Report on Citizenship Law: Ghana listed in the Citizenship Act 2000, add further vague qualifications for which it is unclear how they can be met. The most controversial among them are being ‘assimilated into the Ghanaian way of life’ (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 14(1g)) and being ‘capable of making a substantial contribution to the progress or advancement in any area of national activity’ (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 14(1f)). Neither of the two are defined in the act or its regulations. In addition, the minister can ‘in such special circumstances as he thinks fit and with the approval of the President’ (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 14(2)) significantly alter the residence requirements for naturalisation. ‘The Minister can, (a) allow a gap of up to six months between the residence and the application for citizenship, (b) count residence in a different country as if it was residence in Ghana, and (c) allow for residence that predated the seven-year period before the application to count towards an applicant’s aggregated years of residence (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 14(2a) – 14(2b)). Beyond these ways in which the minister can ease the residence requirements, the minister can also ‘modify, vary or waive any one of the qualifications for naturalisation’, except the requirement to speak an indigenous Ghanaian language (Citizenship Act, No.591 of 2000, section 14(3)). When it comes to naturalisation numbers, we know very little. Akyeampong (2006) believes that between 1993 and 2006, no naturalisations happened. Over the last years, there have been a few Ghanaian news articles which reported about naturalisation numbers (Andoh 2016; GhanaWeb 2016; Gyamfi Asiedu 2019; African Diaspora Group 2022). Their aggregated figures would amount to 324 naturalisations between 2016 and 2022 (with no figures for 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021). Unfortunately, neither the Ghanaian Immigration Service (Ministry of Interior) nor the Ghanaian Statistical Service provide publicly available statistics on naturalisation numbers. We, therefore, do not have robust information about how many immigrants actually manage to acquire Ghanaian citizenship through the residence route. 3.1.3 Barriers: No Access to Naturalisation for Protracted Refugees The decision not to enshrine any rights to naturalisation for long-term residents in the constitution might have been taken to leave greater flexibility to change the rules through legislation. It might also have been linked to Ghana’s immigration history at the time of the writing of the 1992 Constitution and 1996 Amendment. From 1990 onwards, Ghana had been a major recipient of Liberian refugees fleeing a civil war of unclear length.7 The 1992 Refugee Law, passed by the last military council before democratisation (the Provisional National Defence Council, PNCD) mentions that refugees may, under certain circumstances, have access to naturalisation. It remains, however, very vague: ‘Subject to the relevant laws and regulations relating to naturalization, the [Refugee] Board may assist a refugee who has satisfied the conditions applicable to the acquisition of Ghanaian nationality to acquire Ghanaian nationality.’ (Refugee Law, No.305D of 1992, section 14) Despite this vagueness, this provision is a positive addition to the 2000 Citizenship Act. Under the 2000 Citizenship Act, refugees should have the right to apply for Ghanaian citizenship after five years based on their residence in Ghana – neither the Act itself nor its 2001 regulations mention in any way that refugees would be excluded from the 5-year residence requirement for naturalisation. A number of African states have much more 7 Their numbers peaked in in 2003 at about 42,000 people (Omata 2017, 19, 28-29). GLOBALCIT 11