4AM Queues, 5-hour waits: Ghana Card registration still sluggish 3 years after deadline

By Napoleon Ato Kittoe, Adenta

Three years after the initial deadline for Ghana Card registration expired, thousands of Ghanaians are still spending entire days in queues just to be captured.

At the Ghana Card registration centre at Adenta Market, the scene is the same every morning: residents arrive as early as 4 a.m with chairs, umbrellas and food, only to sit on wooden benches for more than 5 hours with no guarantee of being served.

The photo accompanying this story shows tired residents waiting in a long queue at the Adenta centre on 14 July, 2026. Many told this reporter they had returned 3 to 4 times without success.

“It is frustrating,” said Ama Serwaa, a trader who arrived at 4:30 a.m. “We close our shops to come here and by 10 a.m you haven’t even been called. The system is too slow.”

Digital System, Manual Pace

The Ghana Card exercise was meant to be a fast, digital process to create a single national ID database. But on the ground, the reality is different.

Officials at the centre blame network challenges and inadequate registration kits for the delays. Residents say, officials appear unconcerned about the pace.

“When digital systems fail the speed test, everything becomes manual,” said Kwame Owusu, a civil servant. “How can this support the 24-hour economy government is talking about if we waste a whole working day just to get an ID?”

The National Identification Authority initially set October 2022 as the deadline for mass registration. But the exercise has continued to mop up those who missed out.

What is NIA saying?

With Ghana’s population at 33 million, millions are still unregistered, keeping pressure on the few centres.

For now, residents at Adenta and other centres across Accra continue to trade a full day’s work for a chance to get onto the national register.