the right to assemble, process or demonstrate cannot be denied. In the words of
Amua Sekyi JSC:
I would have thought that it was self-evident that the continued enjoyment by
any community of fundamental human rights was incompatible with any
requirement that a permit or licence be first obtained. Whoever has power to
grant a permit or licence has power to refuse it…Any such restriction on the
right to freedom of assembly would make it meaningless and a sham. Based
as they are on a requirement that permission be sought of the executive or
one of its agencies before the right of freedom of assembly is exercised…
Our own experience and that of other Countries which have gone down the
slippery road to dictatorship teach us to bear in mind Lord Acton's
well-known aphorism, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely." The lessons of history are there for all to see: we ignore them
at our peril. (My Emphasis).356
Whilst agreeing with the reasons given by Hayfron-Benjamin JSC, the then Chief
Justice, Archer C J, felt compelled to:
…add a few words to demonstrate that police permits are colonial relics and
have no place in Ghana in the last decade of the twentieth century.
…the Native Customs (Colony) Ordinance..., restricted the celebration of
native customs without the permission in writing of the district commissioner
in certain towns in the colony…Krobo customs like dipo were also
prohibited. Penalties were imposed for violations of these restrictions and
prohibitions. A district commissioner was also empowered to make an order
prohibiting the holding of company meetings in a public place of ten or more
members of a native company under the direction of a supi or headman.
Company flags or tribal emblems could not be exhibited without the
permission in writing of a district commissioner. The police were given
powers to seize such items.
356 Supra note 346, p. 473, per Amua-Sekyi JSC.
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Then on 1 July 1922 when the Police Force Ordinance357…was enacted, the
police were … given powers to regulate traffic by stopping and diverting the
course of traffic. The Governor in Council was also empowered to make
regulations with respect to the assembling, and movements of meetings and
processions in public ways and public places. It is interesting to note that
section 54(3) of [the Police Force Ordinance] and the Native Customs
Ordinance of 1892 prevailed until they were repealed by the Public Order
Act, 1961358…which introduced police permits for meetings and processions
in public places.
It seems incongruous that legislation that was originally meant to control
asafo companies, yam festivals, fetishes a century ago, should be allowed to
develop into hideous and ugly tumors on the near immaculate face of our
present Constitution, 1992. Those who introduced police permits in this
country do not require police permits in their own country to hold public
meetings and processions. Why should we require them?359
From colonial times and through the constitutional dictatorship of the first republican
government ending in 1966, constitutional democratic freedoms were seriously curtailed.
Between 1967 and 1993, there were only two constitutional democracies with a
comprehensive bill of rights in force amongst the seven odd regimes and governments
Ghana had. And these lasted twenty-seven months each, as if by design. The rest of the
period was of military dictatorship during which the various constitutions, together with
their bill of rights were suspended. It was only with the coming into force on 7th January,
1993 of the 1992 constitution that real opportunities for using the courts to reform aspects
of dysfunctional institutions inherited from colonial times and perpetuated through
various post-independence dictatorial regimes opened up. Indeed, the challenges to the
imperial regulation of alcohol and public order occurred in the very year that the 1992
357 Cap 37. 358 Act 58. 359 Supra note 346, p. 465-6, per Archer CJ.
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Constitution came into force.360 Referring to aspects of this phenomenon in the
akpeteshie case, Acquah JSC (as he then was), stated:
In 1962 when LI 239 was made, the 1960 Republican Constitution, which
was then in force, made no provision for an enforceable individual's right of
association, at least as held in Re Akoto…. And in the face of elaborate
human rights provisions in our 1992 Constitution, this compulsory
requirement of a membership of a body, whose aims and objective are simply
for the promotion of their economic interests, can no longer stand side by
side with the provisions of…the said Constitution.”361
And in the words of Amua-Sekyi JSC in the bome kotoku case:
It was to rescue us from such an abyss of despair that on three successive
occasions, in 1969, 1979 and 1992, elaborate provisions on fundamental
human rights have been set out in our Constitutions and the courts given clear
and unequivocal power to enforce them. The Constitution, 1992 is now the
supreme law of the land, and any enactment or executive order inconsistent
with it is null and void. Thus, except for the periods of dictatorship when
these fundamental humans were suspended, our courts have since 1969 had
power to protect people from the abuse of legislative and executive power.
Unfortunately, we have had too little experience of true democracy since
independence. Like a bird kept in a cage for years, we have come to think of
the cage as home rather than a prison. The door has been flung open, yet we
huddle in a corner and refuse to leave.362
Later events were to prove this learned justice wrong as a flurry of actions were initiated
360 The reasons why this did not occur during the two previous constitutional democratic regimes
cannot, therefore, be limited to the brevity of those governments-they both lasted 27 months. The
wind of democracy and human rights that was blowing across the world during the period under
review is a more solid explanation. 361 MENSIMA and others V. ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others [1996-97] SCGLR 676, at 721,
per Acquah JSC. This case is discussed in chapter 4. 362 Supra note 346, p. 470, per Amua-Sekyi JSC.
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in the courts in feeble attempts to reform the dysfunctional inherited institutions in
Ghana.
In a succinct and very short two paragraph judgment, Edward Wiredu JSC (as he then
was) said of this theme:
…The police permit has outlived its usefulness. Statutes requiring such
permits for peaceful demonstrations, processions and rallies are things of the
past. The police permit is the brainchild of the colonial era and ought not to
remain in our statute books.363
The Chief Justice summed it all up by calling on the legislature to act beyond the court
orders striking down some of the provisions of the law as unconstitutional:
Finally, I would urge that the whole of [the Public Order Decree] should be
reviewed and modernised in its entirety to enable the Police Service to carry
out its duties effectively without contravening any provision in our current
Constitution, 1992.364
He should have called for an entire review of all dysfunctional legislation and institutions
in Ghana or at least, the central institution in the regulation of public order, the police.
Bankole Cole maps this theme beautifully unto the police:
363 Ibid, p. 477-8, Edward Wiredu JSC. 364 Ibid, p. 466, per Archer CJ.
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Although many post-colonial countries have, since independence,
experimented with different types of governments, most of them have
preserved in their new political structures several features of the colonial
state, some practically in their original forms. This is particularly true of
policing.365
One commentator has summarized the issues discussed in the “bome kotoku” case very
clearly in this rather long quotation:
“The interesting point…is this, far from wanting to change the outmoded
Colonial laws, the Government… seems to be quite happy in retaining
them and utilizing them, especially those laws designed by the Colonial
regime to suppress freedom of association and expression.”
In 1968, a contributor and an editor of a Ugandan magazine were charged
with sedition for publishing the above statement. Although acquitted by what
has been described as a “courageous” ruling by the magistrate, the editor was
not released for a further 13 months, and the contributor for a further 31
months. If we peruse the statute books of many African countries today, we
might be forgiven for mistaking such statement as recent. There are many
“colonial relics” which in a number of countries, have “escaped” reform and
continue to be utilized on a regular basis almost 40 years after the so-called
‘winds of change” began to sweep Africa. Since that time, constitutionalism
has received a battering from a number of autocratic regimes characterized by
personal rule and patronage which has had the effect of inhibiting the
development of strong and independent institutions and a civil rights culture.
With the end of the Cold War, the re-introduction of multi-party politics and
the attendant debate on constitutional reform, the prospect for genuine
change, however, appears to have gained a second wind.
The fact remains that questionable laws (of colonial origin or otherwise)
cannot be examined by a court unless they are brought thereto. In pondering
the question as to why the licensing of assemblies was being challenged as
unconstitutional for the first time, AMUA-SEKYI, J.S.C., expressed the view
that:
365 Bankole A. Cole, “Post-Colonial Systems” in R.I. MAWRY Policing across the World: Issues
for the Twenty-first Century (UCL Press: New York, 1999) p. 96.
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“[Ghanaians] unfortunately…have had too little experience of true
democracy since independence. Like a bird kept in a cage for years, we
have come to think of the cage as a home rather than prison. The door has
been flung wide open, yet we huddle in a corner and refuse to leave”
But when was the door flung open? In one sense at independence. In another
sense with the introduction of a justiciable Bill of Rights. Yet the presence of
one-party and military regimes in many African countries (often legitimated
by constitutional amendment or decree), and those buttressed for protracted
periods by emergency powers, can only have had the effect of casting a
shadow over the constitutional provisions relating to freedom of expression,
assembly and association and, moreover, the likelihood of successful
challenge.
History teaches us that legal reform can only march hand in hand with
political reform. Whereas, technically, the judiciary has always been in a
position to guide and set the pace of reform, there is only so far that a partner,
if reluctant, can be dragged. Whether the transition to multi-partyism has
resulted merely in the repeal of a “one-party clause” or an entirely new
constitution, judges, as evident from the assembly permit judgments, have
become less uncomfortable in embracing their role as “Guardians of the
Constitution”. By being prepared to examine the origin of the legislation and
the “mischief” that the colonial framers were seeking to address; in
recognizing that the abuse of such unguided legislation was not purely
hypothetical but had in fact occurred both before and after independence; and
by rejecting finally any special need in the African context to be subject to
laws for decades relegated to the dustbin of history elsewhere, the judiciary
has taken a lead and, moreover, left open the door to further challenge.366
This commentator could not be more right. In the next section, we will examine the
currency of the enduring character of institutional dysfunction in the Ghana Police
Service today and the various efforts at broader institutional reform of the Service,
beyond piece-meal judicial reform.
366 Joanna Stevens, “Colonial Relics I: The Requirement of a Permit to Hold a Peaceful
Assembly” Journal of African Law, vol. 41 no. 1 (1997) p. 118 at 132-3.
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THE ERA OF “POSITIVE CHANGE”,367 2001 TO THE PRESENT
On 7th January 2001, the Rawlings government was replaced by the Kufuor government
following general elections the previous year. Kufuor was the presidential candidate of
the NPP, the party that was plaintiff in the “bome kotoku” case. In his inaugural speech,
he promised an era of “positive change” in everything in the country. Will “positive”
change affect the police?
The Kufuor government began to pay attention to the police. They ordered new vehicles
and other equipment for the police force, approved the recruitment of thousands of new
policemen, appointed two Deputy Inspectors General of Police and generally talked of
improving the force to make it capable of maintaining law and order. Various NGOs
piggy-backed on this, and focused on monitoring police performance and on police
reform issues.368 The reform efforts of the government and the NGOs are still ongoing.
Unfortunately, the government seems to be merely implementing the recommendations
of the Presidential Commission on the police that was set up in 1996. As noted earlier,
the basic thrust of that report is the hi-teching of a police force to continue to do what it
has been doing since it was established.
367 The new government of Ghana, which took office on The 7th of January 2001, promised the
citizenry “Positive Change” in everything. The government is best known for this refrain. 368 ASDR, CDD, LRC.
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The Government has secured a $20 million package from South Africa to
upgrade police stations and barracks with modern facilities. Arrangements
are also being made to source $40 million to connect all police stations in the
country to the Internet to facilitate effective communication.
The Minister for Interior, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyeman, who made this
known, said plans were also under way to secure seeker and surveillance
aircraft as well as helicopters for the police to help them combat armed
robbery and other crimes…
Mr Owusu-Agyeman pointed out that the new changes taking place in the
Police Service were part of a comprehensive National Programme to equip
all security agencies in the country to help strengthen internal security.
According to him, the recent spate of sophisticated crimes with sometimes
resulted in the loss of lives of some police, had necessitated the need to equip
them to be able to effectively deal with such unpatriotic citizens.
The Minister, however, urged the police and other security agencies to be
loyal to the citizenry and the government, adding that “no matter who is in
power, the police have a constitutional obligation to support it to combat
crime.369
Another report on this issue is also illustrative:
The Minister of Interior, Mr Hackman Owusu Agyeman, said the
government was putting in place comprehensive measures to facilitate the
work of security agencies in the country.
He also said the government would provide 425 vehicles, a 40 million-
dollar communication network, 20 million dollars riot control equipment,
construct buildings and create training opportunities and improve
conditions of service of personnel.
Addressing personnel of the Police Service, he said the Kufour's
administration was determination (sic) to improve the operational
efficiency of the service and had already provided it with 425 vehicles,
while a contract for the rehabilitation and expansion of the Police Hospital
369 Police stations and barracks to be modernized General News of Wednesday, 10 December
2003 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48030 Visited
on 11th April 2004.
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had been signed.
Mr Owusu Agyeman said the Police would set up an elite Special Security
Force to be equipped with helicopters, medical vehicles and that two
financiers from the United States had visited the country to study the
housing problem of the Police Service and Prison Service for investment.
He said the Ministry of Interior was holding discussions with the Ministry
of Defence for senior officers from the two bodies to attend the Ghana
Armed Forces Staff College to improve their capacity while assistance
was being sought from the United Kingdom and South Africa for the
rehabilitation of broken down vehicles.
Mr Owusu-Agyeman said the government took delivery of sanitation
equipment worth 3.5 billion cedis for the police and three billion cedis was
being sought for the rehabilitation of barracks and plans were advanced to
increase the number of police personnel from the current 16,000 to 20,000.
He urged personnel of the services under the Ministry of Interior to be
loyal and dedicated to the government of the day…
He announced that joint military/police patrols would be organised along
the highway and the Kwahu-Tafo-Afram Plains road to deal with robbery
and reckless driving during the Christmas and New Year period.
The Minister was accompanied by the Inspector General of Police…370
Flowing from the above, today, in 2004, all the three reasons for the establishment of the
police force in the Gold Coast in about 1830 have hardly changed, believe it or not.
Perhaps the only difference is that instead of providing physical protection to the colonial
Governor and other officials of the colonial office, the police now protect a President and
Ministers who are mostly trained in London, Europe and the United States, and have left
their loves, lives, businesses, and interests there, perhaps temporarily, to come home to
lead the country-for a political term; instead of the Trade Companies we now have
370 http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48020 visited 11
Dec 2003.
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Foreign Investors and Ghana Club 100371; and instead of the Rule of Law imported from
the Colonial Office in London, we now have the Rule of Law imported from the World
Bank, IMF and WTO offices in Washington, DC and Geneva.
The police force maintains its three-pronged duty of prostration before and protection of
the political class; maintaining peace for foreign investment, trade and exploitation; and
enforcing the rule of law necessary for the political economy of neo-liberalism. I will
now map the colonial narrative to the present and illuminate the enduring patterns of
institutional forms of Empire and Imperialism in which the police still play a very central
role.
To date the police is severely mistrusted and attracts a good deal of hostility. It is still
considered the most corrupt institution in Ghana from evidence in surveys as far apart as
1974372 and 2001/2003373. In some extreme cases serious confrontations between sections
of the public and the police have occurred leading to riots, street battles and resultant loss
of lives and property. Writing in 2002, one commentator has noted that “the burning and
seizing of Police Stations and equipment, and killing of police personnel…is gaining
currency in the country nowadays.”374 Let us now turn our attention to the enduring
patterns of colonial policing in Ghana today.
371 Ghana Club 100 is the Ghanaian equivalent of Fortune 500. 372 Final Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Bribery and Corruption, 1974, popularly called
the Anin Report on corruption. 373 Ghana: Police-Community Relations in an Emerging Democracy. CDD-Ghana Research Paper
No. 12 (CDD-Ghana, August, 2003). 374 Supra note 291, p. 110.
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POLICE SUBSERVIENCE TO AND PROTECTION OF THE
POLITICAL CLASS, AND THEIR USE FOR ECONOMIC
EXPLOITATION AND THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE “RULE OF
LAW”
In terms of economic exploitation, the role of the police is still stated in policy documents
and statements as providing the peace and security that is needed to attract foreign
investors. And the mining and other companies not only have their own sophisticated
security systems, they regularly call in aid the police force to help contain residents
angered by the degradation of their environments and other ills attendant to the
exploitation of natural resources.
And the Escort branch is still a branch of the police, the only surviving branch from its
contemporaries, and still protects natural resources (and now physical cash) being charted
from foreign companies and foreign banks to safe havens from whence they may be
exported.
In the rule of law arena, the police still enforce a whole range of laws, some dating back
to the colonial period, meant essentially to produce social ordering that is conducive to
the thriving of investors and their businesses. In some cases the police are let loose on
poor communities that have set-up their own systems of security provisioning which are
regarded by the law as illegal. Again, the police are often used to clean-up urban
settlements inhabited by the poor in order to make way for some project or other which
essentially benefit investors. In this, they resort to various rules of property law against
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squatting, nuisance, trespass and the other familiar legal concepts to support the mass
evictions of urban and rural inhabitants alike.375 Thus, in 2004, the basic DNA of the
police force, established during colonialism and crystallized around 1960, was enduring
indeed. Today, all the three reasons for the establishment of the force during the colonial
era have not changed one bit.
Almost two centuries after the colonial agenda started, and half a century after it ended,
the Gold Coast Police Force, now called the Ghana Police Service retains the same basic
objectives that were set for it by the imperialist powers. The police are still used mainly
for the protection of the political class. Most of the political class today have one or two
(sometimes a whole platoon) of policemen at their service. Ministers of State and their
deputies, the Speaker of Parliament, judges and other political appointees appropriate this
disproportionate amount of public security at the expense of the citizenry who, given the
shortage of public security, buy private security from private security companies (if they
are rich) or develop their own systems of private security such as land guards, vigilante
groups etc (if they are poor). The police is also still under strict political control. As will
be shown in the next section, the Inspector General of Police (the chief executive and
administrator of the Service), appointed by the political class, is under the supervision of
the Police Council, a body mostly appointment by the President. The craze for
375 For a good example of an eviction of thousands of people to make way for a project in Ghana,
see http://www.cepil.org/prjstory.asp?id=13. See also the case of ISSAH IDDI ABBAS and 10
others v. ACCRA METROPOLITAN ASSEMBLY and the ATTORNEY GENERAL, supra note
242.
For a recent parallel example in Nigeria, see Amnesty International, “Nigeria: Mass forced
evictions in Lagos must stop”, AI Index: AFR 44/034/2003 (Public) News Service No: 250, 31
October 2003. Also available at the Amnesty International website: http://www.amnesty.org
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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community policing is as much a First World as it is a reaction, conscious or
unconscious, to bourgeois policing as a form of institutional continuity.
The above analysis shows how the institution of the police has endured indeed. Today, it
performs the same functions it performed two centuries ago, and in aid of the same grand
design of the political economy. The police are most brutal when it comes to its
traditional functions of protection of the political class and the preservation of the regime
in power and the regulation of resources. And they do this through the implementation of
the rule of law. The historical institutional continuities are apparent indeed. The
following three examples show how these play out.
The Brong Ahafo Regional Chairman of the NDC, A…D… was last
Thursday, detained at the Police CID headquarters for parking his private car
opposite the President’s residence at Airport. He was also accused of
engaging in a conversation with a member of the security team guarding the
President, Chief Inspector O...
Mr D… who is a former Member of Parliament…was picked up at about
10:30 pm on Thursday November 27 at his Baatsona, Accra residence with a
provisional charge of causing a security scare around the residence of the
President.
He was then taken to the CID headquarters where the CID boss…
interrogated him for close to an hour about his mission to the President’s
house.
According to A…D…, he went to (sic) President’s house in the company of
Chief Inspector O…’s estranged wife, Pat, to have discussions with the
former who happened to be his next door neighbour at Baatsona.
He explained that his children attend the same school with Chief Inspector
O…’s children and he sometimes pick (sic) them home from school.
However, he realized that O…’s children left school earlier than expected
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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these days. He therefore enquired from Pat who explained that the children
had been sacked from school for non-payment of fees.
A… D… said based on the mutual respect existing between the two families,
Pat pleaded with him to accompany her to O…’s house to impress upon him
to pay the fees. They however met O…’s absence and were told he was on
duty.
A… D… said Pat persuaded him to accompany her to O…’s duty post since
he [A…D…] was traveling to the Brong Ahafo region the following day.
They therefore went to the President’s house at about 7pm, but he parked his
car a few metres from the main gate, where other cars had also parked.
The NDC Regional Chairman said he sat in his car, while Pat got down and
went to call O… After talking to O… for about five minutes, still standing by
his car, he left. The two men promised to continue the discussions. It was
about three hours later that he was picked up by the police and detained. O…
was also interrogated.
A… D… explained that he was taken out of cells the following day and taken
to the spot where he parked his car. He was then taken to his house where a
thorough search was conducted for weapons. But the police found none.
In an interview with JOY FM, the CID Boss… justified the detention of A…
D… and O… He explained that [A…D…’s] visit to the President’s house
posed a security threat and the police therefore had to interrogate the two men
to know what their discussions centered on.376
To appreciate the next report, one has to factor in the fact that the Ghana Broadcasting
Corporation, the state run radio and television station is one of the first targets of any
military coup d’etat. It is from there the leader of the coup announces the fall of the last
government and the birth of the new, and generally justifies the coup. It is also the
medium for communication of important issues especially during military regimes: these
range from the announcement of states of emergency and curfews, through the
376 Police Detain NDC Regional Chairman, Regional News of Tuesday, 02 December 2003
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47670 visited 11 Dec
2003
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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summoning of accused persons to appear in court, to the dismissal of state
functionaries.377
The life of one of the brilliant upcoming journalists could have ended had he
not been dragged away by a passerby when a police officer, O… K…,
primed his rifle and threatened to shoot if he moved, after physically
assaulting him.
This alleged notoriety of some of the police officers guarding the Ghana
Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) came to the fore on November 20 this year,
when M…A…’s chest was turned into a punching bag and he was hit several
times by an officer on duty called O…K… to provoke him to walk past a
“restricted” path at the GBC.
The officer then primed his rifle, took a few paces back and threatened to
shoot him if he moved.
The incidence of police beating up people at the main entrance of GBC has
become rampant and chronic recently.
