The Dagbon succession conflict has been intermittent since the colonial era. What appears to be the most trumpeted thesis in the scholarly works that the conflict has attracted is the overpoliticization of the conflict. While the over-politicization of the conflict is indisputable, this study uncovers the constitutional crisis, which is beneath and motivates the over-politicization of the conflict. Through a critical content analysis of archival and historical documents (commission reports, letters, petitions, minutes, and court rulings, among others), and through secondary data from books, journal articles, and newspapers (both print and electronic), the paper identifies and explores three principal sources of the constitutional crisis, namely, the inadequacy of the 1930 Dagomba Succession Constitution, the lack of legitimacy for the 1948 Amended Dagomba Succession Constitution, and the state's interventions that have deepened the constitutional crisis. Having explained how legal centralism and legal pluralism have been implicated in the conflict, the paper concludes with a dispassionate call for a transformation of the conflict that will acknowledge the constitutional character of the conflict and the need to convene a constitutional conference in which the two royal gates would harmonize their emic perspectives on their succession customs and rules.

One of the most outstanding initiatives that the African Union (AU) has taken that distinguishes it from its predecessor (the Organization of African Unity) is the adoption of the African diaspora as its sixth region. This article has two principal sections. First, by establishing the reasons for adopting the African diaspora as its sixth region from development perspectives, it explores how the African diaspora can engineer development processes in Africa and the challenges that the AU must address if the African diasporas are expected to play this role. In the second section, the article explores how Ghana provided a political base for Pan-Africanism and how Nkrumah laid an intellectual foundation for the movement. It also examines how Rawlings and Kufuor built on Nkrumah’s Pan-Africanist legacy by creating incentives for the returnees/repatriates from the diaspora. While probing the character of the returnees/repatriates phenomenon and politics in Ghana, the second section also explores the controversies that center on dual citizenship, the right of return and abode, and voting rights of Ghanaians Living Abroad (GLA). Finally, the section investigates the receptivity of the traditional political system to the returnee/repatriate phenomenon in Ghana. The article concludes by making recommendations on how the Ghana-diaspora relations can be strengthened.

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Pluralism is a discernible feature of many modern states. However, among the variants of pluralism, religious pluralism appears to be the most intractable in many modern states because faiths and values underpin the conflicts that are associated with it. As one of the legacies of the Enlightenment, secularism is a normative prescription for managing religious pluralism. Nevertheless, while many African states profess to be secular, more often than not there are no concrete strategies to objectify the secular arrangement thereby provoking questions on the status quo. Such was the case with the 2015 Muslims’ protest of discrimination in the public basic and second cycles schools in Ghana. Through primary (interviews and archival and historical documents) and secondary data, this paper examines the protest in light of the secularist arrangement. It first reviews the contours of the secularist’s lenses. Second, it historicizes Muslim-Christian relations in Ghana. It also analyzes the checkered partnership between the state and the Christian missions in the provision of education. Moreover, it evaluates the debates that ensued and the ambivalent communiqué that the National Peace Council (NPC) issued. The paper concludes with a note that underscores the dynamics and tensions that characterize many plural societies in their attempt to objectify the secularist principle.