Candidate Bawumia’s Anti-Gay Declaration Was Dead-on-Target and Timely as Well

Alhaji Mahamudu Bawumia, the former Deputy-Governor of the Bank of Ghana and the twice-elected substantive Vice-President of the Sovereign Democratic Republic of Ghana, did precisely what emotionally mature and psychologically balanced leaders do in the heat of highly emotionally charged controversies, such as that which recently swirled around the issue regarding the statutory proscription of LGBTQ+ Lifestyle and Culture or Subculture. The Walewale native, from the Akufo-Addo-created North-East Region, wisely waited until all the various stakeholders and the virulently Anti-Gay and the Pro-Gay Rights advocates had had their say and then some, as New Yorkers are wont to say, before thoughtfully and “objectively” weighing in, albeit not necessarily impartially, on the side of the conservative religious majority in the country, contrary to what the likes of Prof. Kobby Mensah, described by the media as a Political-Marketing Strategist on the staff or faculty of the University of Ghana Business School, would have the rest of the country believe (See “Professor Kobby Mensah Questions Bawumia’s Timing to Speak on LGBTQ Issue” Modernghana.com 4/12/24).

The fact of the matter is that the controversy surrounding the proscription of Gay and Lesbian Lifestyle and Culture, or Subculture, is more morally and religiously based than it is scientifically or genetically and psychologically based, so it could not have been more appropriate for the 2024 Presidential Candidate of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to have made his opinion and concerns known on this most volatile issue at the end of the globally observed and celebrated Ramadan season and festivities of the Islamic world. His choice of venue, at the Kumasi Central Mosque, could also not have been more appropriate, being that the venue was also located in the very heart of the country and in the Asante Region, putatively regarded as the foremost traditional political and the electoral stronghold of the staunch adherents of the Danquah-Busia-Dombo Neoliberal and Social-Intervention Oriented Political Establishment.

It is therefore nothing short of downright disingenuous for Prof. Mensah to have expected Candidate Bawumia to have been facilely stampeded into cheaply playing to the gallery, as it were, as a means of scoring cheap political points, the way that the politically desperate leaders of the country’s main opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) have been widely known to do. Plus, Vice-President Bawumia has been darn too busy working literally around the clock to facilitate the significant improvement in the socioeconomic standards of Ghanaians, especially the lumpen-poor and the destitute, to worry himself silly over and about an issue that cannot absolutely in any way be blamed for the kind of chronic and perennial leadership irresponsibility that has resulted in the wanton destruction of the country’s waterbodies, environmental and forestry resources and direly threatens the very existence and the livelihood of Ghanaians in both the short and the long haul.

It is also not clear to this writer what sort of Strategic Political Marketing it is that Prof. Mensah teaches and/or “professes” at the University of Ghana’s Business School. But what is lucidly and inescapably clear is that the issue of same-sex or gay and lesbian relationships is not passé, nor is it likely to go away anytime soon, at least, not until the President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has appended his signature and executive seal of authority and approval to the recently passed Anti-Gay Bill by Ghana’s 8^th Parliament.

Ultimately, the Gay-Lesbian Bugbear, while being of considerable significance and concern to a sizeable majority of Ghanaian citizens and voters, nevertheless, is not going to seismically determine which of the country’s two major political parties gets to occupy Jubilee House or the Presidency or gets to clinch a majority of the Parliamentary Seats in Ghana’s 9^th Parliament or National Assembly. The latter verdict will almost wholly be decided on the basis of which of our two major political parties has amply demonstrated that, indeed, it has the wellbeing of the overwhelming majority of the Ghanaian people at heart.

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By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
April 12, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]