According to Chronicle’s investigations, both visitors and the GBC staff have
frequently complained that when entering the corporation, the policemen
strut about outside the main gate with their weapons in full display and lean
against the walls with their guns pointed at people entering GBC. The
Chronicle can report that this same officer, O…K…, had threatened to beat
D… Q… of GTV News up when he intervened in a scuffle between the
officer and a civilian visitor to the GBC.
Apart from this incident, there was another physical assault on a radio
presenter at Uniq FM, when about seven policemen, in broad daylight, beat
up the presenter. He had apparently started an argument with the police and
was branded “too known” and beaten up.
Chronicle has also learnt that a cameraman on attachment at the GBC was
beaten up and repeatedly kicked as he lay writhing on the ground in agony by
a policeman at the Station of the Nation because he wanted to seize the
camera the guy was using. In this particular incident, it was alleged that a
rifle was aimed at the cameraman while he was on the ground and was
377 NAUNIHAL SINGH, Making Facts: A Theory about the Role of Expectations in Coup
Dynamics and Outcomes. Paper Presented at the Psychology and Behaviour Workshop Organized
by the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences, Harvard University, May 2nd, 2002.
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threatened with words like “I will shoot if you get up”…
According to M…A…, a formal complaint was made to the GBC Union and
to Inspector M. M. D… and they promised him an investigation into the
incident. …
When The Chronicle contacted the GBC police, they confirmed the story,
saying that the matter was still under investigation.378
The attitude and posture of the police is similar in issues relating to key resources.
…The people of Akyem Bomso in the Eastern Region have accused the
Police of perpetrating a series of brutalities against them over a protracted
land dispute they have with the people of nearby Tweapease.
They have, therefore, appealed to the Minister of the Interior to appoint a
commission of enquiry to investigate "the horrendous acts of brutalities by
the Ghana Police against the humble and peace-loving Ghanaians of Bomso
to bring the perpetrators of these despicable acts, who have driven the image
of this nation into disrepute, to book".
In a petition to the Inspector General of Police signed by six elders of the
town, including the Assemblyman, Mr A…B…, and copied to the Ghana
News Agency, they alleged that the Police at Asuom, Kade and Koforidua
had been influenced by the Tweapeasehene to visit mayhem on them.
The petition said on June 7, 2003 the Police swooped on the sleeping town at
about 0300 hours and arrested five men and a woman amidst the firing of
gunshots, handcuffed them and took them away to Koforidua. Those arrested
said they were kept in cells and denied food.
On October 17 the Police made another swoop on the town and arrested four
men and took them to Tweapease, where they were subjected to severe
beatings for about five minutes before being taken to Koforidua.
On November 3 the Police swooped on the town again. They entered the
378 Police beats up journalist, General News of Thursday, 04 December 2003. See
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47806 visited 11 Dec
2003.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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Palace of [the]…Chief of the town, who is a serving Policeman, arrested him,
beat him up and handcuffed him and took him away.
The petition said the Police, who numbered about 90, beat up the people
indiscriminately and arrested 39 of them including seven women, three boys
and a septuagenarian O…A…
It said O…A… had since died at the Akwatia Saint Dominic Hospital as a
result of the beatings he received at the hands of the Police.
Reacting to the petition, Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) in charge
of Public Relations, Mr K…O…told the Ghana News Agency that the people
of Bomso had fired on and wounded four Policemen, who were among a
team detailed for an operation to retrieve illegal firearms from the town. The
Police Headquarters on Tuesday said the four were out of danger and have
been discharged from hospital.
ASP O…said on November 3 a contingent of Policemen went to Akyem
Bomso, to search for arms used in attacking the Police, who had on October
16 gone to the town to arrest some young men, who were suspected to have
caused damage to young oil palm seedlings, which Juasco Company Limited
of Tweapease had cultivated.
He said at about 0600 hours, while the search was being conducted, some
youth of the town mobilised and started throwing stones after the Chief of the
town; B…O… was arrested for possessing two cap guns without authority.
ASP O… said the Police arrested 36 others while the rest ran away only to
mount a barricade on the road leading to Tweapease, apparently to prevent
them from carrying B…O… away.
He said when the Police attempted to remove the barricade they were fired
upon from about 50 metres away and four of them were wounded. A Police
handset got missing during the operation.
ASP O... said 35 of those arrested are in custody while B… O… and other
person (sic) had been granted bail to assist in the tracing and retrieval of the
missing handset as well as the identification of the other suspects.
There has been a protracted land dispute between the people of Bomso and
Tweapease.
The people of Bomso claim that 243 hectares of cocoa, oil palm, citrus and
foodstuff farms belonging to them had been leased out to Juasco Company.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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They said they had made representations to the Okyenhene, A… O… P…;
the Kwaebibirem District Chief Executive, Eastern Regional Minister and
President John Agyekum Kufuor.379
Here, the root cause of the friction is the parceling out of land, belonging to ordinary
citizens, to an investor, and the use of the police to enforce that “rule of law”.
There are hundreds of such instances of police-community frictions both of minor and
enormous proportions and evidence of public disrespect and loathe of the police. I
personally grew tired of collecting them from the newspapers. The Country Report on
Human Rights Practices is instructive in this respect:
In recent years, the police service in particular has come under severe
criticism following incidents of police brutality, corruption, and negligence.
Public confidence in the police remained low, and mobs attacked several
police stations due to perceived police inaction, a delay in prosecuting
suspects, rumors of collaboration with criminals, and the desire to deal with
suspects through instant justice. The Ghana Governance and Corruption
Survey completed in 2001 found that the police were among the "least
trusted, least effective, and most corrupt" government institutions in the
country.380
To date the police is severely mistrusted and attracts a good deal of hostility. It is still
considered the most corrupt institution in Ghana from evidence in surveys as far apart as
379Police accused of high-handedness, GNA
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47730 visited 11
December 2003. 380 See http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18206.htm and generally, www.state.gov, visited
13th November 2003.
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1974381 and 2001/2003382. In some extreme cases serious confrontations between sections
of the public and the police have occurred leading to riots, street battles and resultant loss
of lives and property. Let us examine some examples of these.
A BRUTAL POLICE FORCE TODAY
Speaking in 1993, a justice of the Supreme Court of Ghana had this to say:
It is very tempting for some policemen to adopt the attitude of being too
ready or willing to give orders, or misuse their authority and be bossy and
interfering, ready to show the public where power lies. This is why it is
dangerous, if not unconstitutional, for the police to be given the power under
section 12 of [the Public Order Decree].383
Another justice, in response to the plea of the Deputy Attorney-General for the court to
avoid constricting the powers of the police noted:
The public interest demands that the police maintain law and order in society.
Therefore the police will continue to maintain law and order and to ensure
that there are no infringements of the criminal laws of the land by those
exercising their rights, eg to hold public demonstrations. The Deputy
Attorney General appearing for the defendants expressed concern that a
decision in favour of the plaintiff in this case would make the work of the
381 Supra notes 372 and 373. 382 For 2001 see Ghana Governance and Corruption Survey completed in 2001 quoted in the 2002
Country Report on Human Rights Practices-Ghana, supra note 141. For 2003, see CDD, Ghana:
Police-Community Relations in an Emerging Democracy-Survey Report. August 2003; CDD,
Police-Community relations in Ghana. Report of a Workshop on “Enhancing Police-Community
Relations and Democratic Policing”, August 21-23,2003. 383 Supra note 346, p. 476-7 per Aikins JSC.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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police more difficult. That may be so but this is the price we have to pay for
democracy and constitutional order. The police like any other organ of
government are required to operate within the four walls of the Constitution,
1992 but with their crime preventing powers, I believe they can rise up to the
occasion and satisfactorily discharge their duties within the constitutional
limits despite any difficulties.”384
These pronouncements of the highest court in Ghana are living testimony first, to the
range of powers the police possess, the dictatorial and highhanded manner in which those
powers are exercised, and the continuous attempts by the agency of government, the
executive, in this case, the Deputy Attorney-General, to preserve and protect their powers
from erosion.
It is not difficult to appreciate the dilemma in which the modern police force finds itself.
Trained as a militaristic, intrusive, commandeering force, they have to carry out all the
functions of a modern civil police organization. As noted earlier, police training
concentrated on practical police training in weapon handling, map reading and law
related courses such as Criminal Law, Criminal Procedure, and the Law of Evidence385. It
was only in the 1980s that the curriculum of the officer class of the Force was changed to
include liberal arts subjects such as Psychology, Sociology, Community Relations and
Management.386 In 1971, a key recommendation of the Boyes Report was the reduction
in the arms training component of police training in order to moderate the militaristic
384 Ibid, p. 483-484 per Bamford-Addo JSC. 385 Supra note 291, p. 89. 386 Ibid, p. 92.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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aspects of the training.387 As late as 2001388 commentators were still calling for human
rights training for the police to ensure that the “tough cop culture” developed in the
Service over the decades would be changed.
The Police Striking Force, formed in 1970 as a “special unit to fight crimes and to quell
riots, conflicts and other civil disorders which tended to slow down the socio-economic
development of the country”389, is still in full fledged operation. The panthers unit,
formed in 1980 to hunt down hardened criminals engaging in armed robbery and
homicide, clamp down on dissidents and anti-government elements and combat riots,
civil conflicts, chieftaincy disputes and land disputes, and the “Commando Unit” of 1984,
derived from the Panthers Unit, and specially trained in crime combat and dealing with
civil disorder and government dissidents or anti-government activities390 are also still in
operation.
It is interesting that, this type of vice regulation, leading to the construction of a corrupt
and repressive police force, and a repressive understanding of the policing function is
then blamed on the police as individual actors who do not know, do not learn, do not
understand, and so cannot adhere to various human rights principles and practices,
whatever that means. It is not the police that are corrupt and need to be reformed. It is our
concept of the policing function that is corrupt and needs to be reformed.
387 A Report on the Ghana Police Service, December 1971 referenced in EMMANUEL KWESI
ANING, supra note 298, p 7, 24-25. 388 Ibid, note 58. 389 Supra note 291, p. 73. 390 Ibid, p. 74-5.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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For evidence of police brutality, the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices in
Ghana released annually by the United States Department of State, are a good place to
start. The self monitoring of the police ensures that data on such issues are either
unavailable or jealously guarded. As already noted, only in 1991 was the Special Police
Command created within the service to investigate public complaints and reports of
unprofessional conduct against police personnel and to check police abuse of power.391
This, together with the neglect of this area by researchers in Ghana, ensure that, aside
newspaper reports, the only other sources are the US State Department reports and the
reports of the national human rights Commission. A little extract from the 2002 State
Department report says as follows:
Security forces committed a number of unlawful killings of criminal
suspects. The number of deaths reportedly caused by members of the security
forces during the year was unavailable.
In recent years, the police service in particular has come under severe
criticism following incidents of police brutality…
On May 22, security forces broke into a house in the Odorkor neighborhood
of Accra and dragged two suspected armed robbers outside. They beat the
men and hit them with the butts of guns, which resulted in the death of one of
the men…
On June 13, security forces responding to a robbery report killed four persons
who later were reported to be members of a local neighborhood watch
committee...
In May 2001, 126 persons were crushed and trampled to death when police
used tear gas to control a portion of the crowd who were vandalizing the
391 Ibid, p. 75.
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stadium during a soccer match at the Accra Sports Stadium. An official
Commission of Inquiry concluded that the police overreacted to fan
vandalism and bore primary responsibility for the incident…”392
After the incident just referred to, the police were nowhere to be found. They had
vanished into thin air.
Minutes after shooting the 15 canisters of oxygen-sucking teargas into the
crowd, the police mounted their two anti-riot armoured vans and other
vehicles, and noisily sped away from the stadium as the stampede…reached
its zenith.
A conspiracy theory began to build up before dawn as public anger turned on
the police. Many police vehicles were stoned at Nima, Maamobi (sic) and
Newtown and as day broke, information filtered through that one of the
officers who probably gave the order to shoot the teargas was also involved
in police duties at the 1995 Kume Preko demonstration against the
introduction of the Value Added Tax (VAT) by the National Democratic
Congress (NDC) government.393
That Kume Preko demonstration also saw loss of lives when the police, and perhaps other
agents, shot into the demonstrating crowd.394
The 2003 Country Report on Human Rights Practices in Ghana has the following entry:
…security forces committed some unlawful killings of criminal suspects and
innocent bystanders with excessive force. Incidents of police brutality,
negligence, and corruption contributed to low public confidence in police,
392 Supra note 380. 393 ALEX AKURGO and CAMILLUS ABONGO, May 9 at Accra Stadium: A Gripping Story of a
Disaster that Turned Ordinary People into Heroes. (Blue Volta Associates, 2001), p. 52. 394http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=179;
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=432. Both websites
visited on the 20th of May 2004.
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mob attacks on police stations, and a widespread desire to deal with
suspected criminals through vigilante justice…
The Constitution prohibits [Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment]; however, there were continued credible reports
that police and customs officials beat prisoners and other citizens. It generally
was believed that severe beatings of suspects in police custody occurred
throughout the country but largely went unreported.
On September 19, the Deputy Inspector General of Police informed a
graduating class of police that "use of unreasonable force, resort to firearms
without justification and other acts that may constitute criminality, will no
longer be treated by the Police Administration as misconduct, but
criminal."…395
Cases of police misconduct also abound in the annual reports of the Commission on
Human Rights and Administrative Justice.396
PUBLIC DISAPPROBIUM OF THE POLICE TODAY
As is event from the above, public distrust and disapprobium of the police is so high that
conspiracy theory is proffered as a reason for some of their brutal actions. The police
know this and have tried to deal with it. As noted earlier, the Public Relations Bureau was
created in 1969397 and the “Police Week” beginning in 1976, was so that policemen
might interact with the public and disabuse their minds about certain misconceptions of
the police. The police band also “entertain[s] the public from time to time free of charge”
395 http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27730.htm. Visited on 11th April 2004. 396 Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Reports, 1994-2002. See
also, CHRIS DADZIE, Reconciling Police Practice and Procedure with Fundamental Human
Rights and Freedoms as Enshrined in the Constitution. Paper Presented at a Seminar on Policing
and Detection of Crime in a Democratic Environment, 2001. (Unpublished, on file with author). 397 Supra note 291, p. 55.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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and this is meant to “merit the goodwill of the public”398.
Efforts of the police to get the support of the public have continued to date, but alas, with
little success. It is certain that the absence of, or limited training and practice in public or
community relations has affected the functioning of the police in a very relational society.
According to one commentator, the Gold coast policemen had a limited co-operative
attitude in dealing with the public. He attributes this to the “master say” phenomenon
where policemen were trained and socialized to carry out the orders of their superior
officers to the letter in all circumstances.399. This was complicated by the inability of
policemen to communicate effectively with the public. If we remember that the majority
of the force, at its inception, consisted mostly of foreigners, and that there were policy
decisions to maintain and increase foreign presence in the force, it is easy to see that
communication and relations with the public was a problem. Again, as late as 1950, the
number of illiterate policemen was 1,928 out of a total of 3,353400 and so it was not
possible for them to communicate effectively with the public in the English Language or
in the dozens of local dialects spoken all over the country. The absence of training in
police-public/community relations, the difficulties of communication, the resultant
impatience and the “master say” phenomenon on the part of policemen got
institutionalized in the force and remains long after policing by strangers, and the
communication problems have largely disappeared. Increased public disillusionment
398 Ibid, p. 58. 399 Ibid, p. 109 400 Ibid, p. 86.
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with the police is the result. A most illustrative example of this state of affairs is the story
of the May 9 stadium disaster.
THE MAY 9 STADIUM DISASTER AND THE POLICE
Never since the riots of 28th February 1948, did public disapprobrium of the police rise as
high as they did no May 9th, 2001. In this section, I narrate this story as a micro example
and draw lessons on institutional continuity of the police force therefrom.401 About 126
people were killed in a stampede at the Accra sports stadium on that day. The stampede
occurred when police officers fired tear gas into a rowdy crowd in the stadium. Of this
number, over 30 were residents of Nima, Mamobi and New Town. On Friday, May 11th
2001, some residents from the Nima, Mamobi, and New Town communities went to bury
their dead relatives. Afterwards, the youth of these communities headed for their homes.
An advance team of motorbike riders displayed riding skills in ways that violated traffic
regulations. As they approached the Nima Police Station, the police stopped them and
detained one motorbike. This resulted in some verbal exchanges between the riders and
the police. This was aggravated by the arrival of the party of youth from the funeral that
was on foot. When the youth became very rowdy the police fired a warning shot. At this
point the youth began to gather into large numbers around the police station and as they
attempted to vandalize the Nima Police Station, the police called for support from the
401 Both quantitative and qualitative research on the police in Ghana is virtually non-existent, and
we cannot but rely on micro examples and media reports in exercises such as I am engaged in.
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military, who tactfully managed to move the youth from the vicinity of the police station
amidst shouts of “We want soldiers, we don’t want police” from the youth.402
One newspaper reported:
Soldiers fired warning shots and tear gas to disperse hundreds of youths who
attacked a police station in Ghana's capital on Friday in a protest over a
soccer stampede that killed 126 people, witnesses said.
The youths (sic) blame police for causing Wednesday's stampede by using
excessive amounts of teargas in a packed stadium.
Military police have taken over regular police duties in most areas of Accra
amid mounting public anger and anti-police demonstrations since Africa's
worst soccer tragedy.
President John Kufuor renewed his appeal for calm on Friday during a
memorial service for victims at Accra's central mosque.
But in the teeming and poor Muslim suburb of Nima, home to many of the
victims, angry youths attacked a police station, blocked roads and set fire to
kiosks and tyres.
Scores of armed soldiers and around a dozen armoured police and military
vehicles took up positions on the main access roads to Nima. A military
helicopter circled the scene until a tense calm was restored late on Friday
evening.
The protest took on a political tone, with youths chanting for the return of
former President Jerry "JJ" Rawlings, who stood down in December after
nearly two decades in office.
"We want JJ," witnesses quoted the youths as saying. "We don't want police."
Some carried pictures of Rawlings…”.403
402 Legal Resources Centre, Report on the May 9, 2001 Stadium Disaster and the Aftermath for
Nima, Mamobi, and New Town, August 2001. Report prepared by Cheryl Maman and Janis Sims.
(Unpublished, on file with author). 403 “Youth attack police over Ghana soccer tragedy” and “APPEAL FOR CALM”
http://www.rediff.com/sports/2001/may/12soc.htm.
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Another newspaper reported:
At least 126 people died in the stampede at the end of a match between
leading teams Hearts of Oak and Asante Kotoko.
Local radio said up to 130 people had died…
Outside the mosque, youths chanted anti-police slogans at officers. Police
also fired shots in the air on Thursday after a mob, bent on revenge, attacked
the same police station in Nima.
Many in Ghana think police overreacted to crowd trouble when they fired
several canisters of teargas into the stands of the packed stadium after fans
hurled missiles onto the pitch.
"I would say this was not a tragedy but the perpetration of sheer ignorance.
When will the Ghana police force use common sense instead of force?" asked
fan Baba Saidu on Friday in a comment on the Web site of Ghana's popular
Joy FM radio.
Bereaved relatives continued to besiege the morgue at a military hospital,
waiting to collect the bodies of the dead or still searching for their loved
ones. Medical officials said they had identified 80 of the victims, mostly
Muslims.
"This is not the time to apportion blame or seek scapegoats. Let us not rush to
judgment," Kufuor said in a national broadcast on Thursday night,
announcing the creation of a five-member commission of inquiry. "I appeal
to all of you to show restraint and calm. The eyes of the world are upon
us."404
404 Ibid.
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These events caused a very strained relationship between the police and the communities.
Members of the Nima and Mamobi communities could not seek assistance from the
police and the police could not come into the community to prevent crime or apprehend
offenders, for fear of being harmed by residents of the community.405 This micro
example represents the general state of affairs in most of the country.
POLICE REFORM TODAY
Despite public loathing of the police, most people realize how much they depend on the
police in order to go about their daily activities in peace, freedom and security.406 This
complex of an evil police force that misuses its powers and a corrupt force that extorts
money from the citizenry on the one hand, and on the other hand, a much loved police
force that ensures that people live their lives in peace has been the subject of at least two
studies.407
As discussed earlier on in this chapter, the very first attempts at police reform were
modest indeed and involved calls on the Supreme Court, the highest and constitutional
405 Ibid. 406 Supra note 291, p. 110. 407 Supra note 373 and 380. See also RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Police Oversight In Ghana.
Paper Presented at a Workshop on “Security Sector Governance in Africa” Organized by African
Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR), in Collaboration with the Global Facilitation Network
for Security Sector Reform (GFN/SSR), Elmina, Ghana, November 24-26, 2003 (Unpublished, on
file with author); RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Improving Community-Police Relations. Paper
Presented at a Workshop on “Enhancing Police-Community Relations and Democratic Policing”
Organized by the Center for Democratic development (CDD), 21-23 August 2003. (Unpublished,
on file with author), drawing attention to the phenomenon.
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court of the land to prune specific powers of the police.408 Of late, and perhaps
emboldened by various successes in piece-meal reform, governmental reform agents and
civil society groups are calling for a complete overhaul of the police service. Within this
call, however, is a deep canker. We will now examine the broad agenda for the reform of
the service.
It is now increasingly the consensus that effective police performance will depend on
public participation in and approval of police work. This and other ideas about
community-policing are being pushed by various NGOs doing work in security sector
reform and advocacy.409
Lending and donor agencies, more decently called “development partners”410 and the
National Governance Program, a division of the Office of the President in charge of
reforming “governance institutions”, whatever that means, are also now interested in
police reform. The National Governance Program is funded mainly by various
development partners and is basically the evidence of government’s buy-in to a program
that is funded and controlled by “development partners”.
408 Supra note 346. 409 RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Monitoring Police Performance in Ghana. Paper Presented At
“Roundtable On Police And Policing” Organized by African Security Dialogue And Research.
