There is something increasingly difficult to defend about Ghana’s relationship with its diaspora.
We speak proudly about Ghanaians abroad. We encourage them to send money home, invest, establish businesses, transfer knowledge and promote Ghana internationally. Presidents travel abroad to meet them. Our political parties maintain overseas branches, raise funds from them and rely on them to campaign and mobilise political support.
Yet, when the same Ghanaian seeks a fuller political role in the affairs of the country, the conversation suddenly changes. The second passport that does not trouble anybody when money is being sent home or a political campaign is being supported suddenly becomes evidence of possible divided loyalty when that citizen wishes to contest for Parliament.
I struggle to see the fairness in that position. More importantly, I struggle to see how it serves Ghana’s long-term interests.
The current constitutional reform process gives us an opportunity to correct an anomaly that has existed for too long. This should not be approached as a favour being requested by Ghanaians abroad. It is fundamentally a question about citizenship and what it means to be Ghanaian in a world in which millions of our people live, work and raise families abroad while remaining deeply connected to Ghana.
Ghana Has Already Accepted Dual Citizenship
We sometimes conduct this debate as though dual citizenship itself is questionable. Ghana settled that matter thirty years ago.
Article 8(1) of the 1992 Constitution, as amended by the Constitution of the Republic of Ghana (Amendment) Act, 1996, Act 527, expressly provides that a citizen of Ghana may hold the citizenship of another country in addition to Ghanaian citizenship.
That was a deliberate constitutional decision. Acquiring another nationality does not mean abandoning Ghana.
Once we accept that principle, however, we must confront the contradiction that follows. How can our Constitution recognise a person as a Ghanaian citizen while treating the lawful possession of another nationality as sufficient reason to exclude that person from important aspects of Ghana’s political life?
There may be compelling reasons for reserving a small number of exceptionally sensitive offices for persons who owe no formal obligations elsewhere. But it is much harder to justify the proposition that a Ghanaian by birth who acquires British, American, Canadian or another citizenship should therefore be incapable of representing a Ghanaian constituency in Parliament.
If the evidence of disloyalty is simply another passport, we have reduced patriotism to a travel document.
The Diaspora Has Never Really Left Ghana
Many Ghanaians may sleep outside Ghana, but Ghana remains part of their daily lives.
The telephone rings when school fees are due, when a parent requires medical treatment, when there is a funeral, when somebody needs help establishing a business or when a family faces an emergency.
Diaspora remittances are therefore not merely numbers in economic reports. Behind those figures are millions of individual acts of responsibility.
But money tells only part of the story.
Ghana’s diaspora includes doctors, lawyers, academics, engineers, scientists, bankers, accountants, technology professionals and entrepreneurs working at the highest levels around the world. These citizens have accumulated skills, experience and international networks that Ghana needs.
We complain about brain drain, yet having exported some of our best human capital, we maintain constitutional barriers when that human capital wants to return and participate in public life.
There is something self-defeating about that.
Good Enough to Support Politics, But Not to Enter Parliament?
The contradiction becomes even more obvious when politics enters the discussion.
Both the NPP and NDC maintain overseas branches. Ghanaians abroad raise funds, organise meetings, campaign, contribute ideas and travel home during elections. Political leaders regularly visit London, New York, Washington and other cities to engage diaspora supporters because they understand their influence.
If a dual citizen is sufficiently Ghanaian to help finance a political campaign and help another person enter Parliament, why is that citizen suddenly not sufficiently Ghanaian to seek election himself?
We cannot reasonably have it both ways.
And this is not an NPP or NDC issue.
Under President John Agyekum Kufuor, Parliament enacted the Representation of the People (Amendment) Act, 2006, Act 699, commonly known as ROPAA, recognising the principle that eligible Ghanaian citizens abroad should be able to register and vote.
At the Ghana Diaspora Homecoming Summit in Accra in July 2017, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo also addressed political inclusion. The Daily Graphic, reporting on the Summit in July 2017, recorded the Government’s commitment to implement overseas voting. Ghana Business News, in its report of 6 July 2017, also recorded President Akufo-Addo’s assurance that his government would revisit the law preventing dual citizens from holding certain public offices.
