You can fool some of the people all of the time, And all of the people some of the time,
But you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. – Jacques Abbadie (1684)
(Attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
To some of us the latest hulabaloo about the LGBTQIA++ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer/ Questioning, Intersex, Asexual/Aromantic ++ plus all other sexual orientations and gender identities) comes as no surprise. It is not as eerie and frightening as has been pictured by other people. Simply, because we know that whatever happens, wherever it goes, President John Dramani is going to sign it into law. Walaahi!
Apart from Jesus (whose father, according to Christians is, God, and, therefore, did not have an earthly father) we know that a human-child is the biological product of a man and woman. The cycle is the woman’s egg (ovum) intermingles with sperm produced in the testes. The sperm is ejaculated into the woman’s V and swims up through the uterus into the fallopian tube for fertilisation… the zygote is formed from this union, with the male having XY chromosomes and female having XX chromosomes, the whole process goes on…
The anti-LGBTQ Ghanaians should be lucky that the whole issue started at the time when respectable President John Evans Atta Mills was President, and despite threats by the West championed by British Prime Minister, David Cameron, Uncle Fiifi stood his grounds and said: “I, as President of this nation, I will never initiate or support any attempts to legalise homosexuality in Ghana…”
Nana Addo’s stand on LGBTQ has been ambivalent. In an interview on Al Jazeera, in August, 2024, he stated: “I don’t believe that in Ghana so far a sufficiently strong coalition has emerged which is having that impact of public opinion that will say change it,… At the moment, I don’t feel and I don’t see that in Ghana there is that strong current of opinion that is saying that this is something that we need to deal with… “Yes or No, simple, not circumlocution!
Asante-Bediatuo’s letter addressed to the Clerk of Parliament was as pungent as it was repulsive; “It has come to the attention of this Office that while the President and other senior officials of the Presidency were at Peduase for a Cabinet Retreat on Thursday 14th March, 2024, you attempted to submit the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, 2024 (the Bill) to Jubilee House for the President to signify his assent or otherwise to the Bill.
This Office is aware of interlocutory injunctions both filed on 7th March, 2024 in the Supreme Court in Dr Amanda Odoi v The Speaker of Parliament and the Attorney General (31/09/2024) respectively, to restrain you and Parliament from transmitting the Bill to the president and also to restrain the President from signifying his assent to the Bill, pending the final determination of the matter.”
The Clerk to Parliament, Cyril Kwabena Ansah, wrote to Asante Bediatuo “have taken note of the letter particularly for the text in the last paragraph… ‘you are kindly requested to cease and desist from transmitting the Bill to President until matters before the Supreme Court are resolved’. Accordingly, I await an indication in writing from your Office when to present the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill 2024 to His Excellency the President for his consideration pursuant to Article 106(7) of the Constitution, 1992”.
The Speaker of Parliament Alban Bagbin described Bediatuo’s letter as “contemptuous of Parliament”.
It is now fifteen four years since the bill hit the ground Ghanaian scene. The Bill was almost ready for Akufo Addo to sign. He shied away from it, making the 2024 Bill dead. A new Parliamentary committee (composed of NDC and NPP members) after deliberating over it and making emendationes hic et illic facere (corrections here and there). What is anybody’s problem?
Was Kofi Bentil’s observations of the original Bill having been “watered down”, making the bill unable to “solve any problem”? Then you would ask … If the new Bill had portions of it repugnant to some people and they have now been amended, what is wrong with that?
Speaker Alban Bagbin had some reasons for recalling the new LGBTQ bill: He cited procedural rules, with specific mention of Orders 170, 171 and 172 requiring the amendments accurately incorporated into the amendment and made available to members for full awareness before a third reading; protecting legal integrity; need for thorough legislative scrutiny to avoid legislative uncertainty in the new Parliament; mitigating legislative lapses: “what is right must be done rightly.
Legislation of such profound national importance should proceed on foundation of broad parliamentary support and bipartisan cooperation…” What is wrong with this? What did Hon Ahiafor and Hon. Mahama Ayariga do wrong? Do we understand and appreciate debate?
We listened to portions of the debate: the core of the original provisions of the bill still exist; “manage and monitor” … delete “manage”… Clause 3… too much meat doesn’t spoil the soup… Clause 5: Comptroller General of Immigration Service… The “ayes” have it. How has this been “watered down to nothing”? Haa-ba? Does anyone want to pander to the whims of Nana Addo? We cannot all be carried away by mere propaganda coloured in the form of “analysis”.
We see “Ghana Today” has posted on the Internet: Old Bill: Directly or indirectly promoting, facilitating, counselling, procuring or supporting LGBTQ activities. Sanction: Imprisonment up to 3 months. Current Status: Removed completely.
Old Bill: Failure to report LGBTQ activities. Sanction: Fines up to 1000 Penalty units. Current Status: Amended. Old Bill: Persons accused of engaging in LGBTQ activities were not allowed access to health care. Sanction: (Nil) Current Status: Removed completely.
Old Bill: Psychiatric evaluation for people who identify as intersex or people who question their gender. Sanction: (Nil) Current Status: Removed completely. Old Bill: Media houses, CSOs and organisations subtly or openly promoting LGBTQ activities. Sanction: 3 months – 5 years imprisonment. Current Status: Removed completely.
Old Bill: People who dress in a manner that depicts them as people of the opposite gender. Sanction: Up to 7 years in prison. Current Status: Amendment to exclude people who are able to prove their dressing not intended for LGBTQ activities…
Were these changes/amendments necessary on account of the “humanity” of those practising it? should we not agree with those who think Akufo Addo’s “tintin-tininti” posture missed a glorious opportunity (sign the Bill) for his personal reasons?
We don’t envy Dr Zaato, a PhD holder at the Political Science Department of the University of Ghana (Where we once were). He has left no one in doubt about his hero-worship of Nana Addo. On this issue he says “posterity will judge Nana Addo (positively) because the God of Nana Addo, the God of Kyebi is a living God…” If he were not a PhD holder, we would have described Dr Zaato as displaying hypocrisy at its highest!
We remember an encounter with two Conservancy labourers: Mr A remarked after Mr. B’s biuff; “Kyeaa, wo yi bibini bini na wobo gyee… Me m’ayi Buroni béni memmɔ gyee sometimes meka bi fe… memmɔ gyee” (A: Foday, you are bluffing. You who collects black man’s faeces, you are bluffing. I had collected the white man’s faeces, I don’t bluff; sometimes, I could even taste it…”
NPP people should take note: “You can deceive some of the people all the time… you can’t deceive all the people all of the time.”
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