Accra, August 20-22, 2001. (Unpublished, on file with author); RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Key
Issues in Contemporary Ghanaian Policing: Identifying Reform Priorities to Generate Consensus
on Proposals for Reforming the Police Service. Paper Presented at a Workshop Organized by
African Security Dialogue and Research. Accra, August 21-22, 2002. (Unpublished, on file with
author); RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Improving Community Police Relations, supra note 407. 410 DFID for example.
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The thrust of the various NGOs which are involved in police reform in Ghana is to
inquire into the real reasons for institutional malfunction in the police service in order to
work towards fixing them and ensuring better policing for the citizenry. This is why there
is so much emphasis by NGOs on the historical institutional development of the force and
building more productive police-citizen relations. The agenda and resulting process of the
government and its development partners is to built a police force that is capable of
coming down hard on crime, reduce crime and create “an enabling environment” for
“foreign direct investment”. These two quotes are examples of the most popular refrains
in the catalogue of development agenda refrains in the last two decades in Ghana.
It is vital to note here that to the extent that the NGOs involved in police reform are
funded by development partners and external NGOs that have agendas similar to those of
the developmental partners, the form, but not necessarily the content, of their agenda is
similar to that of the development partners working through government institutions. The
phenomenon of NGOs presenting formal proposals and attendant formal reports to their
donors in line with donor requirements, whilst using the funds for more useful work that
addresses the more systemic (as opposed to symptomatic) aspects of social problems is
gaining currency, although it could do with greater leeway and more sophisticated
strategy.
The contrast of the two agendas and the resulting processes are set out in a little
document I prepared as a commentary to a nascent government/development partners
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agenda for police reform.411 The agenda of the government/development partners is
contained in the Technical Proposal on Transformation of the Ghana Police Service.
Prepared by Webconsult Ltd in March, 2003. The Proposal, prepared on the invitation of
the National Governance Programme and the Ghana Police Service was premised on the
following:
1. The need for the Service, as part of the public services of Ghana, to reinvent itself
in conformity with the ongoing reform of the entire public sector412;
2. The declared intention of the government “as one of its primary policies” to
transform and adequately equip the Service to enhance its capacity to perform its
traditional role in a modernizing society;
3. The need to reorient the police to concentrate on its core operational functions and
to perceive administration as, essentially, a management support service; and
4. The need to transform the police in order to institutionalize the practice of
strategic planning, performance targeting and specifying measurable outputs for
divisions, units and individual officers.
The agenda is clear: The high-teching of a brutal force to ensure ruthless clamping down
411 RAYMOND A. ATUGUBA, Review of Technical Proposal on The Transformation of the
Ghana Police Service Presented To The National Governance Programme. May 2003. (On file
with the National Governance Programme and with author). I consult on Police issues for the
National Governance Programme, the Africa Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR), the Center
for Democratic Governance (CDD), and the Legal Resources Centre (LRC). 412This is a reference to the Public Sector Reinvention and Modernization Strategy (PUSERMOS)
launched in 1997.
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on “criminals” in order to maintain the “peace and security” needed for foreign direct
investment and to strictly monitor this through agenda setting and strict performance
indicators. Thus, the proposal is heavy with the ideas and language of contemporary
Ghanaian consultancy firms. These ideas and language are modeled on thoughts and
processes of the industrial state and an ardent, docile, non-participating consumer public.
I have argued in this dissertation that addressing the problems of the police force
symptomatically is not good enough, and that police reform must start from the reform of
the purpose of policing. From this perspective therefore, the industrial corporate capacity
and performance improvement model of police reform that is now being considered by
the NGP and the development partners will only craft a police force that will advance
post-modern colonialism. This is because the agenda basically seeks to improve the
capacity and performance of the “machine”called the police, without tempering with its
core antecedent character and functions. Particularly, I accuse this agenda of a number of
transgressions.
In the first place, the model treats all institutions as basically the same and seeks to apply
a set of performance improvement models to them. The police is thus treated as part of a
wider Public Sector Reinvention and Modernization Strategy (PUSERMOS). The history
of the police in Ghana shows that it is anything but an ordinary institution. No other
institution in Ghana has been the subject of as many committees and commissions of
inquiry, both directly and tangentially as the police. As the institution that is legally
chartered to operationalize the state’s monopoly of force and the state’s responsibility to
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maintain security, law and order, it is a critical institution indeed. In addition, practical
considerations have ensured that the police now undertake a key role in the
administration of justice, another key sector of national life. By doing the bulk of
criminal investigations and prosecutions, the police occupy a significant part of the
justice sector. If we add to this the fact that many cases of a civil nature are reported to
and dealt with by the police all over the country, the police must be considered a key state
institution indeed. In this regard, any effort at reforming the police must be carefully
designed and tactically deployed with a fair deal of sophistication.
Flowing from the above, a 1974 report on corruption listed the police as top of the list.
As previously noted, surveys in 2001 and 2003, on public perceptions of the police
confirmed that this has hardly changed. The reason for this is not far to fetch. The police
is the state institution that is given power to administer two of the most vital roles in the
modern state: the administration of force and of justice. A reform of the police must deal
centrally with mechanisms for managing these powers that are vested in the police and
the attendant issues of state and subject; power and corruption; security versus human
rights. Taking account of and managing these dialectics will involve more than the
application of performance improvement models to the Ghana Police Service.
Reformers must also acknowledge the public character of the police and its functions and
the implications for police reform. Nowhere has the police been fully privatized. Even in
countries where several aspects of policing have been privatized, significant public
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aspects are retained. This underlines the public character of the institution. It is,
therefore, important to be very careful in the design of a reform package for the police
not to see the institution as an entity capable of imbibing the standard reform package for
rejuvenating a private entity or a public entity that is capable of complete privatization.
National security, public order, human rights concerns, state-citizen relations, and other
related governance issues remain matters of a public nature. As the work of the police
impinge mainly on these issues, a reform package for the police must take into account
the discourse and contestations surrounding them. Thus, the standard reform agendas
must be significantly modified to make them work for the police.
Finally, the various reform efforts are obviously aims at reinventing the various
institutions. To do this, a very careful investigation of how the institutions were invented
in the first place is more than crucial. This is true for the police. The police in particular
has a complex pre-colonial, colonial and postcolonial history, which accounts for its
current status and condition. To ignore all this is to do so at the peril of the reform effort.
A reform agenda that is too forward looking risks an under-consideration of the historical
evolution and conditioning of the police. That history is an indispensable part of any
reform effort. This is because it is historical factors and conditions which created the fault
lines in the police that are now sought to be addressed.
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The ideas just discussed constitute the thrust of the civil society views on police reform in
Ghana today. Various expanded versions of the comments formed the core ideas of police
reform initiatives by various civil society organizations in Ghana in the last three years.413
Increasingly, civil society groups are also engaging in policy reform issues in the GPS.
The ASDR, the LRC and CDD are examples of such groups. The ASDR in particular has
in the last two (2) years sponsored several policy dialogues and fora on the reform of the
GPS. Whilst these efforts are very commendable, several fault lines still exist.
The police in Ghana remains very very under studied. The origins, history, and actual
functions of the police remain shrouded in mystery. Part of the argument in this
dissertation is this: a proper exploration of the origins, history and actual functions of the
police in Ghana will lead to the conclusion that it is not the police that need to be
reformed. The police are products of a particular political economy that they serve. To
reform the police, we need to either reform the political economy, or reform their role in
that political economy. We shall return to this matter in the last chapter.
CONCLUSION
The Ghana Police Service is still primarily controlled by the political class. It is still used
to protect the propertied class and the political class. It is still the frontline brutal enforcer
413 Supra notes 407 and 409.
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of various inimical rules of law that are detestable to the ordinary citizenry and it is to
that extent loathed.
The following quotation about the military in Ghana, written in June 2002, holds true for
the police. The only difference is that the term used for the police is Koti Koti instead of
Abongo, and is by no means a more flattering terminology:
Occasional reports of military assault on civilians, particularly when soldiers
have been deployed to enforce the law and effect civilian arrests, have also
created the perception of the soldier as a brute and a robot. The behaviour of
soldiers and the perception of them reflect the age-old image of soldiers as a
‘bunch of disgruntled good-for-nothing school dropouts.’ This unflattering
image dates back to the colonial formative years of the military when enlisted
men were mostly illiterates and dropouts. In Ghana the local parlance for
soldiers is Abongo, an epithet that is understood to mean empty-headed robot.
Nigeria’s Fela Ransom Kuti’s popular song, zombie, equally taunts “men in
uniform.” Reinforcing the negative image is the folkloric version of
recruitment into the forces, as narrated by one commanding officer:
“One troublemaker who disappeared from the village because
the chief wanted him disciplined for misconduct resurfaced a
year later wearing the military uniform. His new status as a
soldier made him untouchable and his earlier misconduct
became unmentionable history when he was around. This gave
currency to the Akan saying: Ode ahometee akodi soja,
literally: “he has joined the military out of desperation.” The
general feeling was that the military provided safe haven to
social misfits.”414
These symptoms of the dysfunction of the police service abound and are today on the
national agenda. Consequently, there is a rush to reform the Ghana Police Service, rather
414 Supra note 301, p. 14-15.
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like the rush to reform the Ghana Police Force beginning in 1948, which ended up hi-
teching and militarizing an already brutal force. There are many calls for extending the
tentacles of the National Institutional Renewal Programme (NIRP) and National
Governance Programme’s (NGP) to the police.
All stakeholders are agreed that the police need to be reformed. There is, however, not
even broad agreement on how that reform should be done. This is not a bad thing. In my
estimation, such an agreement at this time will be disastrous indeed. This is because the
police in Ghana remain very very under studied. The origins, history, and actual functions
of the police remain shrouded in mystery. Part of the argument in this dissertation is this:
a proper exploration of the origins, history and actual functions of the police in Ghana
will lead to the conclusion that it is not the police that need to be reformed. The police are
products of a particular political economy that they serve. To reform the police, we need
to either reform the political economy, or reform their role in that political economy. I
have, in the previous chapters, sought to fill this knowledge gap. Yet broad institutional
analyses of the kind I have engaged in so far has its weaknesses. It gives little clue to how
those institutions function in practice. Institutions do not function in a vacuum, and so we
need to turn to a specific micro-example that illustrates the continuity of the institutional
form of the police force. It is these specific, sometimes mundane occurrences and non
occurrences, reflecting distinctive, peculiar national conditions and traditions, threat
environments, and even historical accidents and how they are managed, which produce
institutional continuities.
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The cultural, historical and political context in which an institution develops, makes the
institution. In this, the formal, legal, administrative, bureaucratic framework of the police
force, and the political economy within which it operates is important. Also important are
the informal relations, processes and interactions within and without the force. It is the
combination of these two functions, which provides the real definition of an institution.
In the next chapter, I will describe how the police in Ghana acquired several aspects of its
current institutional form by looking at how the force was used to implement various
economic, fiscal and cultural aspects of the political economy of the country over time.
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CHAPTER FOUR
AKPETESHIE415
INTRODUCTION
In the last two chapters, I concentrated on the role of the police in the macro aspects of
institutional design in Ghana through time. In this chapter, I will discuss the role of the
police in more micro aspects of institutional design-aspects of the regulation of fiscal and
cultural affairs in Ghana. I will concentrate on the evolution of the regulation of alcohol.
As in the previous chapters, I trace the regulation of alcohol from the colonial era through
neo-colonialism to the current period of post-modern colonialism. If we add to this, the
regulation of political organization, economic enterprise and social control (law and
order) in the previous chapters, we get a near complete picture of the face of imperialism.
I have endeavored in this chapter to show the relationship and intersections between the
more micro issues of fiscal and cultural regulation and the broader imperialist agenda of
political, economic and social domination. The special role of the police in managing the
interface of the micro and macro is emphasized. Again, by showing the critical role of the
police in fiscal and cultural control, I indirectly relate the historical institutional
415 This is the most popular name of the gin that was brewed and sold illicitly during the colonial
era.
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development of some aspects of the police force as a complement to the more macro
narration in the last two chapters. Finally, this chapter discusses the origin of various
forms of subaltern resistance and counter-hegemonic activities against the police, and
other forms of national and international domination, which have survived to date.
As in the case of the “bome kotoku” case in chapter three, the “akpeteshie” case at the
end of this chapter is meant to establish that many issues that arise and are contested
within and without the courts of law today are not isolated events. They are a logical last
step in a process of imperialism that began with colonialism, through neo-colonialism
and into the current period of post-modern colonialism. The resolution of these issues, in
this case the regulation of public order and fiscal and cultural aspects of life, determines
whether and to what extent the agenda of post-modern colonialism will be sustained. The
currency of the contestations that surrounded the development, crystallization, and
perpetuation of institutional forms, emphasize the currency of the history of imperialism.
Institutional reform in Ghana today will benefit from historical institutional analysis à la
“bome kotoku” and “akpeteshie”. In order to clearly draw out the theme of historical
continuity and properly situate the role of the police force in fiscal and cultural control, I
am compelled to thoroughly discuss alcohol use in Ghana over the last several centuries.
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THE ‘AKPETESHIE’ SAGA
The story of akpeteshie is not only about how “the advance of European economic and
political power into African societies…disrupt[ed] controlled-and fundamentally benign-
indigenous patterns of alcohol use.”416 Alcohol control was one of the arena’s where
tension, conflict, resistance and contumacy, ensued between colonizer and colonized. As
we shall soon discover, this led to the paradoxes of continuities and discontinuities,
stability and change, in this area. In other areas, (as is the case with the police)
imperialism of the sword and the pen, combined, rode rough-shod over pre-existing
institutional forms, virtually obliterating them to points of non-recovery, but that is
another matter.
ALCOHOL IN PRE-COLONIAL TIMES
Alcohol has for centuries played a prominent role in the social and religious life of
African societies south of the Sahara. As early as the eleventh century A.D., Al-Bakari
described offerings of alcoholic drinks in royal funeral rites in the kingdom of Ghana417.
Before the latter part of the nineteenth century, distillation was largely unknown and
imported distilled drinks were confined to a few areas. Virtually every community
416 CHARLES H. AMBLER, Alcohol and Disorder in Precolonial Africa, Working Papers in
African Studies No. 126 (African Studies Center, Boston University, 1987) p. 2. 417 “Ghana” here refers to an ancient African Kingdom from which the current country called
Ghana got its name. It covered a greater area than its successor in name. See ADU BOAHEN,
Topics in West African History, (Longman: England, 1986).
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produced one or more types of fermented drinks from grain, fruits, honey, palm sap or
sugar cane. Consumption of these beers commonly accompanied celebrations of season
and passage, legal deliberations, and meetings of elders. Gifts of beer were made to
prospective in-laws, to patrons and rulers, and to honored guests; and the pouring of
libations mediated relations with gods and ancestors.418
Pre-colonial drinking modalities were characterized by social, physical and
environmental constraints on alcohol consumption. Alcohol was not an everyday
consumption item in most people’s lives. As noted earlier, indigenous alcoholic drinks
were fermented, not distilled and could not be conserved for more than a few days.
Sorghum, maize and millet beer and palm wines dominated, and they were usually of low
ethanol content, generally between two and four percent. Also, alcohol production and
consumption tended to be highly seasonal, especially with respect to the grain-based
beers419.
Among the Akan of the Gold Coast, alcohol and drinking occupied an essential place in
traditional religion and culture and was used for both symbolic (ceremonial) and
substantive purposes. The ancient origins of the use of intoxicating liquor by the Akan
during funerals customs and other rites de passage (birth, coming of age, marriage,
death) are shrouded in obscurity. Rum probably came into vogue among the Akan during
418 Supra, note 416, p. 1. 419 Deborah Fahy Bryceson, “Changing Modalities of Alcohol Usage” in DEBORAH FAHY
BRYCESON, (ed) Alcohol in Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (Heinemann:
Portsmouth, NH, 2002) p. 24.
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the seventeenth century, and its use in ceremonies was reported by foreign travelers
during the eighteenth century. Akan priests relate that prior to the coming of European
spirits, the wine of the raffia palm served the same ceremonial purposes420. The pouring
of libation421, the formal uses of alcohol as symbolic gestures in sealing legal or business
contracts, particularly those involving the transfer of land, in swearing oaths in legal
disputes, and in acknowledging a betrothal ascribed further importance to these fluids.
Alcohol in pre-colonial times was a metaphor for power, and by extension,
disempowerment, and perhaps still is. In pre-colonial times it represented a hot fluid
(aggressive, flamboyant, domineering and male).422 It was so central to political power
that it was accommodated in Asante architecture. The palace of the Asantehene423 had a
palm wine house and a place for the distribution of drinks.424 Alcohol use was not
undifferentiated. In the organization of its production and patterns of consumption, it
displayed social stratification. Alcohol was strongly associated with male elders, who
held the highest status in Africa’s rural communities and received preferential access to
alcohol.425 Male elders in pre-colonial southern Ghana viewed alcohol as possessing
potent spiritual power as it was necessary for communicating with the ancestors and the
420 Raymond E. Dumett, “The Social Impact of the European Liquor Trade on the Akan of Ghana
(Gold Coast and Asante), 1875-1910”, Journal of Interdisciplinary History, vol. 5, no. 1 (Summer,
1974), 69-101, p. 81-82. 421 This is a form of prayer that involves an invocation of the spirits of the ancestors, gods and God
by pouring alcohol or a mixture of flour and water on the ground or on symbols-wood, earth
moulds, metal etc- of ancestors, gods or God. 422 EMMANUEL K. AKYEAMPONG, Drink, Power, and Cultural Change: A Social History of
Alcohol in Ghana (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH; James Currey: Oxford, 1996) p. xvi, 4. 423 The King of the Ashanti. 424 Supra, note 422, p. 43. 425 Supra, note 419, p. 24.
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gods through libation.426 It was male elders who were generally in charge, and those
elders who were wealthier and possessed greater labor resources could have alcohol in
greater amounts and more often. Healers and chiefs could demand alcohol as payment
and tribute. Nineteenth-century traveler accounts describe time and again the offerings of
pots of beer or palm wine that visitors received from their local hosts427.
For chiefs and male elders, the ritual use of palm wine in communication with the gods
and ancestors reinforced their secular power. They incorporated the ritual use of palm
wine and other drinks into all important social contracts428 and occasions429 and
fastidiously excluded women and young men from using alcohol. This was facilitated by
the monopoly of the male elders over access to land on which palm trees, the source of
palm wine, grow. Control over land thus subordinated women and young men to the
power of male elders. In Akan traditional society it was normally not considered proper
for women to drink, except perhaps on certain ceremonial occasions and then not to the
same extent as men. Drinking by young men, even those in their twenties, was frowned
upon by elders in both Akan and Ga-Adangbe society, and there was no drinking by
children.430
426 Supra, note 422, p. 5. 427 Supra, note 416, p. 11. 428 GORDON R. WOODMAN, Customary Land Law in the Ghanaian Courts (Ghana Universities
Press: Accra, 1996). 429 G. K. NUKUNYA, Tradition and Change in Ghana: An Introduction to Sociology (Ghana
Universities Press: Accra, 1992). 430 Supra, note 420, p. 79-80.
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Among the non-Akan people of the savannah areas north of the forest zone, the most
popular drink was pito, a beer made from the mash of millet or guinea corn. 431 It is
closely identified with food, and in many cases these drinks were thick, filling, and
nutritious. The ingestion of food (such as the solids in pito) has been shown to slow the
absorption of alcohol into the bloodstream, ensuring that it is only slightly inebriating.432
Travelers who visited West Africa in the nineteenth century, and who commented
repeatedly on what they saw as drunken excess in coastal areas, often made little mention
of the use of alcohol in the interior.433 The gradual advance of Islam in West Africa and
the dramatic success of revitalization movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries led to a decline in the use of alcohol among converts. In northern Ghana, which
was heavily islamized, perhaps more than any other outward aspect of behavior,
abstinence symbolized adherence to Islam.434
The country was therefore divided broadly into those who drank mostly beers from grain
and those who drank palm-wine, with a group of ethnic groups in the mid-stream who
drank both. This was the function of mainly ecological factors; grains are common in the
northern parts, whilst palm trees are almost exclusively in the southern parts, where root
431 Ibid, p. 85. 432 Supra, note 416, p. 5. 433 Ibid, p. 7. 434 Ibid, p. 9.
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tubers are the staple food. In the mid-stream areas, both gains and palm trees are common
and account for the equal prevalence of pito and palm wine.435
Generally, and in both Akan and non-Akan areas, an indigenous ethic of temperance was
forged by male elders to strengthen their monopoly over alcohol use and to codify their
own temperate use of alcohol. For alcohol to contribute to the power of male elders, its
sacred links had to be preserved through moderation in its use.436 But this was not to be
for long.
The relevance of the special drinking modality as a composite construct faded during the
colonial period, as an array of drinking modalities began to surface.437 It is true from the
available evidence that the major portions of European liquor imported into the Gold
Coast in this period were absorbed into the traditional religio-cultural system.438 And it
may well be that a prior affinity for alcohol based on consumption of palm wine and pito
paved the way for the acceptance of stronger distilled beverages imported from Europe.
Yet, these traditional beverages had a low alcoholic content of about three to five percent,
compared with a mean range of about twenty and fifty-five percent (usually after dilution
by merchants) for European commercial spirits.439 The thesis cannot therefore be
435 I stayed among the Gonja, an ethnic group that straddles the border between Northern Ghana
and Brong Ahafo and Ashanti Regions for the eight years, 1982 to 1990. This observation is based
on my sojourn in this area. 436 Supra, note 422 p. 15. 437 Supra, note 419 p. 25. 438 Supra, note 420 p. 84. 439 Ibid p. 93.
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absolutely correct and points to a more complex set of factors that unfolded during the
colonial era.
