Don't politicise Akufo-Addo's comment on homosexuality - Kweku Baako

Veteran Journalist Abdul Malik Kweku Baako has defended the president’s homosexuality stance as not on Ghana’s agenda describing it as “fair and honest”.

Speaking on Aljazeera’s ‘Talk to Al Jazeera’ programme hosted by Jane Dutton Al-Jazeera during the president’s recent visit to Qatar, he said that the issue of homosexuality is a “socio-cultural issue.”

To that extent, the president said that there is no sufficient reason to warrant the legalization of homosexuality.

President Akufo-Addo’s comment triggered controversy among Ghanaians with the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC) accusing the president of setting an agenda for advocates of homosexuals to agitate in order to have Ghana’s law amended to recognize acts of homosexuals.

However, Kweku Baako has objected the claims made by the opposition saying that President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo statement should not be used as a fence for needless political debates and agendas because “it is no different from what the previous presidents did.”

Speaking on Peace FM’s morning show programme ‘Kokrokoo’, he cited an occasion where during a two-day visit by the Head of State, who was then the 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), he made it clear to then British Prime Minister Mr David Cameron that the issue of linking the promotion of gay rights to British development assistance does not go down well with Ghanaians who saw it as an affront to their social values.

Kweku Baako said Akufo-Addo’s statement then and now do not make any huge difference if “the analysis would be done in an intellectual manner rather than seek political capital or gender propaganda mischief.”