Head of Legal Affairs for the National Democratic Congress (NDC) Lawyer Edudzi Tamekloe, has criticised President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo’s handling of matters relating to the passage of the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill.
Tamakloe emphasized the party’s stance on cultural and religious values in Ghana.
“As the head of the legal directorate of our party, we took special interest in this particular law,” he stated. “Our party believes in the cultural and religious affiliations of this country, and we’ve never run away from it,” he said in an interview with Johnnie Hughes and Helen Appiah-Ampofo on 3FM Sunrise Morning Show on March 25.
He went on to highlight the cultural and religious diversity in Ghana, noting, “We also do recognize the varied cultural norms and practices in this country. Now having done a perusal of the various cultures and religion or religious affiliations in this country. There is nowhere that, there is a certain acceptance of a man marrying a man, a woman marrying a woman. Ghana recognizes that yes we have diversity cultural beliefs among other things.”
Tamekloe underscored the prevalent abhorrence for such practices across various cultural and religious groups in Ghana, citing both Christian and Islamic teachings as examples. “There is that level of abhorrence for that particular conduct. Ghana has a very large Christian population and the last time I checked the Bible, it doesn’t look like it is endorsed. In fact, if you read the holy Quran, prophet Mohammed admonishes all Muslims not to go to the way of the people of Lot,” he added.
Referring to the passage of the anti-gay Bill by the Ghanaian Parliament, Tamekloe criticized President Nana Addo Dankwa Akuffo Addo’s reluctance to sign the bill into law. “Our president…has not learnt anything from the benefit of history,” he remarked.
Tamekloe accused the President’s Executive Secretary of arrogance, citing past instances such as the controversy surrounding the forced leave of former Auditor-General, Daniel Domelevo.
“We were in this country when arrogantly, in a very unconstitutional manner, this same Executive Secretary put on that green paper a letter instructing Domelevo to proceed on leave. When Domelevo responded to the government that they did not have any said constitutional power to ask the head of an independent constitutional body to proceed on leave, to arrogantly responded to him by saying he Domelevo is not a lawyer and so does not understand the law. It is that level of arrogance that is what resulted in a situation where the supreme court had the unfortunate or fortunate instance of having to describe the conduct of the President as unconstitutional,” he asserted.
Tamekloe continued that “It is curious that the President who says he’s made a personal pledge to God to build for him a national cathedral will be running away from signing the family value bill strongly grounded in both Christian and Islamic law,” he added.
By Joselyn Kafui Nyadzi