ALCOHOL IN COLONIAL TIMES
When colonial administrations were being established in coastal West Africa, inland
Africa was still almost untouched by the European influence.440 The Northern territories
of the Gold Coast were thus relatively unaffected by colonialism until the beginning of
the twentieth century and even then, more as a formal protectorate than as a conquered
territory. With very little resources, aside human beings as slaves and as recruits to fight
European wars and to police various human and natural resources of the colonial
administration in the coastal areas, little attention was paid to this area. The interaction of
the pre-existing institutional forms in this area with the Islamic raids of the immediately
preceding centuries, the fact that beer brewing was a preserve of women, (the tapping of
palm wine in the south was the preserve of men), and the later penetration of akpeteshie
into this area, are interesting un-researched themes indeed, but that is another matter that
must await another dissertation. Suffice it to say that the market for alcohol varied, being
less significant in the Moslem areas to the north but more highly developed in the coastal
and the immediate hinterland.441 Difficulty of transportation also accounted for low
incidence of alcohol in the northern parts of the Gold Coast. And these areas, distant from
440LYNN PAN, Alcohol in Colonial Africa, (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies;
New Brunswick, N.J.: [Distributed By] Rutgets University Center of Alcohol Studies, 1975) p. 39. 441 Ibid, p. 7.
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the bustling trade of the coast, and having no ready natural resources like minerals,
cocoa, palm oil and timber to exploited, had far less purchasing power to indulge in the
consumption of European liquor. Thus, the availability of imported alcohol in the coastal
towns, where most of it was drunk, did not seem to have affected drinking in the
hinterland, which continued to be predominantly of native brews.442
To maintain an alcohol dry zone in the north, the Northern Territories Spirituous Liquors
Ordinance of 1909 made it illegal for any African to be in possession of any spirituous
liquor or wine. Any non-African wishing to import liquors or wines into the Northern
Territories for sale to Africans had to have obtained a permit from the Chief
Commissioner of the Northern Territories. It appears that the success of the alcohol dry
zone experiment is due less to socio-cultural constraints, legal regulation and executive
enforcement than to the fact that spirits were beyond the economic reach of the
inhabitants in this relatively poor region and that a high proportion of the population were
Moslem.443 Indeed, one authority on the matter has noted that the importation and sale of
liquor in the Northern Territories was prohibited by colonial ordinance as far back as
1902, yet some European-bottled liquor continued to find its way into the market towns
of the North.444
442 Ibid. 49. 443 Ibid, p. 71-72. 444 Supra note 420, p. 78, footnote 21.
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Even for the immediate hinterland from the coast, fairly large quantities of European
alcohol had to await the coming of the railway and improvement of roads after the turn of
the century.445 The isolation of many communities by sheer geographic distance from the
major sources of liquor supply to the coast, and the fact that the weight and high cost of
head porterage hindered the bulk distribution of liquor and beer, ensured that European
liquor trade was just beginning to penetrate into the north of the Gold Coast Colony and
Protectorate only in the 1890s.446 The story of alcohol in colonial Ghana is therefore
almost exclusively the story of alcohol in the coastal areas and in Ashanti.
Alcohol was part and parcel of the commerce, which for centuries constituted the basic
tie between Europe and Africa. It was an article in the barter trade, which involved the
exchange of European goods for African slaves. The European colonization of the
Americas and the West Indies and the development of the plantation method of
cultivation created a voracious demand for labor that was being fed by the trade in human
beings. As the transatlantic market grew, Great Britain, France, Holland, Portugal, and
even small nations such as Denmark and Sweden clustered in slave ships along the
African coast vying for a share in the lucrative trade in men. The coast between the Gold
Coast and the Niger Delta in fact came to be known as the Slave Coast, “with its rum-
carrying coast-boats…”447
445 Ibid, p. 81. 446 Ibid, p. 80. 447 Supra, note 440 p. 7.
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The importance of liquor as currency was such that distilleries were established in the
eighteenth century in Liverpool, England, specially for supplying ships bound for Africa.
An African chief is said to have remarked early in the nineteenth century: ‘We want three
things, powder, ball and brandy, and we have three things to sell, men, women and
children…’448 As Dike observed, it was profitable to the slave traders “to spread a taste of
liquor on the coast, not only because it provided a means of giving little for the men but
also because it was a convenient form of currency; a bottle of rum was much easier to
transport than a bag of salt”.449 The motto then was “trade spirits in and slaves out”.450
The slave trade plummeted in the nineteenth century, but contrary to legend, alcohol
played a more prominent part in the period of “legitimate commerce” than in the earlier
slave trade era. Merchants trading in Africa contended that Africans would not produce
any raw materials for export except in exchange for imported spirits.451 Alcohol also
formed part of the payment for territorial concessions extracted from African chiefs by
the envoys of European governments. By the end of the nineteenth century, cases of gin-
that could conveniently be broken down into individual bottle units- had become a
common currency in many areas of West Africa.452
Dike was led to the conclusion that:
448 Ibid p. 8 449 KENNETH ONWUKA DIKE, Trade and Politics in the Niger Delta 1830-1885 (Clarendon
Press: Oxford, 1956), p. 106. 450 Supra, note 440 p. 104, quoting W.G.A. Ormsby-Gore, the British Under-Secretary of State for
Colonies speaking in the Permanent Mandates Commission. 451 Ibid, p. 8-9. 452 Supra, note 416 p. 14-15.
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Little of permanent value came to West Africa from the 400 years of trade
with Europe. In return for the superior labour force, the palm oil, ivory,
timber, gold and other commodities, which fed and buttressed the rising
industrialization, they received the worst type of trade in gin and meretricious
articles.453
The gradual expansion in the use of imported spirits was spurred by the introduction of
industrially produced alcoholic drinks, which accelerated rapidly during the century and
especially after the Second World War. The argument that the rapid expansion of spirit
consumption in the late nineteenth-century Gold Coast brought little disruption because
these drinks were incorporated into the “traditional religio-cultural system” has already
been noted. It is also argued that the flood of spirits did not cause the human devastation
that temperance advocates claimed. Rum had been an established trade good on the West
African coast for centuries, and had long before entered the ritual life of coastal societies,
allowing for smooth integration of imported drinks into local practices of the people.454
Yet there is no escaping the fact that rum or gin was different from palm wine or pito,
and these differences continually reasserted themselves as the spirit trade pushed into the
interior during the nineteenth century. While beers and palm wine were produced locally
from local plants, the process through which spirits were made rendered them essentially
more toxic. Not only were spirits stronger than fermented drinks; they were also much
less perishable. Beers and palm wine would last no more than a few days, while gin and
rum could last for years. As a consequence, it was not necessarily the presentation and
453 Supra, note p. 114. See also, supra note 440 p. 8-9. 454 Supra, note 420 passim.
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consumption of spirits that was the emblem of high status but their possession. That
graves were covered with various bottles of rum and gin was not an indication of the
cause of death-as temperance advocates sometimes imagined-but a sign of the wealth of
the deceased.455
The importance of liquor revenues to the colonial administration in Ghana ascribed a
parallel importance to alcohol in the political economy of British colonialism.456 Revenue
from alcohol duties was one of the crucial props on which colonial empires in Africa
were built and maintained. Once colonial administrations were founded, it was alcohol
revenue, which largely paid for their upkeep. There were several reasons for this. The
pre-1914 policy of metropolitan countries was that colonies should pay for themselves
and grants were minimal from the metropolis. Secondly, imposition of direct taxation as a
source of revenue was unpopular and government efforts to tax directly were generally
and repeatedly unsuccessful. The 1852 poll tax, for example, witnessed increasing
antagonism, reached open conflict, and was eventually repealed in 1862. Thirdly,
European economic investment was conditional upon the freedom to repatriate profits so
that most of what money there was went abroad. Customs duties were therefore of prime
importance for the financial solvency of colonial governments, and those levied on
alcohol were clearly crucial.457
455 Supra, note 416 p. 14-15. 456 Supra, note 422 p. xv. 457 Supra, note 440, p. 16.
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The colonial government continued throughout the period, to balance the concerns of
liquor revenue against social control. But prohibition was an option successive Governors
denied.458 Increasing imports of liquor quickly made liquor duties one of the important
constituents of the colonial government’s finances. And the colonial government’s
minute regulation of alcohol imports, the licensing of liquor outlets, and rigid hours of
sale ensured that liquor consumption would not threaten the colonial order. By the
immediate pre-World War I period, liquor duties were contributing as much as 40 percent
of total government revenues in the Gold Coast.459 Typically, the Gold Coast derived
about $5 million a year during the mid 1920s from duties on imported alcohol. At this
time, when the temperance movement was on the rise and liquor regulation was being
tightened, a third of the revenue still came from liquor revenue.460
The reason why colonial administrations were reluctant to entertain a policy of
prohibition is patently clear. They knew they could not afford it. As one observer noted,
without liquor revenue, “their whole administrative machinery would become
temporarily paralyzed, seeing that from 45 per cent to 75 per cent of the revenue of their
Colonies is derived from this traffic’461.
The expansion of trade and economic exploitation of the Gold Coast brought about a
considerable increase in wealth, and consequent purchasing power of the Gold Coasters,
458 Supra, note 422 p. 16-7. 459 Ibid, p. 80-82 460 Supra, note 440 p. 16. 461 Ibid p. 17-18, Quoting E. D. Morel in his book Affairs of West Africa published in 1902 (cited
in Sir Harry Johnson, Alcohol in Africa. The Nineteenth Century and After, September 1911).
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so that any deterrent effect which the imposition of higher duties might have had was
almost completely nullified462. The coincidence of higher taxes for alcohol and the ability
to pay of Gold Coasters, and in an area where “the indigenous population had become
accustomed, through decades of use, to drinking distilled spirits” and where “the drinking
of European alcoholic beverages secured” a “firm foothold”463 meant greater revenue for
the colonial government and less willingness to do without alcohol imports. This was the
challenge of the temperance movement.
THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT AND ALCOHOL IN THE
COLONIAL ERA
During this period, the temperance movement was on in Britain, attempting to curb
massive alcoholism of the British working class. The British liquor firms found an outlet
for their spirits in the colonies. Indeed, a number of breweries were established specially
for production for African consumption. In 1889 a number of European powers met in
Brussels and drew up an international treaty under which they agreed to observe certain
moral principles with regard to their African territories, including the principle of limiting
the importation of liquor into Africa. This was the first of several international
instruments created to deal with the liquor trade.464 In the forty or so years beginning
from 1889, various meetings of European powers to agree on mutual methods of
462Ibid, p. 39. 463 Ibid, p. 39. 464 Ibid, note 440 p. 1.
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imperialism in Africa and to sort out squabbles and power contests in that terrain had
alcohol control on the agenda.
The infamous “drink traffic” in Africa became- a burning political and social issue which
captured the attention of large sections of the English public and which few political
leaders could ignore with impunity. This was due to the propagandist efforts of the
British temperance societies. At the head of the campaign for abolition of the liquor trade
to Africa stood the Native Races and Liquor Traffic United Committee, formed in the late
1880s as an offshoot of the greater British temperance movement, and the Aborigines
Protection Society465.
The moralists believed that the sheer volume of liquor unloaded by merchants on the
coast of West Africa each year was prodigious, and this, combined with the
susceptibilities of most Africans, led to heavy drinking, intoxication, addiction,
immorality and crimes of violence. The anti-liquor moralists also believed that “regular
drinking of rum and gin had reduced large numbers of men to a state of incapacity and
sloth which halted useful commerce and hindered economic development…”466.
Although a total of about nine million gallons of liquor had been imported into the Gold
Coast during the twelve-year period preceding 1895, what the temperance societies and
other critics failed to note was the relationship of the West African liquor trade to the
465 Supra, note 420 p. 70-71. 466 Ibid, p. 71-72.
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total import trade. “Liquor trade expansion was not an isolated phenomenon but part of a
larger economic upsurge associated, first, with great advances in rubber and palm product
exports in the period 1886-1891, and, second, with the railway-gold mining boom and
burgeoning cocoa exports of the period 1895-1910”.467 But increase it did, even if with an
increase in other imports.
Temperance activities in other countries were a boast to British temperance movements
and allowed for the various attempts at signing and enforcing international anti-liquor
treaties for Africa by the European nations. In France, temperance movements were
“urging that trade spirits be prohibited in French possessions; that other varieties of
alcohol be heavily taxed; that the practice of paying African workers with alcohol in lieu
of wages be forbidden; that heavy penalties should be imposed on violation on
prohibition, and that coins should replace alcohol as a form of currency…”468
In the US, “the leading national temperance organizations gave their support to the anti-
liquor cause in Africa, and exerted pressure on the American government to prevent US
companies from participating in the liquor trade…US exportation of alcohol to Africa
was automatically stopped by the eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”469
467 Ibid, p. 76. 468 Supra, note 440 p. 26. 469 Ibid, p. 26.
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In Germany, the North German Mission Society of Bremen waged an intensive campaign
to pressurize the home government to levy a high duty on alcohol imports to Africa as a
measure of control.470
The liquor traffic was also arming Islam, the rival to Christianity in the continent, with
the argument that it was the liquor of the so-called Christian nations, which was causing
havoc among Africans. There was therefore an added reason for the missionaries to fight
the liquor trade and thereby clear the way for the advance of Christianity.471
Indeed, European missionaries were achieving a measure of success in converting
Africans to Christianity. In their letters and reports home, they selectively stressed certain
features of African life and helped to change the stereotype of the African from that of
the savage, to that of the sinful creature requiring salvation. “And one of the sins from
which they sought to deliver him was the sin of drunkenness.”472 The allies of the
missionaries was the Committee for the Prevention of the Demoralisation of the Native
Races by the Liquor Traffic.473 The interest of missionaries, foreign and local, other
temperance movements, the Islamic north, and some colonial administrators, who
thought that it was bad economic policy to reduce the value of native labor with drink,
coincided. For example, evidence of the destructive effect of liquor on the local
populations was gathered from Mohammedan Emirs. It has been suggested that “[w] hat
470 Ibid. 471 Ibid, p. 25. 472 Ibid, p. 9. 473 Ibid, p. 10.
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probably proved to be the most persuasive argument of all those advanced by the anti-
liquor group was one based on the premise that the liquor trade was an uneconomic
proposition in the long run. As the governor of Sierra Leone put it, ‘if you take away
from the natives the liquor, other wants would be created, and they would purchase other
articles which would be more remunerative to the British merchant’…Furthermore,
according to the Senior Assistant Treasurer of the Gold Coast, much of the gin and rum
trade was in the hands of France, Germany and the US; the fact that foreign capital,
foreign shipping and foreign operators were involved was as good a reason as any for
attacking the trade.”474 Indeed, clashes over the liquor trade were but an expression of
wider national rivalries involving economic and political influence in Africa.475 Whether
the reasoning was economic, geo-political, religious, or that Africans were “children to
be taught and redeemed” or were “a labour force to be exploited”, there was a
coincidence of wants of the various actors: stop the influx of alcohol.476
STRANGULATION AND PROHIBITION OF THE ALCOHOL
TRADE DURING COLONIALISM AND THE AFTERMATH
In 1919, the allied powers signed the St. Germain Convention for the regulation of liquor
traffic to Africa. The Spirituous Liquors Ordinance, 1920 (subsequently renamed Liquor
Traffic Ordinance) was passed in the Gold Coast to give effect to the convention.477 This
474 Ibid, p. 12. 475 Ibid p. 18. 476 Ibid, p. 11. 477 Ibid p. 67-68.
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piece of legislation which required the licensing of liquor outlets and related matters
remained unchanged until 1929, with the exception of clauses inserted into the amending
Ordinance of 1927 providing for the publication of licenses and for the lodging of
objections to applications. In 1929, amendments were made which were of a more drastic
nature; the fees payable for retail license to sell spirits were drastically increased, whilst
the hours of sale were constricted from fifteen hours a day to eight hours a day, 10AM to
6PM. Retail sale of spirits on credit was also made illegal. The number of spirit licenses
plummeted in the Gold Coast (including Ashanti and the Southern Section of British
Togoland) by about 52 percent within six months of this amendment. This combined with
the low price fetched by cocoa in the two preceding years, leading to a fall in the overall
importation of spirits in 1929.478
Further agitation for the prohibition of the sale of spirits in Gold Coast led the
government of that colony to set-up, in 1930, a Commission of Enquiry into the
consumption of spirits in the territory to determine if and how the consumption of spirits
could be controlled and “in the event of action being advised which would be likely to
result in an appreciable loss of revenue, what means should be adopted to make good
such loss”479.
478 LYNN PAN, Alcohol in Colonial Africa, (Helsinki: Finnish Foundation for Alcohol Studies;
New Brunswick, N.J.: [Distributed By] Rutgers University Center of Alcohol Studies, 1975) p.
70-71. 479 Ibid, p. 73.
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“As a result of the Commission’s recommendations, the import duties on spirits were
increased and the scheme of an annual reduction in the permitted gallonage of gin was
introduced, with the expectation that in ten years from 1930 the importation of gin in the
Gold Coast would have ceased completely”.480 High taxation of alcohol will have the
quadruple benefit of: ensuring revenue for the colonial administration that was
experiencing budget cuts after World War I; encouraging temperance to salve the
temperance movement in England and the local church-based movements; ensuring
quality working class labor; and maintaining public order by decreasing the chances that
alcohol will be used to fuel resistance and protest against the colonial government.
Then the Gin and Geneva (Restriction of Importation) Ordinance of 1930 was passed,
intended to gradually prohibit gin and Geneva over a period of ten years. Next, the
Liquor Traffic Amendment Ordinance481 prohibited the importation of cheap brandy,
rum, and whisky (the prices of which were below a certain figure) to preempt their
replacing gin. Further liquor laws were enacted in 1930 to restrict the importation of
some alcoholic beverages. The import duty on portable spirits was raised by almost
twenty-two percent in June 1930482 and the Liquor Licences (Spirits) Amendment
Ordinance, 1930483 was passed imposing further restrictions on licensing, hours of sale
and transportation of spirits.484
480 Ibid p. 74. 481 Ordinance No. 17 of 1930. 482 Supra note 422 p. 93-4. 483 Ordinance No. 18 of 1930. 484 Supra note 440 p. 74.
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The number of spirit licenses fell. The following table shows the decrease in the said
licenses over the period under review.485
Year Ordinary Licenses Occasional Licences
1927-28 6,540 21
1928-29 3,844 42
1929-30 2,078 48
1930-31 1,462 57
1931-32 865 131
April to December, 1932 303 101
January, 1933 243 11
SOURCE: Gold Coast Colony Legislative Council Debates, First Session, 1933, (Government Printer,
Government Printing Office (Publications Branch), Accra), p. 25.
Commenting on these figures, a member of the Legislative Council had this to say:
One of the replies dealt with the number of spirit licences taken out in this
country not only this year but for a few years previously, and it was stated
that in January, 1928 something over 3,000 were in existence. It seems clear
to me, Sir, that this alarming decrease is due largely to the increased cost of
licences. The effect of recent legislation which has made the cost of imported
485 Gold Coast Colony Legislative Council Debates, First Session, 1933, (Government Printer,
Government Printing Office (Publications Branch), Accra), p. 25.
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spirits prohibitive to the people of this country in these very hard times,
coupled with the high licence fees…486
The temperance movement seemed to have finally caught-up with the colonial
government. The latter quickly discovered, however, that Gold Coasters had not given up
gin, but that a local source of illicit gin had emerged to compete with the old shops that
sold imported gin.487 A shift in the control of alcohol, from pre-colonial spiritual and elite
control, through colonial administrative control, to popular control was eminent.
ENTER “AKPETESHIE”
In response to restrictive liquor laws and economic depression, commoners resorted to
illicit gin. Speaking in the Legislative Council, Mr. R. Harris, the representative of
merchants noted as follows:
Your Excellency: I beg to move that Government do take into consideration
the advisability of relaxing the restrictions imposed on the importation and
sale of spirits and generally of re-examining its avowed liquor policy.
My reason for tabling the motion now before Council is to draw attention to a
state of affairs prevailing in this country which can only be described as
deplorable. I have the feeling that, rightly or wrongly, some sections of the
community are shutting their eyes to facts and it is therefore true to say, in
my view, that the liquor problem in this country is drifting along aimlessly
and is creating a situation which, if it has not already got out of hand, will do
so completely within a short time, unless it is re-examined very closely and,
486 Ibid, p. 34. 487 Supra note 422 p. 98. And supra note 440 p. 74.
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if thought advisable, by everyone concerned, especially by Government,
some amendments to the present regulations are made. The answers to certain
questions put in this House yesterday merely confirm the conclusions that I
have drawn from personal observation in traveling round the Colony,
particularly in the Central and the Eastern Provinces. I realize that my action
in drawing attention to this matter will be viewed with some mistrust and
possibly a certain degree of annoyance by some sections of the community
and I also realize that I am probably rushing in where angels fear to tread. At
the same time, Sir, I think the replies to the questions I put here yesterday do
definitely indicate that some further re-examination of the liquor problem is
necessary. One of the replies dealt with the number of spirit licences taken
out in this country not only this year but for a few years previously, and it
was stated that in January, 1928 something over 3,000 were in existence. It
seems clear to me, Sir, that this alarming decrease is due largely to the
increased cost of licences. The effect of recent legislation which has made the
cost of imported spirits prohibitive to the people of this country in these very
hard times, coupled with the high licence fees, has led to the growth of a very
undesirable local industry: I refer to illicit distillation of spirits. The effect of
this, Your Excellency, in my view, is that it must have a very harmful effect
on the people of this country both morally and physically. It is undoubtedly
turning a large number of people into criminals and while the number of
prosecutions mentioned also yesterday in this Council does not reveal
anything particularly alarming, there has been a striking increase during the
last two years.488
Akpeteshie, distilled from palm wine, corn and cassava, began to make their entry into the
market on a fairly widespread scale.489 The government banned its production. To the
Gold Coast government, patronage of illicit akpeteshie not only compromised respect for
law; it represented a loss of revenue as it undercut liquor imports and the taking out of
retail licenses.490 Again, the palm, which yielded the oil, so sought after by European
merchants at the end of the slaving era also yielded the wine for the ‘palmwine drinkard’
488 Supra note 485 p. 34. 489 Supra note 440 p. 74. 490 Supra note 422 p. 99.
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and the akpeteshie consumer. Felling and tapping the palms was detrimental to the palm
oil trade.491 It is certain that this consideration was relevant in the banning of akpeteshie
that was partly produced from palm wine.
