ECOWAS Peace

and Security Report

Issue 6 August 2013

Ghana: the land question in

ElDorado
Introduction
Widely portrayed as one of the economic and political standouts of Africa, Ghana
hasbacked its deepening democracy with one of the highest gross domestic
product per capita in West Africa. Blessed with a rich array of minerals including
goldand diamonds, the commencement of petroleum exploitation recently in
thecountry hasonly further brightened its economic prospects. The country has
recaptured its image as an African El Dorado, attracting people ranging from
Ghanaians who had left the country for the West and wealthy West Africans fleeing
their own troubled countries to foreign investors and illegal Chinese miners. One
chink in Ghanas armour has been the question of the insecurity of land rights and
unequal access to land. With weak property rights institutions, rampant fraudulent
sales, disputes over boundaries, the destruction of property during disputes, violent
clashes between land claimants, and increasingly unequal access to land, the land
question is one of the biggest single threats to human security in the country.
This report explores the land question in Ghana, reflecting on its history, causes and
impact on security. It also makes policy recommendations for the improvement of
land administration and management in the country in ways that will improve the
security of people living in the country. It is based on field research carried out in
August 2013. Interviewees included state officials, think tank members, land users
and traditional authorities. It has also benefited from years of research on the subject
by some of its authors.

A bloody confrontation in Cantonments

A video widely viewed on the Internet in June 2013 showed a unit of the Ghana
Police Service confronting and brutally beating up a group of young men in the
neighbourhood of Cantonments in the Ghanaian capital, Accra. Unsurprisingly, these
victims of police brutality did not attract a lot of sympathy from Ghanaian society:
they were land guards, who have come to epitomise all that is wrong with land
administration and management in Ghana. Accused of brutalizing one party to a
land dispute at the behest of another in broad daylight and engaging in an exchange
of gunfire with the police, their treatment by the police was a relief to many.
Thefactthat the bloody confrontation over land was happening in the exclusive
Cantonments area in the heart of Accra, which houses government bungalows,
up-market residences and the offices of many organisations and businesses,
demonstrates the alarming dimensions of the land problem in Ghana.

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

ECOWAS PEACE
AND SECURITY
REPORT SERIES
The ECOWAS Peace and Security Report
series seeks to provide the decision
makers of the Economic Community
ofWest African States (ECOWAS) with
analysis on critical and topical human
security situations in West Africa. It results
from a partnership between the ISS and
the ECOWAS Commission (Regional
Security Division). The objective is to
produce independent, field-based policy
research in a timely manner to inform
ECOWAS decision-making processes or
alert its governing structures on emerging
issues. The ECOWAS Peace and Security
Report series consists of analyses of
country situations and other thematic
issues with recommendations. It is
circulated, free of charge, both
electronically and in hard copy, to a
diverse audience in West Africa and
beyond. The ECOWAS Peace and Security
Report is produced by the Conflict
Prevention and Risk Analysis Division
(CPRA) in ISS Dakar with the support of
CPRA staff in ISS Addis Ababa, ISS Nairobi
and ISS Pretoria.

Anatomy of the land question

The land question is a multi-dimensional one featuring a series of
interrelated problems. The most important ones are highlighted
below:

Weak institutional base

At the core of the land question is a weak and confusing
institutional base that makes it very difficult for many people to
transact in land withany sort of predictability or security. Ghana
has three main tenure systems. Customary land is the most
dominant and accounts for about 80 per cent of the countrys
territory. Here communities hold beneficiary interest in land,
which is managed by traditional chiefs and family heads. State
land covers most of the rest of the country, and is managed by
the Lands Commission. Private freehold is very rare in the
country.1 Confusing transaction rules, weak documentation
systems, poor adjudication mechanisms and weak and partial
enforcement ensure that rights are often not secure across these
tenure systems.

Adjudication mechanisms to resolve land disputes are similarly

fraught with problems. Because of the scale of the problem
there is a massive backlog of cases. Corruption in the judiciary
(as pointed out by a professor of Law as well as an official of
the Lands Commission interviewed) has combined with
incessant appeals to ensure that cases sometimes last for
decades. It is no wonder that many people seek extra-judicial
and often violent means to resolve land disputes. These land
problems also hamper the ability of the judiciary to deal with
other cases.
Enforcement mechanisms: Disputing parties do not always
view the Ghana Police Service, which is supposed to be the
ultimate enforcer of land rights, as objective, professional or
capable. Corruption in the police and political bias, as pointed
out by a member of an influential think tank, are key to the
problem. Certain police and military officers also become
party to disputes when they are hired to intimidate
opponents. The perceived need for land guards raises
legitimate questions about the capacity of the Ghana Police
Service to systematically and fairly enforce land rights.

