Renowned security and international relations expert, Dr. Vladimir Antwi-Danso, has pointed to political interference as a key driver of the protracted Bawku conflict, cautioning that military deployments alone will not resolve the crisis unless these political undercurrents are tackled head-on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In an interview on Channel One Newsroom on Sunday, July 27, 2025,monitored by NSEMGH,Dr. Antwi-Danso said the government\u2019s reliance on military and police deployments amounts to a stopgap measure that fails to address the underlying factors fuelling the violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201c\u2026military presence, police presence in their numbers will not solve the problem,\u201d he stated. \u201cThere are several pillars propping up the conflict. It could be history that has not been properly related, and we\u2019re adding on and twisting history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt may be the media\u2014the way we handle it. It may be the people themselves or intra-community miscommunication. It could be politics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He was unequivocal in identifying political influence as central to the Bawku crisis: \u201cIn the Bawku case, politics is one of the greatest beams supporting the conflict,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Antwi-Danso warned that unless these \u201cbeams\u201d are dismantled, security interventions will achieve little more than temporary calm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo 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,\u201d he stressed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
His comments come at a time of renewed violence in Bawku, where the government has imposed a strict curfew and ordered the evacuation of students from conflict-prone areas following deadly attacks believed to be linked to the long-running chieftaincy dispute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Calls are growing for the government to take a more comprehensive approach\u2014one that recognises the political manipulation and historical distortions that continue to fuel tensions. Dr. Antwi-Danso\u2019s remarks have reinforced demands for sustained dialogue, transparency, and depoliticisation of the conflict to break the cycle of violence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":45683,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[43,1],"tags":[11394,9014,7960,10767,8440,11831,12785,7583,9203,6569,2264,10954,11493,5205,5572,67,421,5424,5655,6047,6258,678],"class_list":["post-45682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-attacks","tag-bawku","tag-case","tag-conflict","tag-crisis","tag-curfew","tag-dispute","tag-driver","tag-evacuation","tag-fuel","tag-government","tag-international","tag-interview","tag-july","tag-military","tag-nsemgh","tag-police","tag-politics","tag-security","tag-students","tag-transparency","tag-vladimir-antwi-danso"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45682"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45685,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45682\/revisions\/45685"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}