This conclusion is buttressed by the fact that there does not seem to be any evidence that
alcohol abuse was a serious health hazard in the colony. Information reaching the
Colonial Secretary’s office revealed that:
Death from alcoholism were one in 1940, two in 1943 and nil in 1946. It is
not known whether or not these were caused by illicit gin.492
The people of the gold coast knew this and when the colonial government sought the
opinion of the colonized on this matter, the responses were very strategic, playing into
what the British wanted to hear. To the question whether or not “Ordinance No. 16 of
1931 [which] provides for the gradual decrease in the importations of gin until they cease
altogether at the end of 1940” should be repealed, the Ga Mantse 493 and President of the
Ga State Council responded thus on behalf of his subjects:
The State Council recommends that Ordinance No. 16 of 1931 should be
repealed as it unduly places restrictions on trade and affects revenue.494
491 Supra note 440 p. 20. 492 CSO 11/13/34. File No. 6055, 1947, titled “Alcohol Drinks-Casualties Arising From”. 493 The chief of the Ga ethnic group who inhabit Accra, the Capital city and its environs. 494 CSO 21/18/18.
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On the same question, the Manya Krobo State Council was even more strategic:
We urgently advise the abolition of this Ordinance No. 16 of 1931, which
provides for the gradual decrease in the importation of gin until its final
abolition at the end of 1940. We use it for medicinal purposes as well as
drinking, and funeral performances, and we think the importation of gin will
increase the revenue, and will revive the cocoa and Palm oil trade.495
Only the members of the Legislative Council were forthright:
The majority of the natives there are fishermen. Those living along the
littoral area are between two waters, namely, the sea and the lagoon. They
usually do their fishing mostly in the night and when they come home feeling
cold they need liquor to make them warm. Any attempt to prevent them from
getting liquor must surely lead to smuggling, as they do not know what to do
to keep themselves warm. Last year, that is from the month of August to
September, there was felt a severe cold in the district, and this led to the
people involving themselves in the distillation of illicit liquor. I remember
when his Excellency the Acting Governor visited Keta in October last year,
the people urged upon me to discuss the question of liquor restriction with
him. What they had wanted me to say was that if the Government will not
legalise the local distillation of liquor, then rum should be imported and sold
at a cheap price…
I wish however to add that from what I have seen of the local stuff, just a
little improvement is required to make if perfect.
I venture to predict that more money will be kept in the country if the
Government will authorize and regulate the local distillation of spirits.496
495 CSO 21/18/18. 496 Supra note 485 p. 40.
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And another added:
Now as to the farmer- that valuable asset of the community, on whom
everything depends, he is the worker; that gentleman wants his drink when he
goes out into the field in the early morning, and if he is not permitted to buy
it, he has to get it otherwise so that we are not preventing him from
drinking.497
AKPETESHIE EXPLOSION
The evidence is that there were isolated cases of akpeteshie distillation before this period.
The first written reference to it being in 1887, when government officials reported
attempts by Ghanaians to produce the drink.498 It appears that mass distillation at the turn
of the century became possible only after Ghanaians were able to procure airtight metal
tubing for makeshift home stills from the engines of European motorcars in the 1920s.
Hence, the manufacture and consumption of akpeteshie did not precede the European
liquor trade but was an interesting economic and social byproduct of it.499
The akpeteshie explosion took virtually everyone by surprise. A member of the
Legislative Council was to note:
I happened to be a member of the Commission which brought about a good
many of the restrictions which are in question to-day…But the present
difficulty or the innovation in the form of illicit distillation did not present
497 Ibid, p. 43. 498 Supra note 420 p. 93, footnote 66. 499 Ibid, p. 93-94.
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itself to us. I do not remember our discussing that at all. I personally did not
credit my people with such ingenious methods. I never at any time thought
that they could be so clever as to distil their own alcohol.500
The same sentiments were expressed in the 11th March 1933 edition of the Gold Coast
Independent. In a piece titled “The Drink Problem”, the following extract appears:
...our plans and schemes, purposely formulated to solve or control the drink
problem of this country, have panned out. The resultant situation created is as
much a problem now as ever. It is a safe bet that not one of those who formed
the membership of the Committee set up by Government to investigate and
advise on the limitation and regulation of the traffic in what is known as
‘trade spirits,’ ever thought for a moment that a more serous problem would
be set up as a direct result of their findings and recommendations…
But as has been hinted the remedy has introduced situations infinitely worse
than the disease. These are the extensive setting up of illicit stills for the
distillation of spirits from palm-wine and other suitable raw products in
which the country so abundantly abounds. With the gradual diminution of the
importation of Holland gin, the people changed on to whisky and the other
properly rectified gins of British manufacture; but with the increase in duty
and licence on premises the price to the consumer rose in sympathy,
eventually getting out of pocket-range of the average consumer. The desire
yet remained and to satisfy the craving the people have now taken to the
production of cheap spirits more harmful perhaps than the trade goods…
The largest volumes of commercial distilled spirits were sold in towns of the coastal belt
where the population was densest and, the heaviest drinking in the Colony and the
Protectorate took place among the fishing and laboring classes.501 It soon became the
500 Supra note 485, p. 42. 501 Ibid, p. 81.
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symbol of the protest movement.502 “Akpeteshie’s illicitness unified its patrons-male and
female-against the colonial forces of law and order…and the growing class consciousness
of akpeteshie patrons reinforced African political radicalism in the prelude to the
independence struggle”.503 Protest against liquor policy and illicit distillation represented
prominent aspects of popular politics. Not surprisingly, popular culture-and in particular
drinking bars-became crucial to mass mobilization in the nationalist politics of the 1940s
and 1950s.”504 For the colonial government, “akpeteshie distillation not only threatened
the government’s finances, it raised the specter of crime and disorder, compromised
colonial concerns about urban spacing, and exposed the weakness of colonial rule…As a
cheap drink, akpeteshie came to encapsulate the working-class experience, and as such it
could not be ignored by the powerful…”505
The explosion was also fuelled by prohibition. In the words of one of the Justices of the
Supreme Court during the hearing of the akpeteshie case discussed post:
Akpeteshie…acquired such notoriety that it was invariably referred to by
various appellations such as bomkotoku, kill me quick, ogogro, mete
megyaho, maka maka, kwankyensorodo, VC 10, fametu, etc. The word came
into use because of the obnoxious law which empowered the police to appre-
hend distillers of the drink as well as sellers of the liquor…During that period
it was an illicit gin; distillers distilled it secretly in forests and remote
villages. The Liquor Ordinance dated 31 December 1920, chapter 219 of the
Laws of the Coast, banned the drink. Section 5 of that law provided that it
502 Supra note 422, p. 94. 503 Ibid, p. 96. 504 Ibid, p. xv. 505 Ibid, p. 97.
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shall not be lawful for any person to manufacture a distilled alcoholic
beverage of any kind…506
A member of the Legislative Council of the time had the following rather long reflection
on the matter:
Another aspect of the situation, Your Excellency, that occurs to me, and it is
the result of conversations I have had with quite a number of people, is that I
have been led to believe that some of the unrest prevailing in this Colony
during the last two years has been due to the difficulty the people of the
country, who have been from time immemorial accustomed to strong drinks,
have in getting them. I am quite prepared to accept that view. I think it
probably has had some effect on the temper of the people. Furthermore, in
my view, it may rightly be regarded as unfair interference with the liberty of
the subject. In some of the regulations, there are provisions which make the
carrying on of any business with regard to spirits irksome, and one of them, is
the restriction of the sale on credit. I asked a question yesterday about this
point and I understand that the records do not readily give the answer. I do
not think, Your Excellency, that it is necessary to go any further into this
matter because I think I can supply the answer. There have been practically
no prosecutions under that section of the law. I well recall that when those
regulations came up for discussion here, one Honourable Member said he had
already been informed of four ways of evading that particular point and that
was before the law was passed. If I may, without being unduly prolix,
mention a personal incident bearing on the interference with personal liberty,
I would like to say that for two years I did not touch any spirits and got to the
stage where I did not mind very much whether I ever touched them again.
Towards the end of last year, I decided to take a trip down the coast and my
selection fell on a ship flying the American Flag. When I booked my passage
I was told the ship was dry and that I would not be allowed to take any spirit
on board. As a free born British subject, I took exception to this and took the
precaution of taking on board a case of suitable personal luggage carefully
wrapped up in a cacao bag in case the crew got hold of it, and thus dealt with
the situation properly. The point I wish to make is that because I was told
506 MENSIMA and others v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others [1996-97] SCGLR 676, at 706-
7, per Ampiah JSC.
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definitely I was not allowed to have spirits, I wanted them, and I think that
attitude is typical of the people of this country.507
Liquor legislation, apart from being linked to issues of revenue, taxation without
representation, and taxation without internal development, was also implicitly linked to
notions of power in the African mind, which associated control over the use of alcohol
with sacred and secular power. Liquor policy thus became one of the most politicized
arenas in the 1920s and 1930s up-till the immediate post-independence era.508
AKPETESHIE, THE LAW, THE POLICE AND SUB-ALTERN COUNTER HEGEMONIC PRACTICES
A member of the legislative council had this to say about akpeteshie, the law, and
resistance:
What are the results of the operation of the Ordinance which we find to-day?
It is the actual and deliberate breaking of the law in every direction…Under
the circumstances, I feel that Government will go thoroughly into the matter
and see that we arrive at a decision where all concerned will assist in seeing
that something is done to bring about peace, unity and contentment in the
country. I beg therefore to support the mover of the Resolution by relaxing
restrictions imposed by the Liquor Traffic Ordinance…509
507 Supra note 485, p. 35-6. 508 Supra note 422, p. 68, 82, 117-130 509 Supra note 485, p. 39-40.
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The colonial government adopted the strategy of vigorous prosecution of akpeteshie
patrons. During the early colonial period, court records indicate that women were active
as retailers of liquor. On February 14, 1898, Abba Muria, Adjua Mannu, Adjuah Moshi,
and Abba Yewuh were found guilty for selling liquor from their living quarters and were
deprived of their licenses in the Kumasi District Court. Animah was on July 23, 1909,
fined £5 for selling liquor without a license in the town of Nsawam.510 In 1932, in
Kumase, S. A. Onyinah and others were charged before the court for being in possession
of illicit distilled liquor. In what the government believed to be a display of defiance,
persons convicted of trafficking in illicit liquor preferred to go to jail rather than pay the
fines. “The perception of akpeteshie as an “African drink”, a product of African
ingenuity, turned it into a symbol of political discontent in the 1930s and 1940s. Official
persecution was seen as a typical colonial response to African enterprise. The police
department report for 1934-35 highlighted the African complicity to shield akpeteshie
patrons:
…it is very rarely indeed that any assistance or information is volunteered to
the police in this matter by Africans who could, by reason of their social
status or their education, be expected to disapprove of the trade in cheap
potent illicit spirits (emphasis added).511
510 Supra note 422, p. 64. 511 Ibid, p. 113-4.
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The 1930s witnessed a phenomenal increase in police duties compared to the 1920s, and
the Gold Coast police force was stretched in their endeavor to stamp out illicit
distillation. The following table is illustrative of this512.
Year Cases Cases sent No. of Cases No.
Reported to court in which of persons
convictions convicted
were recorded
1930 122 113 96 102
1931 130 103 81 97
1932 346 289 237 301
SOURCE: Gold Coast Colony Legislative Council Debates, First Session, 1933, (Government Printer,
Government Printing Office (Publications Branch), Accra), p. 26.
In January 1934, a highly successful raid was made by police forces between the villages
of Kpong and Amedica, “where 50 Bush Stills, 40 gallons of distilled spirits and 500
gallons of palm wine were sized and destroyed”.513 “In 1930-31, only six cases of illicit
liquor traffic had been reported with eleven persons convicted. These offenses jumped a
hundred times to 558 reported cases with 603 persons convicted between April 1, 1933
and March 31, 1943. The colonial government was astounded.”514 The police Department
report for 1934-35 noted that, “The spirits are usually distilled in the country districts at a
512 Supra note 485, p. 26. 513 Gold Coast, Report on the Police Department, 1933-34, p. 5. 514 Supra note 422, p. 98.
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distance of 20 miles or more from the town where they are marketed, and are transported
to the town in four-gallon petrol tins by motor transport”.515 For “every case reported to
the police scores go undetected”.516The Eastern Province Commissioner in despair stated:
It is quite obvious, however, that definite action must be taken by the
government, who cannot remain passive under the reproach which is
conveyed in the native name of the liquor “the whiteman’s shame”…517
And “Hodson confessed to the colonial secretary that he had been ‘advised that no efforts
by the police can successfully deal with the problem’. Persons convicted for trafficking in
illicit gin preferred to go to prison instead of pay the fine…The resources of the colonial
police were not adequate to deal effectively with the widespread trafficking in
akpeteshie.”518
Trained in crowd control and the use of force to ensure compliance with law, the police
were certainly not equipped to do the type of investigation that will uncover the
underground world of akpeteshie.
The Tuesday, March 7, 1933 edition of “The times of West Africa” titled “Illicit
Alcohol” had this to say:
515 Gold Coast, Report on the Police Department, 1933-34, p. 7. 516 Supra note 485 p. 35. 517 PRO, CO 96/715/21702. Eastern Province Commissioner’s Report, December 28, 1933, quoted
in Akyeampong, Supra note 422, p. 108. 518 Akyeampong, Ibid, p. 110-111.
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We have been watching with some alarm and concern the illicit distilling of
alcohol pass from a mere affair of the few and gradually assume the
proportions of something on a more expansive scale supported by a very
large crowd who have readily take to this form of providing a certain market
with liquor that received its sources in the past from smuggling. That the
traffic has now become a menace goes without much doubt. From every
corner of the colony come the echo of police prosecution, and convictions
involving many persons of various shades of intelligence and standing in the
country. It is now certain that prosecutions will not put a stop to this very
disagreeable traffic. They have failed to effect the moral change anticipated
by the authorities, and apparently the trade is so lucrative and the risk of
detection so small that persons rather go on playing at a precarious traffic
irrespective of the authorities. It has now supplanted the great evil of
smuggling and the money that was put into this sort of affair is now being
applied in the distillation of gin and other spirits.
And the 11th March, 1933 edition of “The Gold Coast Independent” also had the
following comment under the title “The Drink Problem”:
The Authorities have been putting forth a good deal of energy and drastic
steps have been taken to discourage the manufacture; but it is evident from
the extent of success that has attended their efforts so far that means other
than fines and imprisonment are necessary to checkmate them.
When the Brits banned the importation and use by unauthorized persons of
tubing and metal piping for the distillation process, Ghanaians developed
further survival skills:
But in order to show to what length some people have gone in order to get
hold of tubes, I may recall that when I was in Takoradi some few weeks ago I
wished to pay a visit to a mail ship in a launch which refused to start. When
the engineer examined the engine he found that all the copper tubing had
been stripped. A similar thing happened in Ada quite recently; in fact it was
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on the occasion of the visit of Sir Ransford Slater but that may have been
deliberate.519
…I referred to the ever-growing demand for pipes and copper tubing.
This demand still exists in even greater intensity.
Government very wisely imposed a restriction in piping and tubing, which
has, I think, helped to curb the manufacture of distilling plants.
On the other hand, however, this restriction has resulted in a greater
determination on the part of still makers, to procure piping. Consequently we
have found it necessary in order to prevent pilferage of tubing to keep motor
vehicles enclosed in cases until actually required, which creates delay and
inconvenience in assembling. I agree with the Honourable Mercantile
Member that many subterfuges are being resorted to by Africans to obtain
pipes and tubing, and in my tours around the Colony, I have witnessed many
examples of the ingenuity and adaptability of would-be still manufacturers.
The main demand of our storekeepers throughout the Colony is for petrol
piping and tubes, and they assured me of their ability to dispose of any
quantity we could supply. Naturally, we have discouraged the sale of pipes
except for legitimate purposes. On another occasion I met a former
blacksmith of ours and on enquiry from him how he was getting on he replied
“Oh Massa, I get good job. I get kerosene pan and pipes and make fine ting
for 35s. I get three boys for help me.” When I informed him I should report
him to the Police he replied “Massa I beg you, what I told you be lie.”
Well, Sir, whether he told a lie or not, does not remove the impression that
quite a trade is developing in the manufacture of stills for illegal purposes. I
saw a contraption reminiscent of Health Robinson, consisting of a large pan,
and sections of piping made from galvanized sheets- a very crude though
ingenious device which must have taken many days to solder the sections of
pipes together, but which was obviously useless for the purpose the maker
desired.520
519 Supra note 485, p. 35. 520 Ibid, p. 41.
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In Cameroon, their comrades in the struggle for the survival of homemade gin were
producing similar effects:
The administration responded by preventing the importation by unauthorized
persons of tubing and metal piping for the distillation process and by
introducing a law to inflict heavier penalties, but on the whole, it seems that
there was little it could do. According to Cameron [the Permanent Mandates
Commission’s accredited representative for British Cameroons]….
The natives failed to understand the Europeans’ attitude on this subject. They
argued that they were only producing better palm wine than before. It was
useless to tell the natives they were damaging their health. They did not
believe it…He was frankly at a loss to know how the practice could be dealt
with.’521
Akpeteshie continued to reign strong, despite “the rigorous prosecution of akpeteshie
patrons and the imposition of heavy sentences522. "Akpeteshie" is a Ga word meaning
“going around the corner” or “hide-out”, because distillation and consumption were
secretive523. The name captures the colonial experience of its patrons. Another revealing
name was bome kotoku (“box me”), which described the sound of the beating the arrested
culprit received from the colonial police. A general atmosphere of “daring the state”
developed, and baiting the authorities became fun. “A contemporary witness in Sekondi
remembered that his father found it amusing outwitting policemen by stringing his
521 Supra note 440, p. 88. 522 Supra note 422, p. 109. 523 Ga is a Ghanaian language. If Ghanaians were socialized to hide from the Police, as the
meaning of akpeteshie conveys, why will they not, as the famous police plaint today goes, refuse
to volunteer information to the police.
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purchased akpeteshie bottles around his waist, and then putting on his cover cloth.”524
All this is captured in the words of Mr. A.E.A. Ofori-Atta, then the Minister for
Presidential Affairs, when in 1961 he moved the motion for the second reading of the law
that was to legalize Akpeteshie in Ghana:
Mr Speaker, this Bill will, I trust, be acclaimed by all…Members as a bold
and imaginative attempt on the part of the Government to put on a sound
basis, and to provide the conditions for development into a respectable means
of earning a livelihood, an industry which has been operated in this country
for upwards of forty years in devious illegal ways. On behalf of our
resourceful leader, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, I would state that as soon
as possible after this Bill has become law, there will be published the
Regulations necessary to achieve this laudable end of establishing firmly a
legal activity in which none would be ashamed to participate. I beg to
move.525
The British government had eventually approved the private distillation of local gin by
Africans in 1943, and the Gold Coast and Nigeria were advised to proceed with the
necessary legislation.526 They did not, mainly because of internal church-based
temperance movements. Independence came soon after, but “certain images associated
with akpeteshie-its connections to political protest and social transformation, and its
identity as a working class drink-made the new government apprehensive about
legalizing it.”527 Again, as a government in power, they had also come to appreciate the
financial relevance of duties on imported liquor. With the world market price for cocoa
524 Supra note 422, p. 108. 525 Extracts from Parliamentary Debates, 24th July 1961, reproduced in MENSIMA and others v.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others, supra note 506 p. 690, per Bamford-Addo JSC. 526 Supra note 422, p. 112. 527 Ibid, p. 143.
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declining sharply, the government desperately searched for other viable sources of
revenue. It became unwilling to surrender a lucrative alcohol industry into private
Ghanaian hands.
In frustration, one critic in parliament noted:
Since the [government] promised the electorate in the 1951 and 1954
elections that no arrests of people selling illicit gin would be made, will the
minister [of interior] instruct the police not to arrest any dealer in illicit gin in
order that the government might fulfill their promise to the people.528
AKPETESHIE AND THE INDEPENDENCE ERA
In December 1959, the Spirits (Distillation and Licensing) Bill was passed in Parliament
and received the royal assent on 22 December 1959. According to the Minister of
Presidential Affairs at the time, the purpose of the Bill was to legalize the distillation,
sale, and taxation on locally made gin. Provision was made for the said Act to be brought
into force on a specified date by order of the Governor-General. This order was never
made and the Act never came into force. The Act in section 4 thereof required the
formation of the Ghana Association of Alcohol Distillers, and it took time to form that
association. This is said to have contributed to the non-making of the order to bring it into
528 Ghana, Parliamentary Debates, July 23, 1958.
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force.529 Obviously, the newly independent government, realizing the crucial political,
economic, and social role of alcohol, especially akpeteshie, decided not legalize it until it
had put in place a mechanism to control it once it was legalized. As later events will
show, the use of Cooperative Societies such as the Association of Alcohol Distillers was
that mechanism.
Nkrumah’s postcolonial government not surprisingly followed essentially the same line
of aiding the local production of akpeteshie in order to reap the liquor revenues through
taxes. When the new government eventually legalized akpeteshie, in 1962, the Ghana
Distillers Cooperative Association was officially recognized, and the state decreed that all
akpeteshie distillers should be registered members of this cooperative. The government
sought to centralize its control over akpeteshie production, the better to impose taxes on
distillers530 and for other purposes.
