Nigerian jailed 450 days for attempting to acquire Ghanaian Passport twice

A Madina District Court has sentenced Peter Michael Ifaenyi aka Peter Yaw Asare, a Nigerian Computer Engineer, to 450 days imprisonment for attempting to obtain a Ghanaian Passport twice.

Ifaenyi, 26, who was charged with attempting to obtain Ghanaian passports by false declaration, pleaded guilty.

The Court, therefore, sentenced him on his own plea and handed down a custodial sentence without an option of a fine.

The prosecution led by Chief Superintendent of Immigration Adolf Assenso, informed the court that the accused person was known for his wanton disregard for authority.

He, therefore, prayed the Court to hand down a custodial sentence on the accused without any option of a fine to serve as a deterrent to like-minded persons.

The case as narrated by the Prosecution is that the accused person, now a convict, was arrested on January 4, 2023, at the Accra Passport Application Centre, around Tema Station in Accra.

It said while the accused person was undergoing the process of acquiring a Ghanaian Passport, officials of the Ghana Immigration Service suspected that he was not a Ghanaian as he claimed.

“He was subsequently referred to the National Enforcement Section at the Immigration Headquarters for further investigations.

The Prosecution further told the Court that at the National Enforcement Section, it was detected that the accused person had earlier on been arrested for the same offence on November 17, 2022, at the Premium Passport Application Centre (Premium PAC), Circle Accra.

It said the accused person was granted service enquiry bail and was later charged with the offence of attempting to obtain a Ghanaian passport by false declaration contrary to Section 52 of the Ghana Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573) on December 8, 2022.

The Prosecution said the accused person was to appear before the Kaneshie District Court on December 2022 for prosecution but he refused to appear.

It said the accused person managed to outwit officials at the Birth and Death Registry and the National Identification Authority to obtain again the same Ghanaian birth certificate with entry number 1867 and a Ghana Card with personal ID number GHA-728134693-3 which he used in his earlier attempt and which were in the custody of the Ghana Immigration Service.