Northern Regional Minister Kicks Against Gay, Lesbian Rights

Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, N/R Minister

The Northern Regional Minister, Moses Bukari Mabengba, has kicked against any show of compassion or solidarity for gays and lesbians in Ghana, saying the practice is evil and should not be allowed to exist.

According to the outspoken Regional Minister, the lifestyle of certain people elsewhere which did not conform to our beliefs and customs as Ghanaians should not be welcomed because it would breed immorality amongst the people.

“Some of us have had the opportunity to live in Europe, where there are certain nightclubs you can go there with your wife and when you spot someone’s wife and you think you’re interested in her, you just talk and if there is an agreement you find somewhere and go and do your own thing. This kind of lifestyle cannot be allowed to exist in the Ghanaian society”, Mr. Moses Mabengba declared during a media engagement forum in Tamale to examine the report of the Constitution Review Commission (CRC) and the government’s white paper on the work of the Commission and to make inputs for its implementation.

The President of the Upper West Regional House of Chief, Naa Sohininye Danah Gori II, like many of the participants at the forum, supported the Northern Regional Minister for his position on gay and lesbian rights.

Naa Gori II, who did not mince words like Mr. Moses Mabengba in commenting on the issue, said gay and lesbian practices were unchristian, un-Islamic and untraditional and for that matter, those who engaged in it should not be accorded with respect or rights like any other human being. “Don’t say because we [Ghana] want some loan from donors to develop our country, so therefore anything they push to us [Ghanaians] we should accept it”, he stressed.

In unison, the Northern Regional Minister and the President of the Upper West Regional House of Chief as well as majority of participants urged government to make a definite statement to ban the immoral practice in the country and damn the consequences of any group of people or nation that would speak ill of Ghanaians.

It would be recalled that on the 11^th of January, 2010, President John Evans Atta-Mills, constituted a CRC, charged with the duty to undertake a consultative review of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana.

According to former Chairman of the CRC, Professor (Emeritus) Albert Kodzo Fiadjoe, the Commission was specifically tasked to listen to the people of Ghana, articulate their views in the form of recommendations together with a draft bill for the amendment of the Constitution, in the event that any changes were warranted.

On the 20^th of December, 2011, he said the CRC presented its final report to the President which included the recommendations on twelve thematic areas. These recommendations, he explained, were broken down into matters for Constitutional Change, Legislative Change, and Administrative Action. Also included in the report were two draft Constitution (Amendment) Bills: one for the amendment of the non-entrenched provisions of the Constitution (those that do not require a referendum) and the other for the amendment of the entrenched provisions of the Constitution after a positive referendum of the people, Prof. Fiadjoe stressed.

Prof. Fiadjoe indicated that the CRC did not shy away from dealing with the very difficult and intractable issues of corruption, ethnicity, dysfunctional politics, wastage of national resources, revenue leakages, and lack of discipline in government spending.

Overall, and in terms of substantive content, he stated that the review exercise sought through its recommendations to cultivate and strengthen a culture of good governance; put national development planning on a firm and non-political pedestal; streamline and strengthen Parliament and deepen decentralization, improve participatory democracy at the local level, and enhance the role of Traditional Authority in local governance, among others.

The media engagement forum which brought together journalists and other media practitioners, traditional rulers and officers of the National Commission for Civic Education, followed the issuance of a government white paper in June, 2012 which accepted about 90 percent of the Commission’s recommendations.