I wrote recently about an(other) apparent change in the interpretation of Ghana's immigration law, whereby friends of ours were told that their son would not qualify for citizenship because he was not born on Ghanaian soil. Now obviously this interpretation makes sense to someone, but I have to say, the more I think about it, the more I have to wonder whether it has been properly thought through. You see, my friends' son is not yet a year old, so he has a bit of time before passport issues will really start to bother him, but there are others who don't have the same luxury.
I worry for example about the Hon Hanna Tetteh, Ghana's Minister for Trade and Industry. What if she's on a trade mission and her passport expires and when she goes to the local Ghanaian Embassy they notice that she was born in Szged, Hungary, and refuse to renew her passport?
Likewise, what if the Black Stars' goal keeper, Adam Larsen Kwarasey, is on tour with the team and he suddenly learns that being born in Oslo, Norway, disqualifies him from being a Ghanaian?
All I can say is that it was just lucky that during the World Cup no-one realised Kevin-Prince Boateng was born in Berlin, otherwise someone might have had to explain to him that he needed to hand over his football jersey. Now that would have been embarrassing.
photo credit: photostock
haha yeh my mum and I were talking about this. It's a stupid rule. I heard that according to the 1992 constitution you can have Dual Citizenship if you are not born in Ghana until the age of 21, then you must decide one or the other. (UNLESS of course, you play for the Black Stars or are a minister of the contemporary government) - there are a lot of unwritten rules in our dear Ghana. The government itself flouts the law for its own profit, no wonder it's confusing for everyone else.
ReplyDelete