Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, a security, and international relations expert, has indicated that the protracted Bawku conflict is largely due to political interference, further cautioning that military deployments alone will not resolve the crisis unless the underlying political issues are addressed directly.
In an interview on Channel One Newsroom on Sunday, July 27, 2025, Dr. Antwi-Danso noted that the government’s overly reliance on military and police deployments amounts to a stopgap measure that fails to address the underlying factors fuelling the violence.
“…military presence, police presence in their numbers will not solve the problem,” he said.
“Several pillars are propping up the conflict. It could be history that has not been properly related, and we’re adding on and twisting history.
“It may be the media—the way we handle it. It may be the people themselves or intra-community miscommunication. It could be politics.”
In his submission, Dr. Antwi-Danso unequivocally identified the political underpinnings of the Bawku crisis: “In the Bawku case, politics is one of the greatest beams supporting the conflict,” he said.
His statement comes following a renewed clash in the Bawku and its environs, further threatening the fragile process in the Upper East region.
This was immediately responded to by the Government, which had announced the deployment of the Ghana Armed Forces, urging them to take all necessary measures to ensure peace and stability in the highly volatile Bawku community.
However, Dr. Antwi-Danso warned that unless these “beams” are dismantled, security interventions will achieve little more than temporary calm.
“So until you remove these props one by one for the conflict triangle to fall, you have done nothing. So using the military often is only a stopgap,” he stressed.
There have been growing calls on the government to take a more comprehensive approach—one that recognises the political manipulation and historical distortions that continue to fuel tensions.
Dr. Antwi-Danso’s remarks have reinforced demands for sustained dialogue, transparency, and depoliticisation of the conflict to break the cycle of violence.
