Ghanaians with dual citizenship should be allowed to stand for election - Kwaku Azar suggests

Narrowing electoral processes deprive Ghana of expertise, Azar

Govt must widen the options for voters to ensure inclusiveness in Ghana’s electoral process, Azar

Elections petitions filed against 2 NDC MPs alleged to have dual citizens

Legal luminary, Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, otherwise known as Kwaku Azar, has suggested that Ghanaians with dual citizenship should be allowed to vote and be voted for.

According to Kwaku Azar, stopping persons with dual citizenship from participating in elections and taking positions in government only deprives the country of the expertise needed for its development.

The US-based academic, who made these remarks on Asaase radio’s Breakfast Show, added that the government should rather widen the electoral process to ensure inclusiveness.

“You are not going to grow any country this way, especially in the situation that we find ourselves in, where we are net importers of skilled labour, many of our people who are well trained go overseas for a while, they acquire assets,” he said.

“They acquire the citizenship of those countries not because of allegiance but for strategic purposes, and then after sometime, they decide to come back. When they come back, why should you look at them in some way, I am flabbergasted by that line of reasoning that is so destructive of the things that can help us.

“Look, there should be full disclosure, if a person is a dual citizen, he should disclose it. If the constituents want to vote for him or her, that is their prerogative, we shouldn’t narrow the choice available to voters, we should expand the choices available to voters,” he is quoted to have said.

Kwaku Azar made these assertions on the back of a National Democratic Congress (NDC), Member of Parliament, James Gyakye Quayson, being barred from performing his duties as an MP by the Supreme Court of Ghana which was upholding an election petition ruling of a Cape Coast High Court.

The high court ruled that James Quayson held the citizenships of both Canada and Ghana when he filed his nomination to contest in the 2020 parliamentary election which disqualifies him from contesting in the elections. The Supreme Court is, however, yet to make a final determination on the matter.

Another NDC parliamentary, Jomoro MP Dorcas Afo Toffey is accused of having both Ghanaian and Ivorian Citizenship and is in court fighting an election petition challenging the legitimacy of the election.

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