Compulsory acquisitions and disputes

At the core of the land question

is a weak and confusing
institutional base that makes it
very difficult for many people
totransact in land withany sort
of predictability or security.

The Ghanaian state has over time compulsorily acquired parcels

of land from customary authorities for important state
installations and projects. A problem with this procedure is that
compensation for land acquired in this manner is not always
paid, as pointed out by an official of the Lands Commission.
Also, in many instances where the state has not used parts of
the land acquired, it has refused to hand the unused land back
to its original owners, electing to give it to well-connected
people instead.

Fraudulent sales
Rules governing land transactions are numerous and often
shrouded in secrecy, and it is not always clear who has the
authority to transfer rights.
Institutions that document, keep and make accessible
information on land interests are similarly tentative.
TheCompulsory Land Title Registration Law (1986) was
supposed to enable the registration of land titles in the
country. Unfortunately, land titles can still only be
registered in a few places because title registration is
legally restricted tothose areas. The more archaic deeds
registry system is similarly circumscribed. An official of
theMinistry of Lands and Natural Resources said in an
interview that only around eight per cent of land in Ghana
was registered. The problem isworsened by fraud at the
Lands Commission and the Land Title Registry, which
means there can be more than one title deed or title to
aplot of land and that entries in the deed and title
registries cannot always be trusted.

One of the most damaging results of the problematic nature of

the institutions governing property rights is the fraudulent sale
of land, which, according to an official at the Land Title Registry
in Accra, is a major problem. This comes in various forms. Many
people, under false pretences, sell land to which they have no
rights. This often puts the real landowners in conflict with the
unwitting buyers. There is also the common practice of an owner
selling the same piece of land to several people, leading to
clashes between the different buyers.

Disputes over land boundaries

Disputes over boundaries are some of the biggest causes of
violence and litigation over land. Parties to these disputes
include individuals, families, chiefs and even the state. According
to an official at the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands, the
lack of documentation and proper mapping and demarcation of
customary lands means that these disputes are often very
difficult to adjudicate.

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

New developments in an old town: Sekondi, twin to Ghanas new oil city, Takoradi.

Land guards, violence and destruction

ofproperty
Because many people have little confidence in the ability of the
land institutions, judiciary and police to resolve disputes, they
often seek extra-legal means to do so. In Accra, land guards have
become the ultimate enforcers of land rights. They are groups
ofyoung men, often armed with weapons including sticks and
guns, who sell their services to the highest bidder. To enforce the
rights of their employer they fight other land guards, destroy
buildings on the disputed land, and prevent the development of
such land by others. Land guards have even killed police officers
and soldiers who have interfered in their activities. One person
interviewed for this report said land guards had destroyed a
building of his, and used death threats to convince him to
abandon land he had paid for in the Accra neighbourhood of
Ofankor. Land guards also run protection rackets, intimidating
landowners and land users into paying them protection fees and
digging fees permitting people to begin construction, barring
which they beat people up, destroy buildings and generally
make life unbearable.
The increase in the activities of land guards partly reflects an
increase in supply. Due to unemployment and the proliferation
of small arms more young men choose this career. However, it
also has to be understood as a consequence of an increase in
demand for peri-urban land and rising land values, combined
with the increasing failure of state institutions like the police,
judiciary, Land Title Registry and Lands Commission to ensure
the security of peoples land rights.

Unequal access to land rights

Even though the Akan, who constitute the vast majority of
people in southern Ghana, are matrilineal, women have
systematically enjoyed less secure land rights in the south of the
country, just as in the north. Males usually inherit land. Despite
recent legal reforms men still often exercise a dominant role in
the control of property in marriages.
This unequal access to land does not only disadvantage women.
Chiefs, who are only supposed to exercise managerial rights over
customary lands on behalf of their communities, seek to
monopolise benefits from land allocations. Poorer members of
many communities are systematically deprived of access to land,
as pointed out by a legal scholar interviewed for this report. This
includes chiefs keeping funds from land allocations and selling
off land already used by community members. In 2005, the chief
of Ningo in peri-urban Accra was even accused of selling the
small communitys cemetery.2

Clashes between farmers and nomadic

herdsmen
Every once in a while stories appear in Ghanaian newspapers of
Fulani herdsmen clashing with members of farming communities
in the Afram Plains. These clashes have sometimes necessitated
the intervention of state security agencies.

