Former Metro TV’s Annor is gay …shocked mom blames demons

Ignatius Annor, a popular television news anchor who worked with Metro TV in Accra Ghana, before he moved to Europe has publicly confessed he is a homosexual.

Annor told Joy News’ Ayishatu Ibrahim it has taken him this long to reveal his sexual orientation because he was scared how the Ghanaian community would take it.

When asked whether he has told his immediate family and how they took it, ANnor said in January of 2017, three years ago, he gathered courage and told his monthr about his homosexual status but the mother became very disturbed, she could not sleep all through the night and she told him the next morning that she believed he was under the influence of demons so she would pray for him to cast out the said demons of homosexuality.

He explained the encounter with his mom: “In 2017 when I came back to Ghana from studying, I had a burning desire to tell my truth and I thought I needed to speak to my mother first about it because she is my only surviving parent. What is funny is that she looked me in the eyes and said to me, she was listening to a preacher on the radio talking about how demonic it is to being a man and have love for your fellow man or being a woman and have love for your fellow woman. And so she was going to pray and cast that demon away from me.

“To hear that from my mother who is very painful but then I gave grace because I understand the context and where she was coming from. That’s not her idea, it is what had been repeatedly fed into her mind and ultimately a lot of people. So my mom, even three years ago, was not in acceptance of it. She came back to me the following day to say she has not been able to sleep because of what I told her. I could feel her pain because she thought I was going to put my life in danger.”

The popular journalist explained why he hid his homosexuality and continued to deny it anytime the subject popped up: “I had denied the fact that I was gay. I did that because of the fear of losing my career. You know, at the time, I practiced broadcast journalism in Ghana for a number of years and being on TV, and being outed brought a lot of pain to my life. One that you would have to live within the members of my body to understand. Soo much so that it got to a point, I returned to Ghana from studying in the UK looking for a job and the media houses that I wanted to work with in Ghana, nobody was ready to give me a job just because of the stigma that surrounds my community.

“This is going to be the very first time that I am using your medium to say that not only am I am activist for the right of African sexual minorities, what you would call LGBTQ community, but I am gay. It is the truth that I have accepted, it is the truth that I have lived by.

“Because I was outed as a gay person, and obviously I denied it because I was afraid of losing my job. I was working at an incredible television station in Accra and also for the fear of what could happen to me personally. I can share stories about people that have been attacked just because they are seen to be a particular way and I did not want that to happen to me.

“I would also want to use your medium to apologize to the people in my community that I have let down over the years simply because I did not have the courage to own my truth and live it as somebody who was in the media.”

His confession has been met with mixed reactions from the Ghanaian public.