The Diaspora Affairs Office of the President subsequently recorded that about 2,000 overseas-based Ghanaiansattended that Summit.
President Akufo-Addo returned to the subject in 2019. The Daily Graphic of 4 July 2019, under the headline “Dual citizens to hold public office — Bill to be placed in Parliament — Prez”, reported his commitment to legislative reform.
There is therefore a history of support for reform across governments. We should stop treating diaspora political participation as a partisan question.
The Courts Have Exposed the Contradiction
Our Supreme Court has also had to confront the difficulties created by the present arrangement.
In Asare v Attorney-General [2012] 1 SCGLR 460, the Supreme Court rejected, among other things, the mandatory requirement that a dual citizen obtain a special dual-citizenship card before exercising citizenship rights.
The underlying principle was important. A dual citizen does not become Ghanaian because an administrator gives him permission. His citizenship comes from the Constitution.
The Supreme Court went further in Francis Osei-Bonsu v Attorney-General, Writ No. J1/18/2023, decided on 24 April 2024. Sections of the Citizenship Act, 2000, Act 591had expanded the list of offices unavailable to dual citizens beyond those expressly provided for by the Constitution. The additional restrictions included offices such as Chief Justice, Justice of the Supreme Court, Director-General of Prisons and Chief Fire Officer.
The Supreme Court struck down the relevant provisions, holding in substance that Parliament could not use an ordinary Act to impose constitutional disabilities without following the constitutional amendment procedure.
The result should make us pause.
A dual Ghanaian can no longer be excluded under those invalid statutory provisions from appointment as Chief Justice or a Justice of the Supreme Court, yet Article 94(2)(a) may still prevent that same Ghanaian from becoming an elected Member of Parliament.
Does that remain a rational constitutional settlement?
The Quayson Case Should Make Us Think
The experience of James Gyakye Quayson demonstrates the practical problem.
In Michael Ankomah Nimfah v James Gyakye Quayson, Electoral Commission and Attorney-General, decided by the Supreme Court on 17 May 2023, the Court held that Mr Quayson was not constitutionally qualified when he submitted his nomination papers for the 2020 Assin North election because his Canadian citizenship had not yet been formally renounced. His election was consequently invalidated.
There is no reason to attack the Court for applying the Constitution. The judges did not write Article 94.
The question for the rest of us is whether the law they were required to apply remains appropriate.
Mr Quayson had taken steps to renounce his Canadian citizenship, but the constitutional consequences ultimately turned on when Canadian authorities completed that process.
That raises a troubling question. Should a Ghanaian’s eligibility to represent Ghanaians depend partly upon how quickly Canada, Britain, America or another country processes a renunciation application?
Surely Ghana can devise a better test of loyalty than the administrative timetable of a foreign government.
Another Passport Is Not Proof of Another Loyalty
The strongest argument against reform is allegiance. I understand it. Ghana is entitled to demand loyalty from people entrusted with public power.
But we must distinguish genuine conflicts of allegiance from assumptions about allegiance.
Having only a Ghanaian passport does not make anybody patriotic. Ghana has experienced corruption, abuse of office and betrayal of public trust by people who never possessed another nationality.
Likewise, acquiring another citizenship after living abroad for twenty years does not suddenly remove Ghana from a person’s heart.
The better questions are practical ones. Does the person have obligations to a foreign government that create a real conflict? Have foreign financial interests been disclosed? Is the person employed by another state? Can the individual pass appropriate security vetting?
Those are meaningful tests of allegiance.
A passport alone tells us remarkably little.
Africa Is Also Adapting
Ghana is not alone in confronting the realities of modern citizenship.
The 2010 Constitution of Kenya, for example, expressly provides in Article 16 that a Kenyan citizen by birth does not lose Kenyan citizenship by acquiring another nationality. Kenya nevertheless retains specific restrictions for State officers under Article 78, with defined exceptions.
Kenya has therefore recognised an important principle: accepting multiple citizenship does not require a country to abandon legitimate safeguards surrounding sensitive public office.
Ghana can develop its own model.