Land grabbing
Even further endangering the right of many Ghanaians to land is
the pervasive process of land grabbing, which is taking place in

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

many African countries. Companies from countries such as China,

Brazil, Norway, the Netherlands and Italy are acquiring large
parcels of land to grow crops, including jatropha to produce
biofuels. These lands are often already under use and thousands
of people are forced off them. Biofuel Africas acquisition of
23700 hectares of land in Tamale District, in the north of Ghana,
led to the displacement of seven villages.3
Land grabbing brings to mind parallels with the trans-Atlantic
slave trade. African leaders are once again supplying an
important resource to the world market despite its damaging
effect on their communities. From the 16th to the 19th centuries,
when the Western world needed human resources, some African
leaders collaborated in the slave trade. Today, many developed
countries are tightening border controls and rejecting migrants
from African countries. What they do want is land, which African
leaders are once again happy to supply. The fact that climate
change is going to put a lot of lands out of use, demanding that
African countries take steps to ensure access to land to future
land refugees, makes the large-scale and often-opaque
alienation of lands even more counter-intuitive.
However, land grabbing by the privileged is not limited to
non-African companies. In many African countries elites have
over the years acquired huge parcels of land to the detriment
ofthe poor and powerless.
In Ghana, the Achimota Forest in Accra was almost divided up
and parcelled out to well-connected developers by the New

Patriotic Part (NPP) government, led by President John Kufuor

from 20002008. That government also had to back down from
plans to hand a 100-acre parcel of farmland to every minister
and Member of Parliament for large-scale agriculture in 2005.4
Italso sold some government bungalows used by state
functionaries to its occupants at below-market rates, causing
disputes and litigation that continue today.5 The National
Democratic Congress (NDC) acted as a pioneer in this
privatisation of public spaces, with well-connected people being
the beneficiaries of its in-filling policy under former President
Jerry John Rawlings.6

Security implications of the land

question
Violent disputes
Disputes over land account for many incidents of violence in
Ghana that result in fatalities and the destruction of property.
Some of these violent incidents pit individuals and their
associated supporters against each other. In other instances
whole communities clash, leading to significant loss of life.
Adecades-long dispute between the communities of Nkonya
and Alavanyo in the Volta region has led to repeated outbreaks
of violence in 2013 in which many have died.

Dampening the willingness to invest

As indicated by political economists and organisations like the
World Bank, institutions such as those overseeing property rights
are invaluable for the smooth functioning of economic activities.

The growing settlement of Busua in Ghanas touristic West Coast.

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

Among other things, they give investors the confidence that

their interests will not be expropriated and lower the transaction
costs faced by those involved in economic activities. These
include the costs of protecting their assets and ascertaining
ownership to facilitate transactions. Secure title deeds also allow
credit markets to flourish as people use these as collateral for
loans. As an official of the Ascertainment of Customary Law
Project noted, insecure land rights are negatively affecting both
local and foreign investment. Insecure land rights to a certain
extent undermine the ability of the country to reap the benefits
of its relatively stable political environment.

Undermining the ability to invest

Potential investors often find that their ability to invest in the
country is undercut by the environment of insecure land rights.
Hiring expensive land guards, incurring financial losses in
fraudulent land deals, and facing endless litigation all constitute
a waste of funds that could have been invested in productive
economic activities. Many real estate developers complain of
having to buy land twice or thrice before they can finally build on
it. This increases their expenses, reduces the amount of money
they can invest in buildings, and raises the eventual sale prices
ofthose buildings. An official at the Land Title Registry in Accra
summarised the issue thus: Because of weak property rights
people spend their time in court litigating instead of working;
they spend their money on court cases instead of on productive
investment.

large chunks of land by foreign companies makes squatters out

of whole villages.

Threatening rural livelihoods

Land grabs by multinational firms are jeopardising the
livelihoods of many rural communities, who wake up one day
tofind that their farmlands have been expropriated with no
compensation. As quoted by IRIN, a farmer in Tamale District
noted, I went to the farm one day but I realised somebody else
was on the farm and then I was told the land had been sold off.
Since then I have not been allowed to farm.7

Undermining the judiciary

As noted, land is one of the biggest sources of litigation and land
cases are often the subject of unending appeals and can last for
decades. This caseload only further saps the capacity of an already
weak judiciary. Because litigating parties often pay judicial officers
to make files disappear and influence rulings, insecure land rights
are also a corrupting influence on the judiciary.

