Recognition of gays in Ghana very unlikely – Bossman Asare

Head of Political Science Department at the University of Ghana, Dr. Bossman Eric Asare has added his voice to the endless debate about homosexuality, its legalization in Ghana and indeed other African countries and the recognition and acceptance of gays, lesbians in Ghana.

The subject of gayism and appreciation for the rights of the LGBT community in Ghana has been ongoing for a while now and many, including Speaker of Parliament, Mike Oquaye have condemned and rejected the idea of neutralizing Ghana’s laws against the practice.

Most recent to have reignited public discourse on the subject is UK Prime Minister, Theresa May’s posturing suggesting that the UK’s role in introducing anti-gay laws in former colonies such as Ghana is responsible for their strong stance against the practice today; reiterating the UK’s readiness to assist such countries repeal anti-gay laws and accept the rights of such persons.

“I’m all too aware that these laws were often put in place by my own country. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now.” “Yet there remains much to do…Nobody should face discrimination and persecution because of who they are or who they love. The UK stands ready to support any Commonwealth nation wanting to reform outdated legislation that makes such discrimination possible,”, she said while addressing the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in London.

Touching on the subject, Dr. Bossman noted that there is very little possibility of homosexuality being endorsed in Ghana seeing that the public which has a greater say in sensitive issues of this nature are obviously strongly against the practice. Politicians he maintained will have very little power in cases like this as a referendum to get the masses’ opinions is usually implored. Judging from the reaction of majority of Ghanaians he says, recognizing gay rights is certainly very unlikely.

“The Prime Minister of Britain, she has made her point, but the reality is that we also know that democracy operates in a context and in Ghana we find ourselves within a particular cultural context, in Nigeria, in Kenya and others and I also know that when it comes to some of these sensitive issues in our part of the world, we’ll normally subject it to a referendum so once we give the people all the opportunity to decide whether they think we should recognize gay rights or we shouldn’t and they decide yes or they decide otherwise, then we don’t have any other option”

“From where I sit, I find it something which is going to be nearly impossible because you look at the context of Ghana, the context of Nigeria, of Togo, of Kenya, I find it very difficult to believe that a politician can push their agenda that let’s amend our constitution and recognize gay rights, although we are practicing democracy, we believe that this is a sensitive issue, we are not going to allow the politicians to decide, we’ll allow the people of Ghana, the people of Nigeria to make up their mind if we should recognize gays, we should recognize lesbians in our body politic, we’ll go ahead and do it”.



Though he expressed confidence in the ability of Ghanaians to protest to the core, the normalization of the practice in today’s generation, he is quite unsure what the outcome of future events regarding the subject will be.

“I know now I’m very certain that we are not going to do that but who knows in the next 20 years? ….. Because one of the arguments used by the gay rights movement is that it’s not like they are imposing or they are telling people to do what they are doing but reality is that they must be recognized, they must be recognized in the society when they are doing A, B, C and D but I don’t think our societies, our make up now will allow them to be recognized, it’s going to be very difficult. This debate started many many years ago and I doubt it’s going to happen in our lifetime.”, he said.

Homosexuality has been vehemently opposed in most African countries particularly Ghana and Nigeria. Discrimination against same-sex relationships in this part of the world is quite on the rise. Currently, under Ghanaian criminal law (Chapter 6 of the Criminal Code, 1960, as amended by The Criminal Code (Amendment) Act, 2003) same-sex sexual activity among males is illegal.

Whilst many gay rights activists have advocated equal rights for the gay community, majority of Ghanaians in general continue to push against the agenda of legalizing homosexuality.