Defending 'Ghanaian Values' our ancestors would not recognize

When on 25 March 2026 Ghana led a vote at the United Nations to declare the transatlantic

slave trade the gravest crime against humanity, this remarkable effort not only positioned Ghana

as a country at the fore of global issues of racial justice, but it essentially reaffirmed our

commitment to human rights and tolerance.

In harnessing the Pan-Africanist decolonial energies, our President, His Excellency John

Mahama, totally forgot that exhuming and naming the colonial shackles also meant that they

stayed broken so that we can free ourselves of its inheritance and reconnect with our indigenous

values and philosophies.

The stark irony of that day at the UN is that we were demanding that our rights be recognized

while simultaneously stripping our citizens of theirs. While the rest of the world listened and

Ghanaians along with black people globally cheered, another crime was being committed back

home on that fateful week. The government of Ghana, championed by the cabinet and members

of parliament, sought ways to fast track an inhumane piece of legislature intended to police

affection and criminalize love between consenting adults.

When I was younger, I remember seeing Ga wolowmo on TV in his crisp white attire during

national cultural and civic events such as the Independence Day parade and farmers day

commemoration. He offered libations to our ancestors alongside our Christian and Muslim

religious leaders.

I remember being fascinated by the programming and display of the main faith-based practices

that Ghanaians subscribed to and the tolerance afforded them. I would imitate the incantations

and try committing them to memory so I could impress my peers on the playground at school.

This was before I knew Ghana was a secular state and not a Christian one like I had been made

to believe by my Catholic school education. This was also before the traditional form of worship

was gradually pushed out of national programming by the dominant faiths.

The demonization and erasure of indigenous belief systems and its subsequent deplatforming by

the government happened right before our very eyes on national television. It was a testament to

how marginalized interests are steamrolled by the majority in modern democracies.

In the four years since its introduction, I find that the greatest ironies of the Family Values bill

are that the law is not being called the American Christian Family Values bill, and the haste with

which the political elite and the Ghanaian parliament want it passed into law. Perhaps it would

have made it easier for people to question where exactly these values in question emanate from

or why American right-wing Christian morality is seen as the pinnacle of Ghanaian values.

Why are our leaders so comfortable towing imperialist lines? The new Family Values bill which

claims to be a rejection of colonialism is a faithful inheritance of Christian morality. Plain and

simple. Perhaps a quick Google search would have saved these lawmakers the embarrassment.

If a 12-year-old me was told that the most beloved parts of these national cultural events which

were otherwise a challenging watch for my 12year old brain was going to be suffocated and

scrapped, I would call the messenger a liar and a misbegotten swine. It is now 2026 and a

28-year-old me lives in this unpleasant reality.

First, they came for the traditionalists. Now the queers. Next they may come for the rights of

women and children or even Muslims. What or who will stop them if a proper opposition isn’t

mounted now?

The point is that if the government decides that the idea of politics is more important than

actually protecting and empowering its citizenry, then we may be setting ourselves up to be

judged harshly by posterity.

May our ancestors deal with us kindly in the afterlife for our role in defending these “Ghanaian

values” that they do not recognize.