Homosexuality Will Never be Legalised Under Me – Akufo-Addo

President Nana Akufo-Addo has assured Ghanaians that he will never legalise same-sex relationship in Ghana.

Responding to the Moderator of the Global Evangelical Church, Rt. Rev Setorwu Kwadzo Ofori, who, at the Global Evangelical Church’s 2018 Synod, urged him to stand firm against international pressure to legalise homosexuality, President Nana Akufo-Addo said: “Let me assure that this government has no plans to change the law on same-sex marriage. We have no authority and we will not seek any authority to do so”.

Last year, the president stoked controversy on the subject when he said changing Ghana’s laws to legalise homosexuality is not a matter which is “on the agenda” but “bound to happen”.

Asked in a recent interview with Aljazeera why Ghana’s laws still criminalise homosexuality, Nana Akufo-Addo said: “This is the socio-cultural issue if you like,” adding: “I don’t believe that in Ghana, so far, a sufficiently strong coalition has emerged which is having that impact on public opinion that will say: ‘Change it [the law], let’s then have a new paradigm in Ghana’”.

The Ghanaian leader, however, said: “I think that it is something that is bound to happen”.

Asked by the interviewer: “What’s going to provoke it, what’s going to make it happen?” President Akufo-Addo said: “Oh, like elsewhere in the world, the activities of individuals [and] groups”.

He recalled how countries such as England, which, in the past, abhorred homosexuality, have over the years succumbed to pressure from LGBTQI lobbyists to amend their laws to accommodate same-sex relationship.

“I grew up in England; I went to school as a young boy in England and I grew up at a time in England when homosexuality was banned there, it was illegal and I lived in the period when British politicians thought it was anathema to think about changing the law and suddenly the activities of individuals, of groups, a certain awareness, a certain development grew and grew and grew stronger and it forced a change in law. I believe those are the same processes that will bring about changes in our situation.”

The president, however, pointed out that: “At the moment, I don’t feel and I don’t see that in Ghana, there is that strong current of opinion that will say: ‘This is something that we need even deal with’. It’s not, so far, a matter which is on the agenda.”