Dual Citizenship & Service To Nation

Events unfolding in the media about the appointment of Dr. Vanderpuije as the MCE of Accra Metropolis, due to his dual citizenship are very unfortunate. The North American Chairman or one of the executives of NPP was also disqualified from the parliamentary primaries sometime last year due to his dual citizenship. The drafters of 1992 constitution of the 4th Republic did Mother Ghana a disservice by robbing her of good technocrats and intellectuals who are willing to sacrifice the rest of their lives to the development of the country. The Ghanaian media and stomach politicians have made Ghanaians with dual citizenships look like 3rd Class citizens. They tend to be more interested in destroying, with one front page news, carriers that have been built over a lifetime. But not what these dual citizens can help Mother Ghana achieve. Even though these patriotic citizens come with open arms asking not what Mother Ghana can do for them, rather what they can do to help Ghana.

It’s a shame that no parliamentarian has ever raised the issue of an amendment to that clause in the constitution since the inception of the 4th Republic in 1992. Yet when they are in need of funds during elections, they fly across the Atlantic Ocean to the same Ghanaians with dual citizenship to solicit for funds. We always read in the media about how our remittance has contributed economically in moving Ghana forward. Our fund and remittance are good for the country, but not our service. More so we don’t have a vote. With the exception of becoming a president, our second or adopted countries do not impose all these restrictions that we encounter back home. We do vote, don’t need an entry visa and can even be elected as a mayor or governor.

In 1993, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Appiah contested the Mayoral election of LA. Recently he announced his intentions for the next governorship election of California. Dr Appiah is a Ghanaian-American who was born in Ghana. Although racism still exist in USA, the whites, African-Americans and Latinos have no issue with Dr Appiah’s candidature, because he’s qualified as per the constitutions of the State of California and USA. But the last time he went to Ghana to contribute in any means, he was thrown to the wolves via Ghana’s bias Constitution. If racism and discrimination in USA could not stop Dr. Appiah, then why the bogus clause in Ghana’s constitution? If the free press in Ghana is for the advancement of the country, the media should be the ones championing the amendment of the constitution, rather than destroying their fellow citizens be it 1st, 2nd or 3rd class.

These negative tendencies make us Ghanaian-Americans and others with dual citizenship look like the children of Israel, waiting for Moses. Here we are in a foreign country, where the people always remind us of who we are, IMMIGRANTS, regardless of your citizenship and keep telling us to “go back to our country, because we’ve come over and taken their jobs away from”. Yet back home, you are being regarded as a 2nd class citizen who cannot serve in certain key positions. I think any politician who denounces his dual citizenship for a political position is a greedy and stomach politician and also more unpatriotic than the politician who take the appointment and fights to change that bogus clause in the constitution about dual citizens. So I ask myself, what about these professional football players who were born in Europe and other foreign countries? These professional players hold foreign passports (NOT DUAL CITIZENSHIP), but government official and Ghana Football Association (GFA) officials travel all over Europe begging some of these European-born-Ghanaian professionals to come home and play for Ghana. The least said about the Ghanaian journalists, the better. These hypocritical journalists come out with front-page pictures and headlines about the professional players, but when it comes to our technocrats and intellectuals with dual citizenship they are treated like demons. Today, the likes of Tony Baffour, who held a German passport at the time of his invitation to the national team, and Marcel Desaille, who not only held a French passport but also captained the French national team are working in various executive positions at or with the GFA. Does the constitution have two different set of rules? If these players are “ambassadors” who travel around the world raising high the Ghanaian flag with foreign passport or dual citizenship in their pockets, why not the likes of Dr. Vanderpuije, the North American chairman of NPP and Dr. Appiah?

I remember my elementary school teacher telling me that, our democracy is still in the infant stage and we are still learning from the western masters. Yet we draft our constitution in a more sophisticated and obstructionist manner, while the western masters make theirs much simpler and easier. If the election of a black man, a descendant of a Kenyan immigrant, as the president of USA is not enough signal for our technocrats to amend our constitution to an all-inclusive constitution, then we will be living in the past for a long time. The willingness of one to serve his country should be base on merit, taking into consideration his qualification, dedication and love for his country, but not limited to his dual citizenship and ethnicity.

We should not forget that some of these noble and patriotic Ghanaians have forgone the lucrative six-figure salaries and the retirement benefits that come with it, just to serve their beloved Ghana. We should also remember the immense contribution to the development of Ghana in the last three decades chalked by the likes of Dr. chambas, Dr Kofi Konadu Apraku and others, when they came back home from USA to serve their country. Today Dr Chambas is the chairman of ECOWAS and his peers abound abroad and they are willing to come home to serve, if such nitty-gritty clauses are amended in our constitution.

Today, the Ghanaian constitution has negatively transformed us into laughing stocks among our contemporaries from other African countries with dual citizenship and our white and African-American co-workers. I once told an African-American co-worker that, “I’m a proud Ghanaian”. He turned, looked at me and chuckled, “you don’t have to tell me, no wonder you need an entry visa to go to your proud country, cannot vote but we allow you to vote, and can not be appointed to certain political position, yeah right a PROUD GHANAIAN indeed, hmmm. So who am I, a second class Ghanaian? Can Ghana hear me???

Muhammed Suraj Sulley Jawando (LRT)

New York Presbyterian Hospital, NY

mjawando@verizon.net / msjawando@gmail.com