Incubating criminality
The land sector has become a breeding ground for wider
criminality. Youths often start out as land guards armed with
crude weapons, after which they acquire the skills and weapons
with which to undertake even more dangerous activities like
armed robbery.

Endangering the environment

Because of weak property

rights people spend their time
in court litigating instead of
working; they spend their
money on court cases instead
of on productive investment.
Jeopardising the right to decent
habitation
If one recognises the right to decent habitation, then one has to
view insecure property rights as a significant threat to this right
in many areas of peri-urban Accra. In some instances buildings
are torn down by others laying claim to the same parcels. Many
save for years to buy land and build on it, only to find their
dreams shattered by fraudulent land dealers. Some who are
lucky enough to buy land end up having to pay protection fees
or digging fees to unscrupulous land guards. The grabbing of

Because land rights are insecure and putting land to effective

useis often the sole guarantor of those rights, one sees the
competitive utilisation of land through cultivation and building,
which then ends up destroying forests, wetlands and waterways.

Engendering disorder in the mining

environment
Confusion over land rights and its impact on mining regulations
partly lies at the bottom of the problem of illegal mining by
non-Ghanaians, which the government is struggling to tackle,
aspointed out by an official at the Mining Directorate of the
Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources. Some people cut deals
with Chinese miners engaged in the small-scale mining sector
commonly known as galamsey. This has contributed to the
pollution of water sources and destruction of forests.

Causes of the land rights problem

The land problem in Ghana has a long history. Many of the
disputes and incidents of fraud today are very similar to events in
the late 1800s in places like Akyem Abuakwa. The causes of the
land problems similarly have to be traced back to the colonial

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

history of the country. We highlight the political and economic

causes of the problematic nature of the institutions governing
land rights and their associated problems, as highlighted above.

Use of land as a political instrument

Land in Ghana has been used as a political instrument by the
state since the early colonial period. The colonial indirect rule
system was founded on British control of traditional authorities
that in turn were supposed to control their subjects. Land
became the main instrument through which both forms of
control were facilitated. Instead of securing traditional
authorities rights to land, the colonial administration selectively
protected or undermined the rights of chiefs based on their
political attitudes. Chiefs who proved troublesome had their
rights curtailed. It is thus that a one-mile radius around the
Asante kings palace in Kumasi was put under the control of state
authorities once Asante resistance was defeated in 1896. On a
second level, chiefs were allowed to use land rights to control
their subjects on behalf of the colonial administration.
Troublesome citizens could have their rights curtailed by
chiefswith impunity.

Land in Ghana has been

usedasa political instrument
by thestate since the early
colonial period.
This arbitrary enforcement, allocation and withdrawal of land
rights were only possible and effective in an environment where
land rights were unclear and insecure. The insecurity obliged
people to obey the chiefs and chiefs to obey the colonial
administration. As a result, the colonial administration tended
tooppose reforms that would secure the rights of chiefs or their
citizens. Senior officials summarily dismissed reforms suggested
by progressive officials like Francis Fuller and Colonel Rowe and
commissions like the West African Lands Committee.8
Postcolonial authorities have employed the same methods as
their colonial antecedents, refraining from undertaking
significant reforms that would secure the rights of chiefs against
the state or of ordinary Ghanaians against the state and chiefs.
They have instead selectively enforced and abrogated the rights
of chiefs and individuals based on their political activities. When
the paramount chief of Akyem Abuakwa (Okyenhene) became
the mouthpiece of anti-Nkrumah activists under the umbrella
ofthe United Gold Coast Convention and then the National
Liberation Movement, Kwame Nkrumah responded with the

Akyem Abuakwa (Stool Revenue Act [1958]) that effectively

deprived the Okyenhene of the right to manage Akyem lands
and instead handed this power to state officials. When a former
NDC sponsor, Alhaji Yusuf, defected to the Reform Movement
(which ultimately contributed to the defeat of the NDC by the
NPP in the 2000 elections), Accra Metropolitan Assembly agents
protected by members of the Ghana Armed Forces demolished
his million-dollar Salaam Hotel in Accra in broad daylight under
the cover of building code violations. The advent of multiparty
democracy has only intensified this political nexus. A traditional
chief interviewed for this report pointed to the political
manipulation of land as a key cause of insecure rights.
Compulsory land title registration and the states on-going Land
Administration Project (LAP) were supposed to have secured
property rights. Unfortunately, title registration has still not gone
past certain circumscribed areas of the country, while the LAP
has limited itself to encouraging and offering help to chiefs to
secure the rights of their subjects, instead of compelling them
todo so.