The state has had a strong fiscal interest in alcohol dating back to the colonial
penetration. When domestic alcohol production gradually replaced imports, other forms
of liquor taxation had to be devised. Because the licensing and collecting of taxes from
alcohol producers in the ubiquitous informal sector is difficult, the new government
extracted taxes and revenue in two main ways. First, they devised alcohol control
legislation that ensured greater returns by increasing the reach of the tax net, and second,
529 MENSIMA and others v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others, supra note 506 p. 687-8, per
Bamford-Addo JSC. 530 Supra note 422, p. 144.
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they encouraged industrial production of alcohol at the expense of the cottage industry.
Ghana’s alcohol legislation, decreeing compulsory membership in the alcohol
cooperative societies was in aid of the first mechanism. These strategies were ultimately
meant to tap enough revenue to fund the ambitious national development programs of the
immediate post-independence era.531
Under the first revenue maximizing mechanism, the new independence government in
Ghana decided to take akpeteshie out of the private illicit domain and make it legal and
public. More than that, they decided to centralize control over it and the revenues it could
turn out. Like the centralized marketing boards for the purchase and sale of cocoa, the
government set-up cooperatives to which all akpeteshie distillers and marketers had to
belong. This way, the extraction of akpeteshie rent to fuel the socialist high modernist
plans of the state will be assured. To do this, the industry had to be strictly controlled and
the co-operatives were the mechanism for control. Indeed, when the 1959 law was passed
legalizing akpeteshie, it could not come into force because the co-operatives had not been
set-up yet, and the law required these as a pre-requisite for legalization of akpeteshie. It
was only in 1961, when the cooperatives were set-up, that akpeteshie was legalized. This
represented a post-independence nationalist re-assertion of control over resources for
economic and ultimately political ends.
531 Deborah Fahy Bryceson, “Alcohol in Africa: Substance, Stimulus, and Society” in DEBORAH
FAHY BRYCESON, (ed) Alcohol in Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (Heinemann,
Portsmouth, NH 2002) p. 8.
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The need for developing countries to minimize the drain on foreign exchange to pay for
their imports had led many to adopt an import substitution strategy aimed at replacing
imports by home manufacture. This was the second revenue maximizing mechanism.
Industries manufacturing consumer goods catering to the demands of the wealthy were
frequently the first to appear in developing countries, and for many countries in Africa, a
brewery has been the first major plant.532 When the Minister for Presidential Affairs, Mr.
A.E.A. Ofori-Atta, urged the putting “on a sound basis, and to provide the conditions for
development into a respectable means of earning a livelihood, an industry which has been
operated in this country for upwards of forty years in devious illegal ways” he was
referring to the reigning economic development paradigm of the time, import substitution
industrialization, and envisaged that, akpeteshie will soon replace the imported spirits and
save badly needed foreign exchange for the country533.
To return to the akpeteshie cooperatives as a revenue mobilization mechanism, when
Ghana became a Republic in 1960, it was recognised that certain amendments had to be
made to the earlier 1959 akpeteshie legalization Act before it could be brought into
operation. It was the amended version, which was moved by Mr. Ofori-Atta in July 1961.
The Akpeteshie Act534 gave power for the making of regulations for purposes under the
Act, and the Akpeteshie Regulations535 were passed to regulate the manufacture and sale
of akpeteshie. It can be seen that government policy in the 1959 Act, which was never
532 Supra note 440, p. 103. 533 Extracts from Parliamentary Debates, 24th July 1961, reproduced in MENSIMA and others v.
ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others, supra note 506 p. 690, per Bamford-Addo JSC. 534 1961, (Act 77). 535 1962, (LI 170).
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brought into effect, is the same as that contained in Act 77, Act 154, and Act 331 as well
as LI 239, successors to that Act.536 It was these last genealogical successors to the first
akpeteshie Act and its regulations that were attacked in the Supreme Court of Ghana
during the 1990s. But before we turn to that, it is important to see how alcohol and
akpeteshie fared through the two oil shocks and structural adjustment, up until the 1990s
when this suit was brought.
AKPETESHIE FROM 1970 TO THE 1990s
One’s class, gender and age identity are communicated by where, what and how one
drinks, and whether or not one gets drunk. In any event, this is the story of alcohol in this
period in Ghana. Again, the age at which one starts drinking is often highly significant,
and conveys a message to the public, and so young men in Kumasi, Ghana are attracted
to hard drinking as a way of proving their masculinity.537
The major class divide is between local home brews and distilled liquors as opposed to
manufactured bottled alcohol. Since the independence era, drinking clear, bottled lager
has been the hallmark of membership in the educated urban middle class, the price
differential between bottled beer and informal-sector brews being the boundary between
poor, rural/urban informal, rustic ways and rich, urban sophistication.
536 MENSIMA and others v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others, supra note 506 p. 693, per
Bamford-Addo JSC. 537 Emmanuel Akyeampong, “Drinking with Friends: Popular Culture, the Working Poor, and
Youth Drinking in Independent Ghana”, in DEBORAH FAHY BRYCESON, (ed) Alcohol in
Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (Heinemann: Portsmouth, NH 2002) passim.
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Drinking also affords considerable psychic value. Alcohol stimulates emotional feelings
of exhilaration and even liberation, whilst the camaraderie of men is across the
generations during impromptu drinking sessions. Kumasi’s hard-drinking young men
participate in an urban popular culture in which men of all ages are bound together by
poverty and the use of alcohol. “Alcoholically joyful, creative exchanges have been
described as “poor man’s opera” for those who do not have the financial means to
procure more expensive aesthetic experiences or exhilarating pastimes….”538
In the first two decades after national independence, the industrial production of alcohol
expanded rapidly throughout the countries. Official thinking of the time saw
industrialization as the lynchpin of rapid economic development. Alcohol manufacture,
offered reliable and quick profits despite the innumerable handicaps faced by African
industry. A ready market and the natural import barrier inherent in perishable beer in
heavy bottles made it not only profit-making, but also revenue-generating for fledging
young African governments in search of fiscal funding for their ambitious economic
development plans.539
By contrast, working-class drinkers could not afford lager beer except on rare occasions.
They were reliant on cottage industry-produced beers or akpeteshie. Cheap and powerful,
akpeteshie gave value for money in terms of getting drunk fast, “but it was as much the
538 Supra note 531, p. 6-7. 539 Supra note 419, p. 27.
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conviviality of male drinking groups as the alcohol itself that made drinking a major
social pastime among Ghanaian urban working-class men. In and out of employment,
one’s neighborhood drinking companions could provide needed social back-up to see one
through lean times…such bars also served as centers for mobilizing strike action during
turbulent periods in Ghana’s political history”.540
In the postcolonial era, it is the association of akpeteshie with the lower classes that has
persisted. Highlife songs about poverty often included references to akpeteshie. It
consoled the poor and provided escape from economic hardship. The continuous decline
of Ghana’s economy enhanced akpeteshie’s grip on the poor. “Networks of friendship
and solidarity among the poor have sprung up around akpeteshie bars…”541
In addition, akpeteshie was incorporated into marriage and funeral ceremonies in the
postcolonial era, especially among coastal fishing communities. It then became for the
working class the drink for all occasions. Rapid political and economic decline since
independence has made adulthood, marriage and the family fragile, increasing the lure of
cheap hard liquor. Ghana has experienced more than ten different governments since
independence in 1957, half of them being ushered in through military coups with their
attendant human rights abuses and social dislocations.542 This and persistent economic
crisis has made akpeteshie the solace of the poor.
540 Ibid, p. 35. 541 Supra note 537, p. 220. 542 Ibid, p. 220-221.
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The protracted economic and political upheavals of the 1980s and 1990s reverberated
through alcohol production and consumption patterns. Drink preference moved
“increasingly towards higher alcoholic content, the drinking population continued to
expand and embraced more women, and collapsing class formations and new rural-urban
relations gave rise to fluctuating, often unexpected patterns of alcohol drink supply…”543
These effects were experienced both in the rural and urban areas for a complex of
reasons.
Sub-Saharan Africa’s economic crisis was chiefly precipitated by two successive oil-
price spirals, one in the mid-1970s and the other in 1979. This seriously undermined the
viability of peasant agriculture. The heavy costs of transporting the relatively low, un-
capitalized agricultural output of widely scattered peasant households to centers of urban
demand and ports for export, caused the already inefficient para-statal companies that
transported and processed such crops to buckle. This again had serious ripples on the
parasitic urban economy. As agriculture floundered, the relative affluence of urban
government and para-statal employees was quickly dissolved. National governments fell
into debt.544
The economic crises led to increasing industrial under-capacitation as countries lacked
foreign exchange to import vital spare parts for factories, including beer factories. The
543 Supra note 419, p. 36. 544 Ibid, p. 36.
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drying up of the breweries gave the informal sector space for market expansion, and with
it the retention of the heavy regulatory hand of government for tax and other purposes. As
is obvious, both the rural and urban folks were not spared. Unable to sell their produce
and in the face of global competition, “African peasants farmers had the classic need for a
drink, be it in the form of light-hearted social drinking to take one’s mind off one’s
problems or heavier drinking to get drunk with the power to temporarily erase all
care.”545 The situation was no different in the urban centers. The words of a Dar es
Salaam546, senior civil servant describing the situation in that town capture the situation
in Ghana as well:
I have so many friends. They are used to having three or four bottles each
when we meet after the office is closed. Now beer has become very
expensive. They cannot have three, four bottles every day. So they turn to
stronger drinks…[V]ery often they drink [akpeteshie]. And they get sick.
They look worse with every day taking that stuff. It is a tragedy. Government
has to increase the production of beer and set low prices, otherwise…547
And government did increase the production of beer and set low prices by parceling out
to multinational companies, the beer breweries, which increased production so that
“senior civil servant’s can once again have “three, four bottles every day”. In this they
were subject to the conditionality of structural adjustment programs enforced by the
545 Ibid, p. 41. 546 Like Ghana, Tanzania was touted by the World Bank as a “success” story of Structural
Adjustment leading to economic recovery under its tutelage. 547 Supra note 419, p. 37.
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World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.548 “As successive counties’ reform
programs gained donor approval and national markets were opened to foreign investment,
there was a surge in bottled beer sales. The African middle-class reclaimed their role as
“modern” consumers”.549
By the 1990s, the implementation of economic liberalization programs under the rubric
of structural adjustment were well advanced in Ghana. But this did not trigger the
promised economic recovery. Ghana, a model of the World Bank got mired in more debt.
Yet structural adjustment had effected profound changes. Occupational restructuring
away from peasant agriculture, (and into mining, with gold overtaking Cocoa as the
highest foreign exchange earner), and the erosion of formal sector employment through a
massive retrenchment in the public sector led to an army of unemployed.550 Structural
adjustment had stipulated the trimming of the civil service in a country where the
government is the largest employer and where unemployment and under employment
were already rife. Structural adjustment also dictated the withdrawal of government
subsidies in the health and education sectors. In desperation, the poor turned to
akpeteshie.
I conducted several interviews in the summer of 1992 at Green Partition, a
popular akpeteshie bar in Nima, Accra. The bar was empty on my first visit,
and the bartender informed me that the patrons came in around 6:00 A.M. on
their way to work and at 6:00 P.M. as they returned from work. For many
548 Ibid, p. 36. 549 Ibid, p. 42. 550 Ibid, p. 41.
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workers, drink fortified them for jobs they disliked, and then prepared their
entry into tense domestic situations.551
The only counterweight to the alcohol dispensation in Ghana now, are the new churches,
which have turned alcohol into a site for contestation. Alcohol is representative of
worldly desires that the “born-again” must strive to avoid. The anti-alcohol stance is also
political capital against the more established churches (which still condone the use of
alcohol) in the ongoing competitive proselytization process. Rejection of alcohol, a
symbol of ancestral worship, is also symbolic of a break from the heathen world by the
“born again Christian”.552 In any case, the new churches offer an effective alternative to
alcohol. A visit to some of them reveals that the spiritual ecstasy in which the “born
again” revel, complete with their utterances and motions, create an environment that is
functionally and instrumentally very very similar to the mood in the akpeteshie bar. To
transcend the myriad of problems that stare the poor in Ghana in the face, one needs to be
intoxicated, and it matters little whether the intoxication comes from akpeteshie or from
spiritual ecstasy.
Formerly limited to spiritual rituals and public ceremonies where relatively few imbibed,
drinking has became a temporal, communally shared leisure pastime in which broader
sections of the community participate. Previously limited by seasonal supply, the market
551Supra note 537, p. 221. 552 For parallel developments in Malawi, see Rijk van Dijk, “Modernity’s Limits: Pentecostalism
and the Moral Rejection of Alcohol in Malawi”, in DEBORAH FAHY BRYCESON, (ed) Alcohol
in Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH 2002) p. 249, at
261-2.
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now offers year-round availability. Differentiated consumption patterns have began to
coalesce around a proliferating array of drinks distinguished by their production source,
price and varying alcohol content; and “a stylized…schema of drinking modalities
indicative of the trends and differentiated drinking patterns that had emerged by the early
postcolonial period…evolved alongside processes of urbanization and economic class
formation during the colonial period and in the first decades after independence” is
evident.553 Most recently, the popular contention in some parts of Ghana is that
akpeteshie may well be the cure for HIV/AIDS.554 The lessons from historical
institutionalism are evident. But before we discuss the high theory of institutionalism, let
me tell the mundane story of the akpeteshie case.
THE AKPETESHIE CASE
As noted earlier, a long-standing battle between colonial government enforcement
officers and mostly urban women akpeteshie gin distillers and traders appeared to turn in
favor of the women with the legalization of akpeteshie. In fact, Kwame Nkrumah’s
ambitious post-independence government had its eye on the tax revenues it could extract
from the gin. But the distillers were far from eager to pay license fees and be taxed.555
553 Supra note 419, p. 29. 554Source: Ghana News Agency,
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48994 visited on 29th
December 2003. 555 Supra note 419, p. 27.
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It was a challenge to this forced governmental centralization of the industry for tax and
other purposes which led to the case of MENSIMA and others v. ATTORNEY-
GENERAL and others556, decided by the Supreme Court in 1997. Unfortunately, the
Supreme Court judges did not seem to appreciate the full historical significance of the
governmental policy and the piece of legislation that they were asked to strike down as
unconstitutional. Indeed the legislation was only partially struck down and even then by a
very slime majority of 3-2. The theme of limited information and knowledge about the
history of our institutions for the purpose of reform efforts, finds expression here, as it
will in the following chapter. At the time this case was being argued, Emmanuel K.
Akyeampong had finished his Ph. D dissertation on the topic and his book, an excellent
(and the best available) exposition on the broader issues in contest in the court case, had
just been published557. Neither the full extent of the broader issues, nor these writings,
was considered in the case.
With almost complete amnesia of the complex power contests surrounding alcohol, the
lawyers on both sides and the Supreme Court reduced the institutional reform questions
raised by the plaint of the plaintiffs, to the thin and narrow one of freedom of association
and the constitutional propriety of the regulation of economic activity for tax and public
health purposes under the 1992 Constitution of Ghana. Globalization and its various
elements, including market liberalism and a liberal Constitutional order ensured that
aspects of the regulation of alcohol (including compulsory membership of cooperative
556 Supra note 506.. 557 Supra note 422. This book was based on his doctoral dissertation.
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societies, the better to ensure the collection of liquor duties) were struck down under the
freedom of association clause of the Constitution. Liberalized, the industry is now pretty
opened up for the participation of multinational companies through the penetration of
international capital, which being very mobile and enjoying tax holidays and easy
repatriation of profits, will escape the tax net created by the institutions such as the
cooperative societies.
With this case, control over alcohol had indeed maintained its historical connections to
power. From its moorings to the male elders in pre-colonial times, it was grasped by the
colonial government, and now post-colonial governments of Ghana are seen guarding it
jealously. This feat is linked to alcohol’s value as “a cultural artifact, a ritual object, an
economic good,…a social marker…”558, “its connections to political protest and social
nonconformism, and its identity as a working class drink…”559 These various power
shifts were, however, at the cost of the disruption of pre-existing laws and norms on
alcohol, and the creation of new laws and institutions on same. And these endured
indeed. As late as 1997, the legal and institutional issues around the colonial regulation of
alcohol were still being contested. The parties, processes, choice of turf and the outcome
of the contest, tell us a lot about inherited dysfunctional institutions, institutional
continuities, and historical institutionalism. During the deliberations by the justices of the
558 Supra note 422, p. 14. 559 Ibid, p. 143
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Supreme Court on this case, it was generally referred to as “the akpeteshie case”.560 To
the resolution of the akpeteshie case, it is now necessary to turn.
Local brewing and distilling activities expanded massively as people scrambled to earn
cash during economic crisis of the 1980s. Demand for less costly alcohol, due to the
relatively higher costs of bottled beer produced by import substitution industrialization
breweries, swelled the supply of akpeteshie from the informal sector. During the 1990s,
economic liberalization and privatization policies ensured that these breweries were
parceled out to multinational corporations, which had no pretensions as to the class of
consumers it was catering for. Drinking patterns became highly variable depending on
the consumer’s income standing and rural or urban ties.561 The parallel informal market
for akpeteshie expanded to take care of the working class.
On 8th October 1993, some members of the Egyaa Co-operative Distillery/Retailers'
Society, took a decision to withdraw their membership of the said society and, after
sending a petition to this effect, proceeded to form a separate company. They called it
Egyaaman Distilleries Limited. Among the objects of this company was the manufacture
of akpeteshie. While engaged in the distilling enterprise, agents of the government, with
the assistance of the police, started to harass them by impounding their products namely
akpeteshie, on the ground that the plaintiffs were not members of a registered distiller's
co-operative society and could not by virtue of regulations 3(l) and 21 of the Manufacture
560 Interview with Justice W.A. Atuguba, Supreme Court of Ghana, December 2001. 561 Supra note 531, p. 14.
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and Sale of Spirits Regulations562, sell akpeteshie. The Registrar-General of companies
also advised the plaintiffs to amend the objects of their company to exclude the
manufacture of akpeteshie.
The plaintiffs applied to the Supreme Court, for, inter alia, a declaration that the
regulations, lineal descendants from colonial statutes, which restricted their capacity to
distil akpeteshie, were unconstitutional as offending against the provisions on freedom of
association and sound economic management for the benefit of Ghanaians in the 1992
Constitution563. They also sought an order setting aside the said regulations as being
inconsistent with the letter and spirit of the 1992 Constitution; an order of perpetual
injunction restraining the defendants, their agents, servants and assigns from doing
anything to prevent the plaintiffs from distilling and retailing akpeteshie; and an order of
perpetual injunction restraining the second and third defendants from in any way doing
anything to prevent them from including in the objects of their company the distillation
and retail of akpeteshie. They contended that as individuals or a group, they are entitled
as citizens to retail akpeteshie without necessarily being members of any distiller's
co-operative; nor is it right for them to be compelled to dispose products exclusively to
the co-operative society.564
562 1962, (LI 239). 563 See articles, 21(l)(e), 36(1), 36(2)(a) and (b), 36(6), 37(1) and 37(2)(a) of the 1992
Constitution. 564 Supra note 506, MENSIMA and others v. ATTORNEY-GENERAL and others p. 677-678.
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The Supreme Court held in part for the plaintiffs, ruling that they could not be compelled
to join a co-operative society as a pre-requite for distilling akpeteshie. The court,
however, maintained that the requirement that the plaintiffs dispose of their products to
specified persons or bodies was constitutional. This they justified on the need to facilitate
tax collection and the maintenance of public health, since the consumption of akpeteshie
could have deleterious health effects.
Of the five justices, only Bamford-Addo and Ampiah JJSC realized the importance of the
history of regulation of akpeteshie and delved into it somewhat. Bamford-Addo JSC
ultimately held, however, that the provisions complained of were not unconstitutional.
Reading her judgment, it is almost certain that had she not made a drastic leap from the
short discussion of the colonial regulation of akpeteshie (which she disposes of in
seventeen words) to the post-colonial regulation of same, she would have concluded
differently. The following represent her very words:
The processing and distillation of akpeteshie was forbidden in this country by
certain laws until December 1959…565
The rest of the judgment is a discussion of post-independence regulation of akpeteshie
ending with a ruling that such regulation “far from being inconsistent with the
Constitution, are laws reasonably necessary and permitted by the Constitution itself for
565 Ibid, p. 687.
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the protection of public health and public order, and to ensure effective collection of
taxes, all in the public interest”.566
In contrast, the other judge who took a historical institutionalist approach, Ampiah JSC,
started the meat of his judgment thus:
…it is necessary for a proper and fuller understanding of the matter to trace
the history of akpeteshie…567
Inevitably, he concluded that akpeteshie, once described as an illicit gin, can no longer be
so described, since the obnoxious laws of the colonial period, which empowered the
police to apprehend distillers of the drink as well as sellers of the liquor are no longer in
force. He also noted that the days when, as an illicit gin, distillers distilled it secretly in
forests and remote villages were over.
Now akpeteshie is manufactured and sold publicly. Apart from Schnapps, it
is now proudly and publicly served at funerals and on festive occasions. Like
any other consumable commodity, its health hazards can now be adequately
controlled; there are protective provisions under LI 239 to do that without
necessarily tying distillation to membership of a co-operative society.
"Akpeteshie” therefore cannot now be referred to as an illicit gin. The attempt
therefore to control its manufacture by the requirement that any person who
intends to distil it should be a member of a co-operative society, to say the
least, is discriminatory and a derogation from the principle underlying the
formation of co-operative societies. A co-operative society is not the only
association in the country which manufactures consumable products which
566 Ibid, p. at 698. 567 Ibid, p. 706, per Ampiah JSC.
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pose health hazards. There are chop-bars568, meat-sellers, palm-wine sellers,
kenkey-sellers569, etc. All these have associations which need not be
members of co-operative societies. It is presumed that there is adequate
control of these associations, without the need to join co-operative societies.
