In Accra, Ghana, passport applicants arrived from around 2 a.m. and formed a physical queue outside the passport office. Local reporting documented the early arrivals and the limited number of applicants the office could serve in a day.
A passport is a public document that enables travel, work and family connection. At the entrance to obtaining it, people came many hours before opening to secure a place. Proposals for reform and additional printing capacity were responses to an administrative system that shifted the cost of delay onto applicants' predawn time.