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Is The Re-Registration Of Mobile Phone Sim Cards Really Necessary?

Feature Article Is The Re-Registration Of Mobile Phone Sim Cards Really Necessary?
FRI, 03 APR 2026

I am afraid the noise made about cyber fraud, to justify the order of the Government that mobile phone Sim cards should be re-registered by certain dates, appears to me to be another instance of the authorises misusing the power the citizenry has entrusted to them.

The welfare of the people is the “supreme law” was one of the mottos popularised by the first Government of an independent Ghana. Unfortunately, the motto was largely used as a tool of propaganda, with reality teaching us that the “welfare of the ruling party” was what mattered to the Government of the day.

Sadly, when the then ruling party lost power, many of those that put on the boots of authority realised that it was easier to rule the country with one eye closed and both ears blocked. The result has been that many of our past Governments have proved to ben nothing but “the same thing different” when it comes to safeguarding the public interest.

Indeed, decision-makers often operate to make things more convenient to themselves than to the community they have solemnly sworn to serve.

Cyber crime is, of course, to be condemned as a heinous practice that brings misery into the lives of many individuals and their families. But should the wickedness of the few who perpetrate it be siezed upon to punish the innocent many?

Punish the many? Yes ! I speak as an eye-witness to the inefficiency, and occasionally, the corruption that comes in the wake of attempting to enable citizens to satisfy the many bureaucratic requirements of the state.

I mean all manner of documents cannot be issued to the individual citizen unless he or she produces OTHER documents, of ten as specified by an officious state employee. Anyone who has needed to produce an unexpired passport or a voter's card etc. will know what I am talking about.

What I am talking about.
Demands for official papers often prove to be an oportunity for ruthless extortion.

Not only that:I have been obliged to be physically present in order to obtain a specified document that in my view, could have been collected by someone else more mobile than me.

To collect my voter's card, for instance, had to go to 3 different vebues. Why? I don't know what happens in the offices we pay for do I?

Our Government is aware of the inefficiencies that dog our public services. Ir also knows of the corruption. Yet it thinks nothing of asking us to re- register themillions of Sim cards in use in a country where mobile phones are now the SINE QUA NON for business and social communication?

In any case has Parliament ever wondered whether the wholesale confiscation of mobile phone Sim cards that do not pass the re-registration test, would be a negation of Article 18 of the1992 Constitution?

Cameron Duodu
Cameron Duodu, © 2026

Martin Cameron Duodu is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.. More Martin Cameron Duodu (born 24 May 1937) is a United Kingdom-based Ghanaian novelist, journalist, editor and broadcaster. After publishing a novel, The Gab Boys, in 1967, Duodu went on to a career as a journalist and editorialist.

Education
Duodu was born in Asiakwa in eastern Ghana and educated at Kyebi Government Senior School and the Rapid Results College, London , through which he took his O-Level and A-Level examinations by correspondence course . He began writing while still at school, the first story he ever wrote ("Tough Guy In Town") being broadcast on the radio programme The Singing Net and subsequently included in Voices of Ghana , a 1958 anthology edited by Henry Swanzy that was "the first Ghanaian literary anthology of poems, stories, plays and essays".

Early career
Duodu was a student teacher in 1954, and worked on a general magazine called New Nation in Ghana, before going on to become a radio journalist for the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation from 1956 to 1960, becoming editor of radio news <8> (moonlighting by contributing short stories and poetry to The Singing Net and plays to the programme Ghana Theatre). <9> From 1960 to 1965 he was editor of the Ghana edition of the South African magazine Drum , <10> and in 1970 edited the Daily Graphic , <3> the biggest-selling newspaper in Ghana.< citation needed >

The Gab Boys (1967) and creative writing
In 1967, Duodu's novel The Gab Boys was published in London by André Deutsch . The "gab boys" of the title – so called because of their gabardine trousers – are the sharply dressed youths who hang about the village and are considered delinquent by their elders. The novel is the story of the adventures of one of them, who runs away from village life, eventually finding a new life in the Ghana capital of Accra . According to one recent critic, "Duodu simultaneously represents two currents in West African literature of the time, on the one hand the exploration of cultural conflict and political corruption in post-colonial African society associated with novelists and playwrights such as Chinua Achebe and Ama Ata Aidoo , and on the other hand the optimistic affirmation of African cultural strengths found in poets of the time such as David Diop and Frank Kobina Parkes . These themes come together in a very compassionate discussion of the way that individual people, rich and poor, are pushed to compromise themselves as they try to navigate a near-chaotic transitional society."

In June 2010 Duodu was a participant in the symposium Empire and Me: Personal Recollections of Imperialism in Reality and Imagination, held at Cumberland Lodge , alongside other speakers who included Diran Adebayo , Jake Arnott , Margaret Busby , Meira Chand , Michelle de Kretser , Nuruddin Farah , Jack Mapanje , Susheila Nasta , Jacob Ross , Marina Warner , and others.

Duodu also writes plays and poetry. His work was included in the anthology Messages: Poems from Ghana ( Heinemann Educational Books , 1970).

Other activities and journalism
Having worked as a correspondent for various publications in the decades since the 1960s, including The Observer , The Financial Times , The Sunday Times , United Press International , Reuters , De Volkskrant ( Amsterdam ), and The Economist , Duodu has been based in Britain as a freelance journalist since the 1980s. He has had stints with the magazines South and Index on Censorship , and has written regularly for outlets such as The Independent and The Guardian .

He is the author of the blog "Under the Neem Tree" in New African magazine (London), and has also published regular columns in The Mail and Guardian ( Johannesburg ) and City Press (Johannesburg), as well as writing a weekly column for the Ghanaian Times (Accra) for many years.< citation needed >

Duodu has appeared frequently as a contributor on BBC World TV and BBC World Service radio news programmes discussing African politics, economy and culture.

He contributed to the 2014 volume Essays in Honour of Wole Soyinka at 80, edited by Ivor Agyeman-Duah and Ogochukwu Promise.
Column: Cameron Duodu

Disclaimer: "The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect ModernGhana official position. ModernGhana will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." Follow our WhatsApp channel for meaningful stories picked for your day.

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