Perpetuating gains from land sales

Many chiefs preference for an environment of weak property
rights institutions stems from the fact that it helps them
transform land from a finite resource into an infinite one, which
they can go on selling despite earlier allocations. Chiefs in Ghana
face a major challenge. Most are almost entirely dependent on
gains from the allocation of land for the upkeep of their
chieftaincies. Since land is a finite good and leases usually run up
to 99 years, chiefs in areas with sought-after land generally find
that the lands that they can allocate run out too soon.
Many chiefs solve this problem by re-allocating lands that have
already been sold. Some use the abrogation of development
covenants as an excuse, but it is widely known that many chiefs
in and around the capital sell land to multiple buyers.
Sometimes, when new chiefs assume office, one of the first
things they do is to abrogate the rights granted by previous
chiefs by challenging the preceding chiefs right to make those
allocations. Others will claim that the parcels allocated were too
large and that people should submit to the reduction of their
parcels. Some chiefs who receive a higher bid will return a lower
fee to an earlier buyer, but many others will just hold on to both
fees. The granting of large land parcels to multinationals even
when those parcels have already been allocated is thus a
continuation of a long-standing practice.

Weak capacity
The weak capacity of the Ghanaian state has also contributed
tothe insecurity of land rights. To provide space for vital state
institutions and ensure a sound environment for critical

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

investment, the state has assumed what has come to be

knownasthe land banks approach. While ignoring land
rightsinstitutions in most of the country, the state has tried
toselective secure rights in a few vital areas. Sometimes this
happened through compulsory acquisitions, as was the case
with the Tema Development Community scheme. In other cases,
areas such as those used bymining companies have received
significant attention with mapping, documentation and the
enforcement of rights. However, the weak capacity of the state
has meant that even rights in these areas have not always been
secure. Some of the parcels the state acquired compulsorily in
the Greater Accra Area were sold off or encroached on by the
original owners or conmen.

The land question: a sub-regional

excursion
Many of the land problems facing Ghana are present in other
ECOWAS countries. The fraudulent sale of land in which the seller
has no interest, and multiple sales of the same piece of land, are
problems in the land sector in Liberia and Sierra Leone. In Liberia,
the return of refugees and displaced people to their former
communities after the war generated persisting tensions over
property ownership.
Inter-communal disputes over land, sometimes leading to
deaths, are present in the Forest Region of Guinea. In Cte
dIvoire, these disputes poisoned inter-communal relations in
various areas of the country, despite the introduction of land
reforms in 1998. They are among the underlying causes of some
of the worst violence between so-called autochthonous and

stranger communities during the countrys recent electoral crisis

in 2010, which led to over 3 000 deaths.
Clashes between nomadic herders and sedentary farmers are
challenges in Niger. Increasing desertification, partly due to
climate change, and the search for new cultivable and grazing
land by groups in Niger, Burkina Faso, Senegal and other
Sahelian countries are leading to inter-communal violence.
Land grabbing by multinational corporations is present in
Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Cte dIvoire and
SierraLeone.

Conclusion
In its recent report, Securing Africas Land for Shared Prosperity,
theWorld Bank reiterated its belief in the importance of land
rights to the economic development of African countries.
Ghanais no exception to this rule. Despite the countrys political
stability and positive reputation, land is still a major issue of
concern. Insecure and unequal access to land prevents the
country from reaching its full economic potential, threatens
peoples livelihoods and their right to decent housing, and is the
source of significant inter-personal and inter-communal violence.
As demonstrated above, Ghana is not unique in the sub-region
interms of land issues many of these problems also plague
other ECOWAS countries. The recommendations below are
suggested with the goal of resolving or better managing many
ofthe land problems highlighted earlier in the report. Land
sectors characterised by more equal access and greater security
and transparency will improve the security and economy of
many ECOWAS states.

Main recommendations
1. ECOWAS should take leadership in formulating a policy
onthe alienation of large land parcels to foreign
corporations. This should be a key element in ECOWAS
conflict prevention efforts since these land grabs are likely
to lead to conflict between corporations and former land
users, as well as between people displaced by land grabs
and those among whom they seek to resettle.
2. In line with its mandate to deal with cases of human rights
abuses in member countries, the ECOWAS Court of Justice
should take a leading role in acting as recourse for people
who feel like their property rights are being jeopardised by
states and government officials on account of their political
views and activities. The Court should do the same for
communities, especially minorities whose livelihoods and
cultures are threatened by land grabs and land policies.