Although Ampiah JSC appears in portions of his judgment to narrow the issues to the
need to protect public health, the above quotation, and the one immediately below, show
that he perceived the issues more broadly. For were the issue one of public health,
persons engaged in all other similar trades would be required to join cooperatives.
This reasoning of the minority is exposed for what it is by the following statement from
Ampiah JSC:
The district chief executive, who is empowered to issue the distiller's licence,
has the responsibility of seeing to it that all the required conditions for the
issue of a licence are satisfied. The State, independently, has organs for the
control and checking of economic activities in the country generally. The
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has machinery for the collection of taxes; the
Custom, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) collects all customs and
excise duties and sees to it that no goods are smuggled in or out of the
country; the National Standards Board controls the quality of goods
manufactured in the country and those coming into the country. Staff of the
Ministry of Health go about checking and controlling the health hazards
involved in the manufacturing and selling of food and drinks. With the
existence of all these organs, I do not see the necessity for requiring an
individual or association to join another association before it could obtain a
licence to carry out its trade, particularly when it has not been demonstrated
satisfactorily that the other association has the machinery or a better form of
machinery for checking or controlling the mischief which Act 331 and LI 239
568 Chop bars are restaurants for low-income people, which serve mostly local dishes. Authorities
are generally concerned about the health hazards that chop bars could create. 569 Kenkey is a Ghanaian dish made from grounded maize meal.
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are presumed to avoid.”570
That the health and tax reasons are quite bogus is further underlined by Acquah JSC (as
he then was):
...the objective of a registered co-operative is the promotion of the economic
interests of its members and not, as alleged by the defendants, the promotion
of the health, security and safety of the consuming public…
The position therefore is that, the defence that the membership requirement
of a registered distillers co-operative is necessary for the safety, security and
health of the public is patently unfounded and unsupported… The defendants
have been unable to produce any material in support of their bare and
speculative claim. Nothing is said of the nature, aims and functions of a
registered distillers co-operative in neither Act 331 nor LI 239. And from the
objective of a co-operative society as set out in section 2 of NLCD 252, it is
evident that the health, safety and security of the public are not on their
priority list.
Indeed, elaborate provisions are made in Act 331 and LI 239 to ensure the
health, safety and security of the public. And in all those provisions, a
registered distillers co-operative plays no part. Act 331 mandates inspectors
and police officers in uniform to enter and inspect a distillery in respect of
which a distiller's licence has been granted. Regulations 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17
of LI 239 regulate the locality and construction of a distillery, the
specification for the vessels and plant, and the materials used in the
production of spirits. Apart from the requirement that an applicant must be a
member of a registered distiller's co-operative, this body plays no part under
the law in the issue of licence. The licence is issued by the District Assembly.
And if one talks of the health of the public, the District Assembly has its own
health team better knowledgeable than a group of distillers whose objective is
to promote their economic interest.”571
570 Supra note 506, p. 709, per Ampiah JSC. 571 Ibid, p. at 720-1, per Acquah JSC.
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If the approach of Bamford-Addo JSC (and Kpegah JSC who agreed with her) was not
thoroughly informed by the complex historical institutional development of the regulation
of akpeteshie, the approach of Acquah and Atuguba JJSC displayed almost complete
amnesia of it. In very contemporaneous572 judgments, they preferred to hold that:
In the face of elaborate human rights provisions in our 1992 Constitution, this
compulsory requirement of a membership of a body, whose aims and
objective are simply for the promotion of their economic interests, can no
longer stand side by side with the provisions of article 21(1)(e) of the said
Constitution. The compulsory membership requirement cannot be justified in
terms of article 21(4) (c) for the reasons already stated. I am therefore of the
firm view that regulation 3(1) of LI 239 is inconsistent with the letter and
spirit of the 1992 Constitution, particularly article 21(1)(e) thereof. And so I
declare.573
Thus was lost the opportunity for the courts to delve into the historical construction of
dysfunctional institutions, expose them for what they are, and both order changes or
recommend to the Executive and Parliament, measures that will lead to the reform these
institutions and free the citizenry from the fetters that such institutions place on them. As
late as December 2003, various issues relating to the regulation of akpeteshie for tax and
other purposes were still simmering in public discourse in Ghana.574
572 This word is used here to mean “of the moment”, without regard to history. 573 Supra note 506 p. 721, per Acquah JSC, Atuguba JSC agreeing with him also at p. 721. 574Source: Ghana News Agency:
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47783 visited 11 Dec
2003
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CONCLUSION
Alcohol control was one of the arena’s where tension, conflict, resistance and contumacy,
leading to the paradoxes of continuities and discontinuities and stability and change in the
political, economic and social relations between individuals and groups of the Gold
Coast, now Ghana, ensued. In other areas, imperialism of the sword and the pen,
combined, rode roughshod over pre-existing forms, obliterating them to points of virtual
non-recovery, but that is another matter.
Before the coming of the Whiteman, locally brewed wine and beer were symbols of the
power of chiefs, elders, and men. They controlled the use of alcohol in various ways in
order to retain this power and use it for various social control purposes. With the start of
the slave trade, rum was introduced by European slave merchants as currency for the
trade.
Though slavery eventually waned, rum and spirited alcohol became an important feature
of colonial life. The native softer drinks had been replaced by the stronger ones during
the slave trade and were now used for all the ritual, spiritual, and social purposes for
which native wine and beer were used. More important, the use of these spirits was
promoted by the colonial authority and British and European commercial interests. The
former wanted revenue from alcohol to run the colony in the face of budgetary cuts and
the policy of getting the colonies to be self-reliant. The latter wanted markets for their
goods. At the same time, the colonial authorities wanted to control the inflow of alcohol
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so as to preserve social control and preserve quality labor necessary for “legitimate
trade”-the exploitation of the natural resources of the colony-which replaced the slave
trade. It was this contradiction which was exploited by local and foreign temperance
movements.
The temperance movement succeeded in severely constricting the flow of alcohol into the
colony. This led to the growth of an underground world of “illicit” alcohol- “akpeteshie”.
The police were then set loose on this world. This in turn led to the development of a
cultural site for resistance against the police as representatives of the entire British
colonial architecture. These increasingly vibrant, subaltern, and counter-hegemonic anti-
colonialist activities became too sophisticated for the police to effectively manage.
Today, in the era of post-modern colonialism, these forms of resistance by subalterns are
still rife, although they are hardly understood by the internal and external components of
the machinery of government.
Like in the case of the regulation of public order, I have shown the enduring character of
the akpeteshie institutions575 and how they crystallized at independence and were
perpetuated in the post-independence era. This is because the institutions were a cheap
form of social organization and were valuable instruments for a post-colonial agenda that
required the same instrumental means as was used by the colonial government, albeit to
different ends.
575 Institutions are defined here as repetitive patterns of human behavior.
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It was only in the 1990s that a group of Ghanaians thought that the balance of power
should be changed. They sought the help of the Supreme Court576 to address some of the
issues in the regulation of alcohol and public order that worked against the citizenry, but
alas, with very limited success. The courts settled the issues quite narrowly, although they
recognized the colonial roots of the phenomenon they were dealing with. In the public
order case, the court realized its limitations and asked the executive to intervene to
provide more structural solutions to the issues of institutional dysfunction they were
called upon to address. By showing that serious colonial issues around alcohol and public
order were still nagging only a few years ago, I have prepared the ground for the
concluding chapter which reflects on the enduring character of institutional forms in
Ghana today and the implications for the reform of those institutions.
576 The Supreme Court is the highest court in Ghana. It is also the only Constitutional Court,
subject to the jurisdiction of the High Court to interpret and enforce the constitutional provisions
on Fundamental Human Rights.
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CHAPTER FIVE
THE REFORM GAME AND ITS
PLAYERS
INTRODUCTION
In the previous chapters I have established historical institutional continuity over a period
of about one hundred and seventy-five (175) years. In this last chapter, my main concern
is to reflect on institutional continuity as it relates to the reform of institutions in Ghana
today. By doing this, I hope to illustrate the missing links in the current process of
reforming Ghana’s institutional heritage. The missing links relate to various institutional
forms that were “the roads not taken”.
INSTITUTIONAL CONTINUITY
I have so far analyzed a lot of historical data, mapping this to the present, for the purpose
of making the simple point that knowing the historical institutional development of
particular institutions is indispensable to understanding their current nature and how they
may be reformed. I also make the more specific and more complex point that the
evolution of the police force, and other sub-institutions like the police regulation of
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public order and alcohol, was a process of contestation and pragmatic experimentalism
that was dictated more by responses and policy shifts occasioned by various historical
events and accidents, than by the importation and transplantation of alien institutions. The
micro-dynamics of pragmatic experimentalist institutional design are important because
development and institutional reform are contested projects, and what institutions result
are often a product of the contestations and the experimentalism attendant to them.
The vertical spine of this dissertation is this: in the sequence of pre-colonial forms of
social control, there is a moment when the police force takes over for a specific set of
objectives. This is met with varying forms and intensity of resistance, coalescing in a
model of policing. The model that is there for the first generation of nationalist leaders to
takeover, is modified slightly, and used for the same instrumental purposes as the old
colonial regime, although to different ends. When we get to the point of liberalism, there
is still institutional inertia because, the objectives of the colonial masters, and those of the
post independence nationalist leaders (which coincided), are basically the same as the
objectives of the modern liberal era. This is why the era of neo-liberalism and
globalization is more appropriately referred to as “post-modern colonialism”.577
Though formal colonial rule has disappeared, its murky legacy is still alive. The post-
independence political class who thought of a clean police in pre-independence days were
not in a mood to reform the police. They used it to perpetuate their rule and for what they
577 Susan S. Silbey “Let them eat cake: Globalization, Postmodern Colonialism, and The
Possibilities of Justice”. 31 Law and Society Review 207, (1997).
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thought was the greater cause of national progress and prosperity. The power-loving
politicians found no urgency to nudge the prevailing archaic system so long as they could
control and utilize the police for these purpose.578 This has continued to date.
Thus, this institutional inertia: half-hearted reforms; closure of the imagination to
different normative forms of institutional ordering; discouraging and preventing the
proliferation of alternatives for institutional design; all serve a purpose. It constitutes a
neo-liberal engineering for the maintenance of the status quo. Institutional continuity
serves the neo-liberal agenda. Let us take one example of institutional alternatives: a shift
from the concept of changing the police or reforming the police, to policing change or
policing reform, will include devising innovative ways of policing the liberal political
economy to particular ends that may not coincide with the ends of neo-liberalism. Since
the current mode of policing is ideal for, sustains, and in turn derives its sustenance from
the political economy of neo-liberalism (as shown in chapter three), such a move will be
neo-liberalism shooting itself in the foot. Thus, the halfhearted and sophist efforts at
police reform are themselves serious reform efforts aimed at ensuring institutional
continuity of a police force whose orientation and functions fit squarely with the new era
of post-modern colonialism.
The endurance through time of the colonial policing model is an explicit statement of
institutional continuity. The political economy of policing in Ghana today, still works to
578 For parallel developments in India, see B. P. Saha, The Police in Free India: Its Facets and
Drawbacks, (Konark Publishers, New Delhi, 1989), p. viii.
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protect the political class; ensure physical and proprietary security, peace and stability for
the extraction of resources (labor, mineral, financial) by investors, mostly foreign; and
the enforcement of “the rule of law” for the realization of the first two objectives and for
the enforcement of a particular form of political, economic and social ordering that is
conducive for post-modern colonialism.
The exact definitions of “political class”, “investors”, and “rule of law”/“social ordering”
may have changed in form but not in substance. Again they are fluid, and quite any
institution may assume or use those labels and become an agent of post-modern
colonialism. So that, where the state, using “the rule of law”, enforced by the police,
performs the political act of forcefully organizing akpeteshie producers into cooperatives,
and extracting economic gains and rent from them (as shown in the akpeteshie case in
chapter four), the state is acting as an agent of post-modern colonialism. The same is true
when the government uses the police, as we see in the bome kotoku case in chapter three,
to prevent mass protest and demonstration against the budget of the country-often
constructed in Washington according to the tenet of neo-liberalism. Where a mining
company enters into a set of agreements with a local chieftain, according to which the
extraction of natural resources will be conducted according to a certain “rule of law” that
is unduly favorable to the mining company, which agreement is enforceable by the courts
and the police, we see a private company acting as the agent of post-modern colonialism.
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In all this, it is the state, which has the added task of policing the broader political
economy of post-modern colonialism. And the police become central to this. From the
use of the police in the colonial era to regulate cultural enterprise and political activity in
the name of public order; the deployment of the police against the economic enterprise of
subjects, and in favor of foreign entrepreneurs, as seen in the use of the police to arrest
the distillers and retailers of akpeteshie; to the use of the police, today, against “illegal
miners” and demonstrators against a neo-liberal budget.579
It is interesting that, this type of vice regulation, leading to the construction of a corrupt
and repressive police force, and a repressive understanding of the policing function, is
then blamed on the police as individual actors who do not know, do not learn, do not
understand, and so cannot adhere to various human rights principles and practices,
whatever that means. It is not the police that are corrupt and need to be reformed. It is our
concept of the policing function that is corrupt and needs to be reformed. But are there
any other ways of envisioning the police and policing? To answer this question we need
once again to go historical. We start from the dawn of political independence.
579 There is always a kind of humanitarian and utilitarian twist to it (moral case for empire), as
when it was argued that the regulation of akpeteshie was to protect the health of the citizenry; and
when it was argued and is still argued today that the extraction of mineral resources is for the
internal development of the country and the stamping out of illegal miners is in aid of the “Rule of
Law”.
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ALTERNATIVE INSTITUTIONAL FORMS AND THE STRUGGLE FOR NORMATIVE SUPREMACY
To realize their ultimate intentions, the new independent rulers used the institutional form
of the police that was inherited from colonialism for political subjugation of the masses,
political centralization and social control, the extraction of economic rent, and the radical
reorganization and unification of a conglomeration of ethnically diverse peoples, thrust
together by the Berlin Conference. To do this, they used the same repressive institutional
forms of the colonial era that had been virtually frozen in time and crystallized through
the delicate negotiations for independence. The new rulers were met with resistance,
overt and radical, subterraneous and incipient, as it perpetuated the colonial institutional
forms. Greater oppression to eliminate the resistance led to police states, coups,
chieftaincy and ethnic conflicts, human rights abuses and general social dislocation.
Subalterns responded with another range of survival skills: emigration; smuggling580; the
consumption of alcohol581; and extreme religiosity.582
Enter the World Bank and the IMF in the 1980s. These years were extremely tricky years
for all but those at the pinnacle of the economic pyramid. Through the 1980s and 1990s
580 Which at one time became a capital crime. See Paul Nugent, “Educating Rawlings: The
Evolution of Government Strategy Towards Smuggling” in Donald S. Rothchild (ed) Ghana: the
Political Economy of Recovery (L. Rienier Publishers: Boulder, Colo., 1991). 581 Deborah Fahy Bryceson, “Changing Modalities of Alcohol Usage” in Deborah Fahy Bryceson,
(ed) Alcohol in Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH
2002). 582 Deborah Fahy Bryceson, (ed) Alcohol in Africa Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics
(Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH 2002), passim, especially chapters 11-14.
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one’s economic ascent or descent depended on how strategically one was positioned to
grab the opportunities thrown up by liberalization and the privatization bonanza.
Legitimate economic benefits hardly reached the poor.583
The other effect of the neo-liberal consensus of the World Bank and the IMF was the
opening up of democratic spaces within Ghana. The liberal 1992 Constitution was
outdoored, with its comprehensive bill of rights. Various governmental efforts at doing
“National Institutional Renewal” began. Various NGOs arose and proclaimed their
interest in human rights and institutional renewal. These developments allowed for the
utilization of democratic spaces to call for institutional reform.
Whilst the middle and upper classes were busy apportioning the benefits of liberalism,
generated through economic stabilization, foreign investment, grants and loans, and the
opening up of democratic spaces for the civil society industry, the poor were equally busy
polishing up their forms of resistance and survival skills. When the middle and upper
classes were ready to do serious reform, the lower classes had developed parallel and
elaborate systems of institutional ordering. They had also mastered the art of combining
the appropriate levels and mix of overt resistance and covered resistance that was
necessary for self-help and survival.584
583Jim Yong Kim, et al (eds) Dying for Growth, Global Inequity and the Health of the Poor
(Common Courage Press, 2000), passim. 584 These observations, and several of the observations in this chapter, are based on my
experiences as I work: first as a community lawyer with these “illegal” groups as they negotiate
their relationship with various state institutions including the police; and second, as I work as a
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By the time they were being thought of under the “poverty reduction” program of the
following century, they had developed parallel institutional forms in all sectors of
national life: mutual health organizations and support groups in the health sector;
“illegal” security operatives in the security sector, and what have you.
Thus, a crucial aspect of contemporary governance of the security sector is the way
institutions have proliferated since SAPs. These institutions are products of internal
struggles in the security sector. Private security companies, legal and illegal alike, local
community initiatives, have all sought to advance their agendas in the security sector,
either by collaborating with existing institutions, or creating new ones. This has been
given a shot in the arm by the privatization bonanza.
Because there are so many potential claimants to security provisioning, and resulting
contestations, informal sector security operatives are experiencing oppression, repression,
and legislative, executive, judicial or administrative exclusion.
Yet these informal institutions, mostly falling outside the purview of state, formal,
statutory regulation, are the only ones that have survived the constricting forces of
colonialism and the modernization programs of postcolonial regimes because of their
adaptability. We cannot just dismiss then or force them in line.
consultant for various governmental and non-governmental institutions that are into security sector
reform.
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The current neo-liberal reforms consistently discounted these developments for several
years. First, the architects of these reforms did not know the fact of their existence, (they
were mostly illegible to them), and when they did, underestimated their pervasiveness
and sophistication and their potential and value as alternative forms of institutional
ordering. In this they were aided by some human rights activists who unwittingly label
those developments as illegal and, therefore, unacceptable.
In the last few years, reformers are beginning to think otherwise.585 The forces that have
consistently attempted to eliminate, destabilize, cajole, coerce, subsume, these alternative
forms of institutional ordering are now seeking them out and wanting to understand them
and work with them. Reformers cannot but work with them.
Flowing from the above, subalterns are now strategically aligning themselves with public
and private sector institutions. With the assistance of these institutions, they are
appropriating various avenues available to them within the state, the law and institutions
to further their cause. This process of strategic integration with centers of state power is a
585 At the Workshop on Security Sector Governance in Africa, Organized by the African Security
Dialogue and Research (ASDR), in Collaboration with the Global Facilitation Network for
Security Sector Reform (GFN/SSR), and held at Elmina, Ghana, from November 24-26, 2003,
participants were finally agreed that security sector reform could not proceed without appreciating
and trying to understanding the various “illegal security operatives”. I attended and presented a
paper at this conference. Again, most of my work as a community lawyer is to work with the
police to understand these security operatives. Similarly, the National Health Insurance law started
off by making pre-existing mutual health insurance systems illegal and then had to slowly
incorporate them as the negotiations on the bill progressed. Various mutual health insurance
schemes sought the help of health reform and legal reform institutions to advocate for their
continued legality and for other advantages under the law.
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most important factor. This tactical and nuance process of at once developing “illegal”
institutional alternatives, and appropriating the “legal” spaces within the state and the law
to advance same is the kernel that has to be broken if institutional reform is to be done
intelligently. In its relations with the forces of post-modern colonialism, the state has to
learn from how subalterns mediate their relations with the state.
It is the encounter between the formal sector and these counter hegemonic forces, these
crucibles of alternative forms of institutional ordering, that is falsely termed the crises in
security governance in Ghana today. The Neo-liberal reforms are finally meting their
match. The future promises to be a hot contest. Having established the thesis of historical
institutional continuity in Ghana and the various avenues for alternative normative
institutional formations, it is essential to consider their implications for institutional
reform today.
VISIONS AND DREAMS OF THE FUTURE
In this era of post-modern colonialism, it is difficult to think and act and experiment
without a hegemonic vision. The growing relationship between formal and informal
sector institutions should not fall into this trap. The key is to ensure the proliferation of
alternatives, not a unifying vision and plan of action that will erase all differences and
individual characteristics of societies, communities and persons. This will ensure a
varied, dynamic, and constantly growing and changing set of institutional alternatives
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that can be drawn upon. This is a huge task in the age of globalization, which proffers
one unifying vision, as opposed to a multiplicity of visions.
It is only the “illegal operatives” that appear capable of creating new institutional forms
that are capable of meeting the globalizing forces of post modern colonialism on their
own terms. These institutions, falling outside the purview of state, formal, statutory
regulation, and involving chiefs, headmen, earth priests, other holders of traditional
authority, Opinion Leaders, grassroots level political operatives, and bands of rich and
poor and educated and uneducated young men, are critical in the security sector. They
have survived the constricting forces of colonialism and the modernization programs of
postcolonial regimes not only because of their adaptability, but also because of their
strategic alliances with emerging centers of power.
When we586 organized a series of fora on police-community relations in low-income
communities in Ghana in 2001 and 2002, we were educated. We got a sense of the range
of security institutions in these communities, servicing the peculiar needs of the
communities. We got a sense of their genesis, their operation, and the reasons for their
choice to stay “illegal”. Our sophist and ignorance scheme of getting them registered and
formalized with the state policing system never fell through and we realized the stupidity
of our idea after a series of close interactions with these groups. It is the police who need
to learn from, be integrated to, these groups, and not the other ways round. They know
586 This refers to the Legal Resources Centre, a human rights and legal services organization I
work for.
