A Madina District Court sentenced Nigerian Computer Engineer Peter Michael Ifaenyi, also known as Peter Yaw Asare, to 450 days in prison for attempting to obtain a Ghanaian passport twice.
Ifaenyi, a Nigerian man of age 26, pleaded guilty to attempting to obtain Ghanaian passports through false declaration.
As a result, the Court sentenced this Nigerian man on his own plea and imposed a custodial sentence without the option of a fine.
The prosecution, led by Chief Superintendent of Immigration Adolf Assenso, told the court that the accused was well-known for his willful disregard for authority.
As a result, the Nigerian man asked the Court to impose a custodial sentence on the accused without the option of a fine as a deterrent to others.
According to the Prosecution, the accused, who is now a convict, was arrested on January 4, 2023, at the Accra Passport Application Centre, near Tema Station in Accra.
It stated that while the accused was applying for a Ghanaian passport, officials from the Ghana Immigration Service suspected that he was not a Ghanaian as he claimed.
“This Nigerian man 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.
According to the statement, the accused was granted service enquiry bail and was later charged with attempting to obtain a Ghanaian passport by false declaration in violation of Section 52 of the Ghana Immigration Act, 2000 (Act 573) on December 8, 2022.
The prosecution stated that the accused thus the nigerian man was scheduled to appear in Kaneshie District Court one on December 20, 2022 for prosecution, but he did not appear.
According to the report, the accused person outwitted officials at the Birth and Death Registry and the National Identification Authority in order to obtain the same Ghanaian birth certificate with entry number 1867 and a Ghana Card with personal ID number GHA-728134693-3 that he used in his previous attempt and that were in the custody of the Ghanaian government.