3. States should abandon the idea of creating secure

enclaves (land banks) to guarantee (foreign) investors
property rights, because it is at its core discriminatory.
Instead, a secure environment should be ensured for all.
4. Given the leading role that traditional chiefs play in the
administration of land in many ECOWAS member states,
efforts should be made to subject them to the same level
of accountability ideally applied to elected state officials.
The cloak of traditional authority should not be used to
shield them from the norms of just, transparent and
accountable governance.

ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013

Important dates

Notes

1926

William Ormsby-Gore, Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, claims that land
litigation is the curse of the country (Gold Coast).

1927

Governor Gordon Guggisbergs call for specialised land tribunals and title
registration is rejected by his successor Sir Ransford Slater.

1962

The State Land Act and The Administration of Lands Act is passed, calling, among
other things, for the creation of specialised land tribunals. None of these is
actually created. The Land Registry Act (1962) provides for the registration of
deeds for land transactions, but the paucity of institutions to do the actual
registration means that many across the country have no documentary evidence
of their rights.

1973

The Conveyancing Decree (1973) provides for the registration of deeds, but
suffers from the same problems of institutional incapacity as the Land Registry
Act.

1986

The Compulsory Land Title Registration Law mandates the registration of title
deeds for all lands, which is an improvement on the old deeds registration
system. The operation of the Land Title Registry is still only limited to Accra and
the second city of Kumasi.

1999

The Ghana Land Policy is released, detailing many of the problems plaguing land
rights in the country.

2003

The 15-year Land Administration Project is launched with the goal of promoting
title registration, introducing land tribunals and generally improving land
administration. It does not compel chiefs to document their allocations. It is built
on the insightful 1999 Ghana Land Policy.

Donors

1 Michael Roth, Jeffrey Cochrane and

R.K.Kasanga, Land markets and legal
contradictions in the peri-urban area of
Accra Ghana: informant interviews and
secondary data investigations, LTC
research paper 127, Madison, Wis.: Land
Tenure Center University of WisconsinMadison, 1996, 56.
2 Public Agenda, Chief sells cemetery to
developers and dies, 11 November 2005,
http://ghanaweb.com/mobile/wap.small/
news.article.php?ID=94049 (accessed
18August 2013).
3 IRIN, Ghana: land grabs force hundreds of
farmers off, growers say, 7 September
2009, http://www.irinnews.org/printreport.
aspx?reportid=86044 (accessed 18 August
2013).
4 Ato Kwamena Onoma, The politics of
property rights in Africa, New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2009, 85.
5 Ivy Benson, SC to decide on Jake
Obetsebi-Lampteys bungalow on May 9,
The Chronicle, http://thechronicle.com.gh/
sc-to-decide-on-jake-obetsebi-lampteysbungalow-on-may-9/ (accessed 18 August
2013).
6 Andy Kwawukume, The in-filling policy
from an Nkrumaist perspective,
ModernGhana.com, 10 June 2012, http://
www.modernghana.com/news/400438/1/
the-in-filling-policy-from-an-nkrumaistperspectiv.html (accessed 18 August 2013).
7 IRIN, Ghana: land grabs.

This report is published through the support of the Ghana Office of the Hanns
Seidel Foundation and the International Development Research Center.
In addition, the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) is grateful for the support of
the following core partners: the governments of Norway, Sweden, Australia
and Denmark.
The ISS is a leading African policy research and training organisation.
Thevision of the ISS is a peaceful and prosperous Africa for all its people.
Themission and overall goal of the ISS is to advance human security in Africa
through evidence-based policy advice, technical support and capacity
building.

8 Onoma, The politics of property rights in

Africa, 87.

Contributors
Nancy Annan
Researcher, Conflict Peace and Security
Programme (Gender and Conflict)
Kofi Annan International Peacekeeping
Training Centre, Accra, Ghana
Emmanuela Kabran
Junior Fellow
Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis
Division Institute for Security Studies, Dakar
Ato Onoma
Head
African Centre for Peace and Security
Training Institute for Security Studies

Contact
2013, Institute for Security Studies
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andno part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission,
inwriting, of the Institute. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those
ofthe Institute, its trustees, members of the Advisory Council or donors.

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ECOWAS Peace and Security Report Issue 6 August 2013