Atta Mills’ Presidency and Homosexuality’s Prominence in Ghana

Ibrahim Tanko

When a person assumes the office of Presidency, his or her attributes have a way of empowering certain constituencies be they open or secret, with which he or she may share a commonality. For example, when Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer became president of the United States of America, farmers became empowered to fight for certain rights and benefits. Similarly, with the coming of President Sirleaf in Liberia women empowerment has been taken to an unprecedented level with more women assuming high political offices like Mayor of Monrovia.

Homosexual practice may not be new in the Ghanaian society but it has always been in the closet as the society frowns on the practice. However, with the assumption of President Mills into the august office, all of a sudden homosexuality has gained prominence and has taken center stage in our political discourse. Just a few days ago, it was reported that a man wed another man, a coincidental first in Ghana. The practice has become so common and open that an irate NDC politician is reported to have ordered the arrest of gays, which is also unconstitutional.

Inquiring minds are frantically trying to decipher the correlation between the rise of President Mills to the castle and the rise in prominence of homosexuality in our society. Do homosexuals as a secret constituency, now have a powerful ally in the castle? The more inquiring minds explore, the more they see “some things that make you go hmmm”

First, why has President Mills kept Koku Anyidoho a known homosexual very close to his presidency? Koku Anyidoho’s homosexuality is an open secret. Leading up to the FONKAR/GAME debacle in Sunyani, Friends of Nana Konadu Agyemnan Rawlings blew the lid on Mr. Anyidoho’s homosexuality. It is no secret that Koku Anyidoho is very close to “the old man”.

Second, why was Ato Ahwoi so incensed and threatened to sue not only the accuser but also the press for publishing that he is the gay partner of President Mills? Does Ato Ahwoi find the exposure of his secret practice more damaging than the accusation doing the rounds that he has 28 articulator trucks transporting rice across the length and breath of Ghana due to the uncanny influence he has on President Mills? By threatening to sue the press is Ahwoi trying to gag the press from further publishing revelations of homosexual practice between him and president Mills? Hmmm.

In his hypocritical style, President Mills is normally slow to address issues of “political insults” if directed at him. That is why enquiring minds are amazed at the speed with which the usual lackadaisical Mills dealt with this particular issue. It is a known fact that President Mills did not claim his only son. Did he perhaps know something about his inability to father a child that the rest of us did not know? Hmmm.

Experts in gay gender issues have noted in private that President Mills’ voice is strange and lacks the normal bounce and vigor of a testosterone bearing male. The feminine cadence in his voice makes one wonder if it is that of a male. In addition to the higher-than-normal pitched voice, people are looking at President Mills’ loss of control of his government and using words such as “spinelessness” to describe his vintage inability to set his foot down on several important issues. Are the straight men in his administration overpowering him? Hmmm

It is interesting that his predecessors, John Agyekum Kuffour and John Rawlings were accused of fathering children secretly out of wedlock, a development which, if true, would not be deemed exemplary practice, but which definitely suggests manliness that is conspicuously absent from President Mills’ repertoire religion notwithstanding. Are all the above analysis conclusive on President Mills’ homosexuality? May be not, but they raise several important questions that the leader of our nation must answer to set the record straight and give Ghanaians confidence in knowing that they are not being led by a homosexual.