Ghana’s constitution clearly stipulates who a citizen is. It is an objective standard not a subjective decision based on any individual’s discretion. Any attempt to grant an identification card which confers citizenship on any individual must therefore be based on tried and tested controls to ensure proper verification and validation procedures to significantly minimize the risk of inadvertently or fraudulently granting citizenship to the wrong person. It is therefore inconceivable that anyone can issue a valid identification card on an instant basis. The NIA’s purported decision to issue Identification Cards on an instant basis thus conferring citizenship to recipients is fundamentally flawed, professionally ill-advised, dangerous and irresponsible. This therefore must be stopped in the national interest.
The NIA decision to issue National Identification card instantly is based on flawed conceptual approach and flawed conceptual processes and lack of understanding of such a vital and critical exercise. It is highly impossible to issue a card without adequate verification and validation procedures which ensure that fraudulent applications are excluded and inadvertent and irregular applications are rejected. Anyone making an assertion that they can issue a National Identification card to a citizen of Ghana in a country without technologically sophisticated systems displays an illusion of knowledge or complete ignorance of what is at stake.
The most important primary document granting citizenship to Ghanaians is the birth certificate. The office of Birth and Death registry is not organized to provide an assurance that fraudulent certificate cannot be issued. In addition, there is a lack of database systems originating from the Birth and Death registries linked to the NIA to enable instantaneous verification and validation of these documents. This risk therefore provides an enormous opportunity for fraudulent application and the likelihood that the dead will “resurrect” and apply for ID cards and thereby invalidating the whole basis of this exercise.
In the absence of a primary document such as the birth certificate, several secondary documents will be required to assist in determining the citizenship of a person. With respect to these primary and secondary documents, their authenticity must be determined through the original issuer’s database and not by mere sight. After determining the authenticity of these documents it will be necessary to determine that the presenter is the rightful owner of the documents. The absence of a picture on the certificate or any other document makes validation and verification even more difficult. It is for this reason therefore that secondary records and further processes including linking to Primary, Secondary, Tertiary and University records to enable validation on proper basis are very necessary. Herein lies the complexity, difficulty and flawed approach of who qualifies as a citizen by sight by NIA officials.
In the absence of primary and secondary documents, NIA intends to obtain oral representations of family members who have already been granted citizenship in order to confer citizenship on applicants who lack these documents. This is the most frightening, worrisome and most ignorant procedure to confer citizenship to others by oral presentation.
In an era where corruption has eaten into the social fabric, where lies are rampant, where poverty has reached unprecedented levels, where unemployment is rife and where the propensity to do anything to get along and get going is so high, the NIA is opening the floodgates of West African country citizens i.e. Togo, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Gambia, Liberia, Niger, Chad, Guinea and Mali, to rush in and use fraudulent means to obtain easy citizenship. The era of National Identity cards contractors has arrived and it is instructive to note that once a foreign national receives a card it is possible for all his friends and family and generations to come, to obtain Ghanaian citizenship status as well. Herein lies the dangers and the flaw in the NIA procedures.
Due to NIA’s inability to introduce proper verification and validation controls and procedures it has resorted to unsophisticated methods as a replacement to proper verification and validation controls. These methods include threats and intimidations to anyone attempting to illegally assist or fraudulently obtain a National ID card.
The said threat and intimidation will have minimal effect and impact on the desire of those to obtain fraudulent cards. There is an ignorant believe by the NIA that the presence of policemen or security official is enough to deter criminals. If that were to be true, there will be few criminals in Ghana or elsewhere. Indeed the mere existence of threats can embolden criminals since they may perceive the threats and intimidation as the existence of weakness.
By: Charles Amoo-Asante MA MBA