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the terrain, the do the job that the police are nationally funded to do. We soon found
ourselves working for them.
Their success appears to lie in their capacity to mobilize and reinvent themselves in
multiple ways, even as globalizing forces mobilize new and constantly changing
technologies of power in multiple ways in order to come against them. The processes by
which these operatives align themselves with public and private institutions in order to
rewrite law and state power, and create shifts in political and economic relations at the
micro level is just one example of their capacity to open up a range of fluid opportunities
for themselves.
Flowing from the above, it is not because there are no alternatives. There are alternatives
starring us in the face. Yet the political economy of the financing of information
gathering and knowledge production that is essential for reform ensures that these
alternatives remain relegated to the background. The origins of the police showed the
process of capturing human bodies and matter, (slavery, forced labor, wealth in the form
of gold and other minerals, timber etc); the story of the reform of the police force is the
story of the capture of the mind, as avenues for the evolution of institutional possibilities
are constricted.
Because neo-liberalism resolves issues such as police reform at very high levels of
abstraction, aided by abstract, fluid, and manipulable concepts such as “human rights”,
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“public sector reform”, “national institutional renewal”, “public order”, “rule of law” and
the like, institutional innovation is unduly circumscribed, as they are assumed away or
subsumed under the abstract categories. The interpreters of those fluid and manipulable
categories ultimately interpret them to exclude innovative institutional reform
alternatives.
At another level, human rights activists are consistently using global human rights
standards and the rule of law to close-up institutional alternatives, spaces, and ways of re-
envisioning institutions. It is sad when the force of human rights, which should be on the
side of subalterns, is used, consciously or unconsciously, against the latter. The
globalizing forces of postmodern colonialism have succeeded in seductively sucking in
human rights activists to their side through the use of the manipulable categories of
“legality”, “rule of law” and all the other usual suspects. Viewed carefully, this should
not be surprising. In the institutionalization of empire today, Human Rights, Democracy
and the associated fetishism of particular institutional forms are the moral cases for
empire-immaculate conceptions of the eighteenth century justifications for British
Empire Building.
It follows that concepts such as Human Rights should not occupy the whole terrain of
counter hegemonic impulses, unless it can serve as an open vehicle for carrying all the
impulses in its interstices. The attraction to give human rights that role in Ghana is
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tempting indeed in the light of our overwritten Constitution, with its elaborate human
rights provisions.
Yet mere rhetorical expressions of human rights, and attendant institutional tinkering,
cannot appropriately deal with these gigantic issues of institutional dysfunction. This is
seen clearly in the results of the presentation of some aspects of the issues surrounding
the regulation of alcohol and of public order to the Supreme Court for resolution in
human rights terms.
The mere reform of some rules to, as in the case of the akpeteshie case, improve freedom
of association in economic enterprise, and as in the bome kotoku case, to improve
freedom of association, assembly, and demonstration, are not enough. The dysfunctional
power hierarchies will remain as it did with the passage of the Public Order Act soon
after the Supreme Court struck down some provisions of the Public Order Decree as
unconstitutional. The way to understand domination is not as a list of human rights
violations. It is not the forceful integration of persons to a cooperative system that
subordinates them. It is the lack of alternatives to the integrative cooperative model for
the execution of a particular economic enterprise that subordinates them. Thus, a system
of limited opportunities exists independently of the cooperative integrationist model, and
the rules affirm and endorse that system.
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To argue for alternatives, is to argue implicitly for another system, and therefore
constitutes a blasphemous and heretical rejection of the integrationist “system”. There is
an unwarranted fear that the integrationist “system” has a certain organicism, a holistic
balance of things, a culturally and historically dense and innovatively rich, sometimes
precariously balanced system of things, that ensures that it disappears if you dare to touch
it. This is the unwritten thematic which runs through the judgments of the minority when
they failed to strike down the provisions of the akpeteshie Act under the freedom of
association clause of the Constitution. They essentially said that there are too many
interrelated practices related to the cooperative system for us to pick one strand of it,
evaluate it in terms of western human rights norms, and seek to change it to achieve
equality of opportunity.
THE POLITICS OF INSTITUTIONAL REFORM TODAY
There is a serious problem of institutional malaise in Africa today. On that we are agreed.
Institutional reform is therefore imperative.
Colonialism must be the starting point for any intelligent reform agenda. It was the single
most important institutional reordering in Africa and, as this dissertation shows, created
institutions, which have endured to date in basically the same form in which they were
created. The colonial institutions were constructed with state power, acting through the
law, and directing political ordering and market forces. This is clearly shown in the use of
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the police, the visible arm of the power of the state, to control the citizenry and enforce
the rule of law on the one hand and in economic exploitation and fiscal control on the
other. It will be folly indeed to assume that institutions so constructed, can be
reconstructed without a strong purposeful agency that intelligently generates the
information, knowledge, and processes on the basis of which institutional reconstruction
may proceed.
In Africa today, the state is the titular agency for institutional reform. But the
bureaucratic state is unintelligent and needs information and knowledge from somewhere
to do reform of its institutions. What is being thrust on Africa now are information and
knowledge and reform toolkits à la post-modern colonialism. International institutions
and development partners, blood descendant of colonial forces and members of the post-
modern colonialism group are the real architects of reform.
Sadly, the particular character of post-modern colonialism does not allow for the
proliferation of information and knowledge from which a garden variety of institutional
reform possibilities may be created. To take one little example, the rule of law of post-
modern colonialism that governs the security sector characterizes as illegal all creative
methods of private security provisioning that are not chartered by the state. Again, the
reform movement assumes that there is a policing function, which every body knows, or
ought to know. This is not true. The constitution and the Police Act define the purpose,
functions and duties of the police in very very broad terms and in an inclusive (as
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opposed to an exclusive manner), thus leaving a lot of room to maneuver. To assume a
basic function of the police is a smart way to constrict institutional possibilities in the
security sector and endorse the current system. But are there any alternatives?
The alternatives, in practical and experimental terms, have been few, far between, and
short-lived. And they remain undocumented, un-researched, or under-researched. In this
dissertation, I have attempted to draw attention to these “paths not taken”. Here I point to
two counter hegemonic practices and two experiments in security provisioning as the
crucibles of alternative institutional forms in this area.
First, there is the process, still shrouded in mystery, by which the military cum police
regime that overthrew Nkrumah (and its immediate successor in office, the government
of the Progress party) utilized money from the US Office of Public Safety (OPS) Program
for internal security purposes that barely met the formal requirements of the OPS
program. In reality, assistance was deployed by the ruling class to bolster up their fragile
positions and to silence dissent. I have discussed this program in chapter three. Two
legacies attest to the sophistication that attended this path not taken. Nkrumah’s political
party, the CPP, has never recovered from being dismantled by the then ruling
governments. Within the constraints of available documentation, it is safe to conclude
that the ruling government deployed the anti-communist rhetoric and objectives of the US
OPS program to direct resources to dismantling the CPP. Nkrumah, according to the CIA,
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was a communist. The second legacy is that US money, according to State Department
rules, cannot any longer be used to assist the police in Ghana.
The second example of counter hegemonic practices are found in the series of tactics that
were used by the brewers of akpeteshie to promote the industry, avoid arrest, ridicule the
system when they were arrested, and completely bring the agents of law and order to their
knees. This is described in chapter four.
The third example, and the first path not taken, is the one that involved the devolution of
police powers to Revolutionary Defence Forces under the government of Rawlings, also
discussed in chapter three. This was also short-lived and under researched and,
significantly, ended with the marriage of the Rawlings regime to the IFIs.
Lastly, there are the various “illegal security operatives”, mentioned in this chapter,
which are mushrooming in Ghana today and finding niches within various legal spaces to
exist.
My own future research will focus on roads not taken.
Three things generally happen to these “paths not taken”. As already mentioned, they
remain quite invisible, undocumented, under-documented, un-researched or under-
researched. Second, they are stuck down as illegal (illegal security operatives) or
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inefficient, dangerous or costly (Revolutionary Defence Forces). Third, when they are
finally legible, fairly documented, and coalescing into observable patterns of alternative
institutional ordering, they are captured and transformed by the globalizing forces of
postmodern colonialism.
How do we deal with this rabid need of post-modern colonialists to ensure particular
institutional forms and to capture and re-make institutional alternatives to be consistent
with a particular political economy? I repeat: in its relations with the forces of post-
modern colonialism, the state has to learn from the tactics subalterns use to mediate their
relationship with the state.
INSTITUTIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL REFORM- AN AGENDA FOR THE PRESENT
Repetitive patterns of peoples’ interactions, against the background of their history,
which then informs their forms of social ordering, is the real definition of institutions.
There is a language that is peculiar to the “the reform game” and its “players”. It is the
language of the contemporaneous. It is a language that is almost ahistorical. An
exploration of the reform industry’s varieties of reform toolkits and variegated players
shows that they pay scant attention to history. We saw some of this in chapter three. It is
understandable that the globalizing forces of post-modern colonialism will be
uncomfortable with the dark history of colonialism. But the interpretations and
reinterpretations put upon past events quite often determine current approaches and
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courses of action. And these interpretations in turn hinge upon the questions which each
age asks.
An approach to institutional reform that is historical will ask questions related to “the
roads not taken”. These roads not taken are the crucibles of alternative institutional
ordering and the tools for beginning to confront the hegemony of post-modern
colonialism. History exposes, describes, names, these different trajectories of institutional
forms. What I have done in this dissertation is to set a theoretical framework for more
historical institutionalist and anthropological work in this area.
At every time in the periodized history we have related in the previous chapters, there is a
complex, multilayered, contingent shaping of events, which show the roads taken and the
roads not taken. We need to look back at the patterns of interaction that produced that
history in order to determine what interventions are needed by way of institutional reform
today.
CONCLUSION
An institutional reform agenda must contain a stubborn ability and capacity to: meet and
challenge the discourse of post-modern colonialism; generate an inventory of institutional
social normative forms; identify, understand and utilize all emancipatory legacies of
cultural, traditional modes of social ordering; and feed these into processes of
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contestation over policies and laws within the prevailing array of democratic possibilities.
No single mind or institution has real, as opposed to assumed or fake, mastery over these
processes.
The roads not taken teach us at least one lesson. If we look carefully and critically at
historical institutional development, we will find that there are alternatives; and the
reasons why those roads were not taken have almost nothing to do with their intrinsic
value as alternative institutional forms. The reasons had to do with the hegemony of the
forces of post-modern colonialism.
Today, those forces still hold sway. The funding of research and policy formulation still
forwards the agenda of post-modern colonialism. Research into alternative forms of
institutional ordering, is funded only as a prelude to neo-liberal capture and control of
those alternatives.
The story of institutional reform in Africa is the story of how little we know our
institutions and, simultaneously, how often we are called upon day by day to mop up
institutional mess. The examples of the historical institutional development of the police
force, the control of alcohol and the control of public order in Ghana lay bare this
scenario in a vivid way. These policies and laws were the foundation of the formation of
the colonial state, and coincidentally, the foundations of the creation of the neo-liberal
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state. Dressed in new garbs, the new policies and laws, nevertheless, retain the
refurbished garbs, and the strong and pungent scent of the old.
My dissertation provides crucial knowledge gaps on the police as an example of the
information deficit on the institutions that are sought to be transformed; develops a theory
for analyzing the genesis, growth and development of colonial institutional forms;
develops a theory of institutional continuity for mapping immediate post-colonial and
current institutional forms; and finally, a theory for grafting that historical institutional
analysis into reform initiatives of the present.
My type of historicization has the capacity to meet and challenge the hegemonic
discourse of post-modern colonialism, which basically says that institutions are
dysfunctional and so we need to repair them with this toolkit and make them functional
and efficient. And if this toolkit fails we try that tool kit. And if that fails, then it is the
people who run the institutions who are the problem and should be changed or killed.
It also points to the enduring but silenced forms of institutional forms that are part of the
inventory of a garden variety of institutional possibilities that need to be part of the
reform discourse. The colonial experience created a multilayered, contested, contingent,
experimentalist shaping of events that led to various trajectories of institutional
development in key sectors. We need to look back at these trajectories, these roads not
taken, if we are serious about institutional reform.
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The key is the development of an African587 intelligentsia that will look at the roads taken
and the roads not taken, and produce the information and knowledge on the basis of
which contestations over policy alternatives and choices of reform agendas may be made.
587 African not in terms of geography or race, but in terms of a genuine commitment to the
advancement of Africa.
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SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
CONSTITUTIONS
Constitution of Ghana, 1957.
Constitution of Ghana, 1960.
Constitution of Ghana, 1969.
Constitution of Ghana, 1979.
Constitution of Ghana, 1992.
STATUTES
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Arms and Ammunition Ordinance, 1922 (CAP 253).
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Criminal code, 1892 (CAP 9).
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Laws of the Gold Coast Colony, 1919 (CAP 31).
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
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ISSAH IDDI ABBAS AND 10 OTHERS V. ACCRA METROPOLITAN
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
293
ARTICLES
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
294
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
295
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the Possibilities Of Justice”. 31 Law and Society Review, (1997), 207-234.
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Eighteenth and Nineteenth-Century England," British Journal of Criminology 27:
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2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
296
REPORTS
ASDR, Roundtable on Police and Policing. August 20-22, 2001.
ASDR, Key Issues in Contemporary Ghanaian Policing: Identifying Reform
Priorities. December 2002.
ASDR, Strengthening Regional Capacity for Conflicts Resolution in West Africa:
A Response to NEPAD. October 2002.
ASDR, South- South Dialogue on Defence Transformation. May 2003.
CDD, Ghana: Police-Community Relations in an Emerging Democracy-Survey
Report. CDD-Ghana Research Paper No. 12, August 2003.
CDD, Police-Community relations in Ghana. Report of a Workshop on
“Enhancing Police-Community Relations and Democratic Policing”, August 21-
23, 2003.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
297
CLINGENDAEL INSTITUTE, Enhancing Democratic Governance of the
Security Sector: An Institutional Assessment Framework. A report prepared for
the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2003.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1994.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1995.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1996.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1997.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1998.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 1999.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 2000.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 2001.
Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice, Annual Report, 2002.
INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL ON HUMAN RIGHTS POLICY, Crime, Public
Order and Human Rights: Draft Report for Consultation, March 2003.
DFID, Security Sector Reform and the Management of Military Expenditure:
High Risks for Donors, High Returns for Development. Report on an
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
298
International Symposium Sponsored by the UK Department for International
Development, London, 2000.
ISACSON, ADAM AND BALL, NICOLE, U.S. Military and Police Assistance
to “Low-Income Poorly Performing States”. Report Prepared for the center for
Global Development Project on Poorly Performing States, November 2003.
OFFICE FOR THE CO-ORDINATION OF HUMANITARIAN AFFAIRS,
Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict: Humanitarian Challenges in West
Africa. Report of the Conference held 19-21 May 2003, in Accra, Ghana.
Sponsored by the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, African
Security Dialogue and Research and the Institute for Security Studies.
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Project Ghana. (Agency for International Development, Washington D.C., March
1974).
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Findings, Conclusions, Recommendations and Equipment Specifications-Sept.
12- Oct. 23, 1968, Reviewed and Declassified by John Weiss, OPS, February 24,
1975.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
299
PERIODICALS
CENTRE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT EDUCATION, Law Enforcement
Review. A Quarterly Magazine of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education,
Nigeria. December 1999.
CENTRE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT EDUCATION, Law Enforcement
Review. A Quarterly Magazine of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education,
Nigeria. December 2000.
CENTRE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT EDUCATION, Law Enforcement
Review. A Quarterly Magazine of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education,
Nigeria. March 2001.
CENTRE FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT EDUCATION, Law Enforcement
Review. A Quarterly Magazine of the Centre for Law Enforcement Education,
Nigeria. June 2001.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
300
UNPUBLISHED WORKS
AGBLOR, P.K., Establishing Linkages in the Criminal Justice System for Effective
Control: The Role of the Police. Paper presented at a symposium organized at the
Ghana Borstal Institute on 28th November 2001.
ANING, EMMANUEL KWESI, An Overview of the Ghana Police Service.
Paper Prepared for the African Security Dialogue and Research, October 2001.
ANSU-KYEREMEH, KWESI and ESSUMAN-JOHNSON A National Survey on
Public Perception of the Police in Ghana. Accra, MFWA, 2001.
ATUGUBA, RAYMOND A., Monitoring Police Performance in Ghana. Paper
Presented at “Roundtable On Police And Policing”, organized by African Security
Dialogue And Research. Accra, August 20-22, 2001.
ATUGUBA, RAYMOND A., Key Issues in Contemporary Ghanaian Policing:
Identifying Reform Priorities to Generate Consensus on Proposals for Reforming
the Police Service. Paper Presented at a Workshop on “Key Issues in
Contemporary Ghanaian Policing: Identifying reform Priorities”, organized by
African Security Dialogue and Research. Accra, August 21-22, 2002.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
301
ATUGUBA, RAYMOND A., Improving Community-Police Relations. Paper
Presented at a Workshop on “Enhancing Police-Community Relations and
Democratic Policing”, organized by the Center for Democratic Governance (CDD),
21-23 August 2003.
ATUGUBA, RAYMOND A., Police Oversight In Ghana. Paper Presented at a
Workshop on “Security Sector Governance in Africa”, organized by African Security
Dialogue And Research (ASDR), in Collaboration with the Global Facilitation
Network for Security Sector Reform (GFN/SSR), Elmina, Ghana, November 24-26,
2003.
ATUGUBA, RAYMOND A., Review of Technical Proposal on The Transformation
of the Ghana Police Service. Paper Presented to the National Governance
Programme.
AYINE, DOMINIC. M, Constitutionalism, Governmental Accountability and
Economic Transformation in Ghana: A Law and Economics Perspective, 1998.
BALL, NICOLE, Democratic Governance in the Security Sector. Document
prepared for UNDP Workshop on “Learning from Experience of Afghanistan”. 5
February 2002.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
302
CHRIS, ABOTCIE, Training For a more Responsive Policing in Ghana. Paper
Presented at “Roundtable on Police and Policing”, organized by the Africa
Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR), Accra, August 20-22, 2001.
DADZIE, CHRIS, Reconciling Police Practice and Procedure with Fundamental
Human Rights and Freedoms as Enshrined in the Constitution. Paper Presented at
a Seminar on “Policing and Detection of Crime in a Democratic Environment”,
2001.
HILLS, ALICE, Trends in Police Oversight in Africa. Paper presented at a
Workshop on “Security Sector Governance in Africa”, organized by the ASDR,
Elmina, Ghana, November 24- 26 2003.
HUTCHFUL, EBOE, Security Sector Governance in Africa, Draft Concept Paper
for the Workshop on “Security Sector Governance in Africa” organized by the
ASDR, Elmina, Ghana, November 24- 26 2003.
HUTCHFUL, EBOE Governance of the Armed Forces in Ghana Paper Presented
at a Workshop on “Security Sector Governance in Africa”, organized by the
ASDR, Elmina, Ghana, November 24- 26 2003.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
303
KORNEY, H.O, Establishing Linkages in the Criminal Justice System for
Effective Crime Control; The Role of the Ghana Prisons Service. Paper presented
at a symposium organized at the Ghana Borstal Institution on 28th November
2001.
KRANZDORF, RICHARD B., The Military and Police in the Gold Coast/Ghana
Through February 1966: A Study of Limited Institutionalization. (Ph. D
Dissertation in Political Science, University of California, Los Angeles, , 1973).
LEGAL RESOURCES CENTRE, Report on the May 9, 2001 Stadium Disaster
and the Aftermath for Nima, Mamobi, and New Town. Report prepared by Cheryl
Maman and Janis Sims, August 2001.
MAMDANI, MAHMOOD, Beyond Settler and Native as Political Identities:
Overcoming the Political Legacy of Colonialism, 2004.
MARENIN, OTWIN, SSR in Africa: International/Comparative Implications and
Lessons. Paper presented at the Workshop on “Security Sector Governance (SSG)
in Africa”, Organized by Africa Security Dialogue and Research (ASDR) Accra,
November 24-26, 2003.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
304
MOMOH, ABUBAKAR Vigilantism as a Policing Option in Nigeria. Draft Paper
Presented at Roundtable on “Police and Policing” organized by the African
Security Dialogue and Research, Accra, August 20-22, 2001.
NAUNIHAL SINGH, Making Facts: A Theory about the Role of Expectations in
Coup Dynamics and Outcomes. Paper Presented at the Psychology and Behavior
Workshop Organized by the Center for Basic Research in the Social Sciences,
Harvard University, May 2, 2002.
PELSER, ERIC Community Policing in South Africa: Policy and Practice. Paper
Presented at “Roundtable On Police And Policing” Organized by African Security
Dialogue and Research. Accra, August 20-22, 2001.
QUIST, JUSTICE CHARLES, Establishing Linkages in the Criminal Justice System
for Effective Control: The Role of the Judiciary, Paper presented at a symposium
organized at the Ghana Borstal Institute on 28th November 2001.
TIETAAH, GILBERT K.M. Press Coverage of Crime and Police-Related Stories
From January 1 to July 31, 2001. A Report on Content Analytic Study of Four
Newspapers in Ghana. Presented at a Seminar for Journalists on “Media and
Coverage of Crime” Held at the Police Headquarters, August 23, 2001.
2004 by Raymond Akongburo Atuguba
SJD Dissertation, Harvard Law School
305
WEBSITES
http://www.amnesty.org
http://www.cepil.org
http://www.cepil.org/prjstory.asp?id=13.
http://www.cla.sc.edu/socy/faculty/deflem/zcolpol.html
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48030
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48020
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47670
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47806
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47730
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=48994
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=47783
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=179
http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=432
http://www.rediff.com/sports/2001/may/12soc.htm
http://www.state.gov
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2002/18206.htm
http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2003/27730.htm.
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