This article analyses a longstanding ethno-political conflict between Kusasis and Mamprusis in Bawku in north-east Ghana. A double argument is pursued. First, while communal conflict and violence challenge the state and expose its incapacity, the conflicts (played out over chieftaincy, party politics, land, markets, names of places etc.) at the same time invoke a powerful idea of the state as the most significant institution to qualify claims as rights or discard them as illegitimate. Second, the broad variety of social conflicts has effectively been cut to fit an ethnic distinction. Thus, the various conflictual issues have ‘confirmed’ and structured each other. The antagonisms have been crystallised and a pattern entrenching conflict between the two groups has been perpetuated. The article draws historical lines from the 1930s to the present, linking national policy to local politics and political culture with a particular focus on the political manifestations vis-à-vis the state and the use of ‘history’ to justify claims.