Nigerian computer engineer Peter Michael Ifaenyi, also known as Peter Yaw Asare, has been given a 450-day prison term for twice attempting to get a Ghanaian passport by a Madina District Court. Ifaenyi, 26, who was accused of making a false declaration in order to obtain Ghanaian passports, entered a guilty plea. As a result, the Court condemned him based on his own admission and imposed a prison term without the possibility of a fine. The court was informed by the prosecution, which was led by Chief Superintendent of Immigration Adolf Assenso, that the accused had a history of willful disobedience.
He consequently asked the court to condemn the accused to incarceration without the possibility of a fine as a deterrent to those of a similar mindset. According to the prosecution’s account of the case, the accused, who is now a convicted criminal, was detained on January 4, 2023, at the Accra Passport Application Center at Tema Station in Accra. According to the report, authorities of the Ghana Immigration Service thought that the accused was not a Ghanaian as he said while he was obtaining a Ghanaian passport.
“For more inquiries, he was subsequently directed to the National Enforcement Section at the Immigration Headquarters. The prosecution also informed the court that the accused had previously been detained for the same offense on November 17, 2022, at the Premium Passport Application Center (Premium PAC), Circle Accra. This information was discovered at the National Enforcement Section. According to the report, the accused was given service inquiry bail before being charged on December 8, 2022, with trying to get a Ghanaian passport by a false declaration in violation of Section 52 of the Ghana Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573). The accused was supposed to come before the Kaneshie District Court one in December for prosecution, according to the prosecution, but he declined to do so.
In order to obtain the same Ghanaian birth certificate with entry number 1867 and a Ghana Card with personal ID number GHA-728134693-3 that he used in his earlier attempt and that were in the possession of the Ghana Immigration Service, it was claimed that the accused person outsmarted officials at the Birth and Death Registry and the National Identification Authority.
