Martin Akowuah’s kind heart saved my 75-year-old mother

Waking up to read on one of the online news portals on 13th October 2023 that a staff of the National Identification Authority (NIA) has been dismissed unjustly, sent my soul on a restless search for details of the case so as to plead with the God of justice to intervene in the affairs of men.

I read the story with keen interest to know who this dismissed officer of the NIA could be since I had once been a beneficiary of a staff who showed me rare kindness at their office.

Sincerely, I hesitated in reading the story naturally brushing it aside because it could possibly be the result of extortion to get a Ghana card for a citizen. Indeed, some of the registration centers had been turned into “extortion sites” by both staff and middlemen who wanted to take advantage of the desperation of Ghanaians who needed their cards badly.

But could anyone blame the poor innocent Ghanaian who is faced with the threat of deactivation of his or her SIM card, the only means of communication and mobile money transaction? When persons who have already registered cannot receive their cards after many fruitless attempts at the NIA district offices?

The registration and mass number of registrants

On 18th February 2022, a press release under the hand of one Abudu Abdul-Ganiyu, Ag Head, Corporate Affairs of the NIA informed the general public that the Authority will open additional registration points for the Ghana card from Monday, 21st February 2022 to Tuesday, 31st March 2022.

The points were the following locations:

1. Accra Sports Stadium

2. El-wak Sports Stadium (Premium Centre), Accra

3. Kumasi Sports Stadium

4. Ghana National Fire Service (Regional Office), Cape Coast

4. Tamale Sports Stadium

These registration points were to be open from 8:00 am to 5: 00 pm, Monday to Friday, and will operate alongside NIA’s 276 District and 16 Regional offices, and the Premium Registration Centre at the Headquarters.

The statement clearly emphasized that the intervention was being instituted in response to growing numbers of Ghanaians thronging NIA’s offices nationwide to register for the Ghana Card, particularly, as the deadline for Sim-Card re-registration approached.

The general public was also reminded that household and institutional registration remained open. Please take a mental note of the reason for the intervention- growing numbers of registrants.

The threat of SIM card deactivation

Then came the time for registration of Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) cards using details of the Ghana Card.

As of March 17, 2022, a total of 14,091,542 SIM cards had been linked to the Ghana Card. Out of that, 10,348,532 had been bio-captured and 99,445 were new SIM cards.

The Minister of Communications and Digitalisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, signed and issued a statement dated March 22, 2022, extending the deadline to an earlier deactivation of SIM card threat.

Her reason for the extension is what I seek to draw your attention to - "Due to a number of factors including the fact that over 7.5 million citizens and residents are yet to obtain Ghana Cards to enable them to register their SIM cards, it is clear that the deadline for completion of the registration of the remaining active SIM cards cannot be met". Again, it was about “growing numbers of people”.

Martin Akowuah’s Crime

Until his dismissal via WhatsApp message, Martin Akowuah worked for the National Identification Authority (NIA) as the District Registration Officer for the Madina area but says was unfairly dismissed in July this year (2023).

According to Akowuah, the ground for his dismissal is that he started work before the official time of 8 a.m. However, he explained that he started work earlier to enable him to deal with the backlog of applications for the Ghana Card.

Now, Akowuah is fighting his dismissal. He has petitioned the National Labour Commission (NLC) to help undo an injustice.

In the petition, he sent to the NLC, he explained why he decided to start work earlier than the official 8 a.m.

That was the honest explanation he gave to the Executive Secretary of the NIA, Prof. Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah when he visited his station as part of a routine visit on March 11, 2022.

Akowuah said he thought he and his team were being proactive by starting work earlier to deal with the nationwide problem of people joining long queues for hours to obtain their Ghana Cards.

The query letter escalated into an unusually long interdiction -- 14 months interdiction -- and subsequently a dismissal notice that was not printed or given any semblance of formality but sent to his WhatsApp number.

Despite a letter he wrote to the NIA Governing Board appealing that the grounds for his dismissal be probed, nothing has changed. The board has not even acknowledged receipt of the letter.

He is still home, jobless, and in pain for the injustice done to him.

The NLC has written to Prof Attafuah, the NIA boss to respond in writing to Akowuah's petition within 14 days. However, that ultimatum elapsed on Thursday, October 14 without a response from him.

My 75-year-old mother

I was devastated in 2019 when I received the unfortunate news that my dear mother had suffered a stroke. As a health worker, I understood and appreciated the enormity of the financial and psychological burden the condition would bring on me.

Reality dawned on me when I had to be frequenting both private and public hospitals to get care for my ailing mother. I became accustomed to such routine medications as “metformin” 500mg, nifedipine 20mg, and losartan 50mg, used to manage blood pressure and diabetes.

The financial cost of managing her condition brought a toll on me then the “threat” of a SIM card not linked to the Ghana card became a major source of worry for my mother. She was alarmed because she was incapacitated to take part in the registration exercise for the Ghana card.

Linking the card to the SIM was a whole nightmare. I made frantic calls to many district offices of the NIA to find out how their system could accommodate an immobile aged woman who needed to own a card to stay connected with her family and also for financial transactions.

The deactivation meant that we could not send money for her upkeep and she could not access her Social Security and National Insurance entitlements. This old lady had no Ghana card!

I noticed a relapse of my mother’s condition at a point. It was at this stage that I realized I needed to get her a Ghana card since I had to increase the frequency at which I made phone calls to check on her and send her caregiver money for her upkeep. The Ghana card at this time had become a necessity!

I panicked because of the huge numbers that thronged the NIA registration centers and the recorded fights that took place between disgruntled applicants. Mind you, even the premium centers had their fair share of the long queues.

It was at this mind-splitting point that a friend recommended I try the Madina District registration center at the Ken City building since they start work early and take care of the people with dignity and respect.

I had to drive from Ga East to Darkuman to convey my immobile mother to Madina for her to get her card. We arrived at 7:30 am to meet a queue being attended to by professional staff, aided by uniformed security personnel.

I stayed in the moving queue, awaiting my turn (my mother was in my car with my sister) when I enquired who the officer in charge was. I was told his name was Martin. I requested to see him to ask if he had a policy to exempt the aged or senior citizens from joining long queues.

Simply, if they could be given special treatment- by this time my mother was screaming my name that she needed to attend to nature's call. Martin, a courteous young man came out after a while and asked how he could be of help. I explained my situation and he agreed to attend to my mother.

He grabbed the attention of the waiting people in the queue and explained that he had to do that because she was an elderly woman the people agreed some even moved to my car to help me carry my mother into the office for her biometric data to be taken.

Martin instructed her colleagues to attend to my mother and he left. That was the last I saw of him. We were attended to in less than two hours.

Work ethic, rule and humanity

I didn’t meet Martin again after the angelic help he gave to my mother that day.

I have seen him today because of his picture attached to the story – it is him, the young man who was compassionate towards my family.

I do not know the details of the case. It might be a purely administrative matter he has with his employer. But one thing I know is that he did not extort money from us to give us the needed help.

To the powers that be or anyone who can help get Martin justice, please remember these two famous quotes:

“To deny people their human rights is to challenge their very humanity.” – Nelson Mandela.

“More than machinery, we need humanity” - Charlie Chaplin