At about 6pm on 22 June. My son, an American who has not returned to the US since his infancy, was travelling back by KLM flight KL 590. A young woman checked his passport and his ticket before going to the check in counter. She expressed some reservations about the passport but allowed him to go through the check in procedures. My son got his boarding passes all the way to his destination. About 30 minutes later, I received a phone call from him that the same young woman was at the last checkpoint saying she was not convinced the passport belonged to him and will not allow him to board the flight. What was her basis for her decision apart from her inner conviction? She had no empirical evidence and just wanted to demonstrate how powerful she was. She did not care a bit because she felt she was just doing her job.
It was an anxious moment for me as a parent I rushed home to collect all documents that showed that the young man was my son including old photos. I rushed as far as I could but could not get through to him. My son called a couple of times to tell me the woman would not say anything to him but kept him waiting. She later later handed him over to another security personnel, like a criminal He was interrogated for some more time. The second security officer asked for his luggage to be off loaded from the plane. It was a clear situation of harassment and the show of power with no basis. At this point, an American was called in to help. It was a few minutes for the flight to take off and the passengers were getting on board. It was an anxious moment because my son had been detained for an hour and no decision had been made, and it was all in the clear view of all the other passengers in the lobby. The American asked why he was travelling and examined his passport and documents. The American looked into his eyes with a flashlight and asked him to produce the same facial expression on the passport photo. After this simple exercise, he handed back his passport and documents and wished him a good flight. Was it that easy and are the Ghanaian security personnel that simple?
I have no qualms about our security doing their work. We need them but we want them to be friendly and not see all people as criminals. In fact, the impression they give to the public is that they should necessarily be mean to be good officers. This young woman could have asked for further proof of identity. I was with my son the first time and had my passport on me but she did not ask. My son had a Ghanaian residence permit stamped in the passport with clear reference to me and my cell number. Could she not have just called to confirm whether it was true or not? Could she not have checked with immigration since the Immigration authorities issued the residence permit? Why should it take the American to do the simplest check to find the document was genuine. You can imagine the anxious moments we went through as a family and the embarrassment my son suffered. What an attitude to work and a way to handle people? Unfortunately, I will have no place to seek redress and the answer to any queries will be they are are doing their work.
Walter Aboagye Pimpong
gyin28go@yahoo.com
