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The Executive Secretary of the National Identification Authority (NIA), Professor Kenneth Agyemang Attafuah, has disclosed that he played a part in the arrest and prosecution of his nephew, George Kwame Essien.

Essien was an Assistant Technical Enrollment Officer at NIA's Walewale Office.

In a Facebook post, Professor Attafuah wrote:

THE CONVICTION OF MR. GEORGE KWAME ESSIEN, AN ASSISTANT TECHNICAL ENROLLMENT OFFICER AT NIA’S WALEWALE OFFICE

On Sunday, 26th November 2023, I dispatched a team of Police Investigators from the CID Unit of the National Identification Authority (NIA) Headquarters in Accra to Walewale in the North-East Region to investigate sundry allegations of criminality including corruption, registration offences and breaches of NIA's Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) leveled against Mr. George Kwame Essien, an Assistant Technical Enrollment Officer. Incidentally, the said George Kwame Essien is my nephew.

Mr. Essien had an uncommon opportunity to serve Ghana as an NIA official. Instead of doing so with integrity and professionalism, George Essien engaged in bribe-taking, registration of an ineligible foreigner, forging the signatures of his office colleagues, and generally involving himself in misconduct tending to undermine the integrity of the National Identification System (NIS) Project -- the very foundation of our nation's digitalization agenda, and bringing the name of NIA into disrepute.

In the morning of Monday, 27th November 2023, when Essien was arrested by the Police, he sent me WhatsApp messages informing me of his calamity, admitting his guilt, pleading for forgiveness, and seeking my intervention to secure his release, with a promise not to ever repeat his misconduct. He stated that he was a first-time offender, and that so many people depended on him. Apparently, Essien had forgotten that more than his people, the entire nation Ghana depended on him!

I told Essien to be a man and face the consequences of his actions. He misconducted himself in the manner he did, knowing fully well that I am his uncle and the Chief Executive Officer of the NIA! He ignored the potential adverse impact of his conduct on the nation, and the huge embarrassment the family would suffer. I told him he may have my forgiveness, but the law can not and must not forgive people like him who deliberately work to undermine the state.