We do not have to choose between excluding dual citizens and opening every sensitive institution without protection.
Protect What Truly Needs Protection
I do not suggest that every office must automatically be open to every dual citizen.
There are legitimate arguments for exceptional requirements concerning the President and Vice-President. There may equally be compelling national-security reasons for requiring exclusive Ghanaian citizenship for the Chief of Defence Staff, intelligence leadership or a narrowly defined category of positions involving the most sensitive state secrets.
But restrictions should be exceptional and capable of justification.
The citizenship requirement appropriate for the Commander-in-Chief should not automatically determine who can become the MP for Bantama, Ho Central, Cape Coast South or Bolgatanga Central.
Require disclosure of other nationalities, foreign financial interests and foreign government employment. Strengthen conflict-of-interest legislation. Introduce security vetting where genuinely necessary. Punish false declarations.
Regulate actual conflicts. Do not presume disloyalty.
The Constitution Review Committee Has Shown the Way
The 2025 Constitution Review Committee, chaired by Professor H. Kwasi Prempeh, has now proposed precisely this kind of reform.
In section 2.4 of its Final Recommendations, the Committee recommends amending Article 94(2)(a) so that a Ghanaian citizen by birth who otherwise satisfies the constitutional requirements should not be prevented from contesting for Parliament merely because he or she holds another citizenship, and should not be required to renounce that citizenship.
More broadly, section 6.1 recommends replacing blanket restrictions with proper integrity, conflict-of-interest, security-vetting and disclosure regimes.
That is a sensible approach.
The Mahama Government has accepted the central recommendation. In its formal position presented by Attorney-General Dr Dominic Akuritinga Ayine on 30 July 2026, the Government stated that the current disqualification “sits uneasily with our engagement with our diaspora and with the realities of modern citizenship.”
It is difficult to disagree.
And We Must Finally Implement ROPAA
Political inclusion cannot end with the right to seek office. The right to vote matters equally.
Parliament enacted ROPAA in 2006. Twenty years later, Ghanaians abroad are still waiting for its full implementation.
There will undoubtedly be practical challenges concerning registration, verification, constituencies and electoral security. But administrative difficulty cannot become a permanent excuse for denying a political right recognised by Parliament two decades ago.
If implementation must be gradual, let it be gradual. Begin in countries where Ghana has established diplomatic missions and substantial Ghanaian populations, test the system and expand it.
Twenty years is long enough.
We Are Asking for Equal Citizenship
Ultimately, this debate is bigger than passports. It is about the meaning of Ghanaian citizenship.
We cannot tell the diaspora to come home and invest but not come home and lead; ask for their expertise but distrust their political judgment; happily receive their political donations and then question their allegiance when they wish to stand for office.
Nor should living abroad give anyone a superior entitlement to leadership. A Ghanaian in London has no greater claim to public office than a Ghanaian who has spent his entire life in Kumasi, Tamale or Accra.
The argument is about equality.
The diaspora is not asking Ghana to abandon safeguards or compromise its sovereignty. We are asking for equal citizenship with equal responsibility.
Require us to disclose our interests. Subject us to Ghanaian law. Vet those seeking sensitive offices. Punish those who conceal incompatible foreign obligations.
But do not begin with the assumption that another passport makes a Ghanaian less loyal.
For generations, the Ghanaian diaspora has helped build Ghana from outside Ghana. We have sent money home, educated relatives, established businesses, supported communities, transferred expertise, promoted Ghana internationally and participated actively in our national politics.
Whenever Ghana has called upon its diaspora, the diaspora has answered.
It is now Ghana’s turn to answer one simple question:
Are we citizens only when Ghana needs something from us, or are we citizens in the fullest meaning of the word?
The diaspora does not seek special citizenship.
We seek equal citizenship.
Article 94 should be amended so that multiple nationality alone no longer prevents a Ghanaian citizen by birth from seeking election to Parliament. Restrictions should remain only where a compelling national interest genuinely requires them, and ROPAA should finally be implemented.
Thirty years after Ghana recognised dual citizenship, it is time for our political rights to catch up with that constitutional reality.
It is time to complete the journey.
By Bennard Nana Owusu
