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The visit of President Barrack Obama of the United States of America to Ghana, and the comments he made about our democracy, appears to be attracting more people into the country. Obama praised Ghana�s successful change of government, from one democratically-elected one to the other, without any chaos, as happens in other developing countries, even though the election was a closely fought one Information available to The Chronicle indicates that some tertiary students in some of the universities in Canada, as part of their course work, have been asked to present papers on Ghana�s successful democratic practice. President Obama did not dole out huge sums of money to the government of Ghana during his visit, but his complimentary remarks gave the nation positive publicity on the international scene, which can never be quantified in monetary terms. It is in the light of this, that The Chronicle is appealing to the Atta Mills government to do everything possible to protect the good image of this country. Our appeal is based on the recent attempt by the alleged Nigerian terrorist, who attempted to ignite explosives sewn into his underwear on an American Airlines over Detroit, which has compelled the only world super power to take certain stringent measures to protect her citizens. Among these stringent measures are the declaration of certain countries as terrorist prone areas, and the subsequent restriction of their nationals in traveling to the USA. Thank God, Ghana is not on this US terror list, but the danger is that if our government fails do her homework well, nationals of some of these blacklisted countries would troop into the country to acquire Ghanaian passports, and use them to apply for US visas. One cannot deny the fact that the method for the acquisition of a Ghanaian passport is very porous, and can easily be exploited by those who want to do so. Allegations that certain individuals even own two or more Ghanaian passports, point to the fact that there are loopholes in the acquisition of the passport. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs must, therefore, do everything possible to ensure that the loopholes are plugged, to protect the international image of the country. If nationals from other African countries are able to secure Ghanaian passports, and use them to commit criminal offences, their country of origin would never be mentioned, but it is rather Ghana that is going to be in the news, and this will surely undermine the positive international image of the country. It is our hope that President Mills would listen to our concerns, and make sure they are addressed, in the supreme interest of this country. Conscious efforts must also be made to ensure that only genuine Ghanaians are registered in the ongoing national registration exercise. If we fail to police this exercise, and allow foreigners to infiltrate and secure National Identity Cards, officials at the passport secretariat would not have any justification to deny them Ghanaian passports.