How did Francis Anquandah get the IM title as a 1960 player?

https://ratings.fide.com/card.phtml?event=12600148

The FIDE site lists his rating as below 2000, but gives him the IM title? I'm confused as to how this happened. I know that winning some tournaments earns one the IM title, and some 1900-rated players might get it, say, by winning the World Youth U8 Championship or some tournament like that, but this is an adult 1900-2000 player who has an IM title? Does anyone know how this happened?

It's just on my mind because I played two blitz games against Anquandah last night and after looking him up, was rather disturbed about the IM title - it seems that it devalues the achievement of becoming an IM if it's given out to players 400+ points below the rating requirement for no discernable reason. Some 2200-2400 players in the States work their whole lives trying to get the coveted IM title, so something about this seems wrong to me.

It can't be that he used to be much higher-rated, either: It says he earned the title in 2015.

No disrepsect at all to Anquandah intended - whatever happened, it's a fault with FIDE, not him.

strange

Perhaps it has something to do with him being the second highest ranked Ghanaian player?

He won the 4.4 zonal last year, see articles:

http://www.africa-chess.org/news/players-corner/81-today-s-chess-pic-of-the-day-im-francis-eric-anquandah.html

The zonal features 11 central African countries, so the fact that he was the best player within a substaintial geographical region earned him the tital International Master. 

Ah, Fide and joke titles again ...

Yeah, I was annoyed a few years ago when I played an FM who didn't even have a FIDE rating! So beating him didn't help my own FIDE rating. He was, of course, a very young kid.

How could this be true? I see no possible way that this could be true.

Legend says that if you listen to the radio 24/7 you can slowly become FM... with a very bad taste in music

You need 9 games before you get a FIDE rating. So the kid could have won a tournament, got the title, and not a FIDE rating!

how he could be master? its the same rank as lutikov, malinov, nezhmetdinov....... stupid world

nezhmetdinov...... ha

he was an IM

There is a thread on chess.com that discusses how weak the old masters of the first half of the 20th century were.  Lack of strong competition and technical resources are some factors.  Just consider all of Africa like that. 

Although, in the west the competition is steep enough that gaining 10 ELO points is probably a good year. 

Does it suck, yeah, but I suppose any expert level player can move to Africa, get a national membership and win a zonal.

If at the end of the day if it promotes chess in a region that is under represented and likely does not have a lot of FIDE events in which to get either norms or ratings it is probably a worthwhile investment.

Nice to see that IM Anquandah also Arbitrated his national championships.

I guess it must have been something like this. He told me he had come in 2nd in the World U-8 (U-9? I don't recall exactly), so I guess this is where the title came from. But I don't see why they need to give kids big titles on the basis of one tournament before they are legitimately good. It's not like Bobby Fischer becoming a grandmaster on the basis of one tournament, since it was the freaking Interzonal!

Pretty sure this has changed to 5 games now...

Wouldn't a CM title promote chess in the region too? You don't have to hand out IM titles for that...

I don't think they should do that either, but I at least see it as reasonable - sort of "investing" in the kids who almost inevitably go on to become strong players. I know Awonder Liang got the FM title for winning a U8 tournament or something when he was 7 and rated 1900, and went on to become a 2400 player.

But giving out the IM title to a middle-aged expert player? Again, no disrespect to him, but he's likely not going to grow into the 2400 shoes the title implies he's expected to fill.

I find it unfair too, but you can see them as honorary titles.

it is  unfair but fide is a business, they can do which they want

It seems like no one understands how FIDE works. So many people aren't happy with them and they're supposed to represent chess players, but no one knows how to change anything