The National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), Johnson Asiedu Nketia, has claimed that President Akufo-Addo lacks the courage to openly state his opposition to the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values bill, also known as the anti-gay bill.
Despite the bill being unanimously passed by Parliament, it remains on the President’s desk. President Akufo-Addo has stated that he will not sign the bill until the Supreme Court decides on a lawsuit challenging its passage.
This stance has drawn criticism, especially from the NDC, which accuses the President of double standards.
During an appearance on JoyNews’ PM Express on Wednesday, the NDC Chair stated that the President’s rationale for not assenting to the bill clearly indicates his unwillingness to sign it, but he lacks the courage to outrightly express this position.
“Because parliament has done their work up to a point, and they say transmit this to the President. You don’t have the right not to receive. You can receive it, and after receiving it, you have options that have been provided under the constitution.
And somebody is in court trying to injunct you from acting on the bill; that injunction does not say don’t receive the bill. So, for you to write to parliament that because I am on some injunction not to sign it, don’t bring it at all, it means you have a pre-meditated agenda. You don’t want to receive it or work on it or do anything with it, but you are not man enough to tell Ghanaians that I don’t want to do it” he noted.
The NDC National Chairman expressed particular disappointment that the President requested Parliament not to transmit the bill to him.
“I am on the side of Parliament because the President has no reason to ask that Parliament should not submit the bill because the cases that are in court, the last time I checked, there’s no application for an injunction or any actual injunction granted that prevents the President from receiving the bill.
The only application for an injunction that I have seen is to block the President from signing the bill. Receiving and signing are different things. So, if you don’t want to receive the bill, you don’t blame anyone who has gone to court because the reliefs being sought in court do not border on you not receiving. They say don’t work on it. But for the office receiving it, it’s a matter of impunity that is being shown by the President to frustrate the work of parliament,” he argued.
The former NDC scribe alleged that President Akufo-Addo orchestrated the lawsuit that is supposedly preventing him from assenting to the bill.
He suggested that it was not a coincidence that the President could refer to a lawsuit that had not yet been filed as the basis for his decision not to sign the bill. As a result, he concluded that the President was involved in a plan to frustrate the anti-LGBTQI+ bill from becoming law.
“It is clearly an excuse and it’s a wrong excuse because he [President Akufo-Addo] was citing the court case even before anybody could file it. It tells you that he [President Akufo-Addo] orchestrated the filing.”
“As at the time the President spoke, nobody had gone to court. If there’s an intention to file and the person has not filed, how do you restrain yourself over that? So, it means that you don’t want to do something but you want an excuse to cite not to do it. Because if you have heard that somebody is going to court, the person has not gone to court and yet you are injuncting yourself, then it means that you’re part of an orchestration to go to court in the first place.”
Based on this, Mr Asiedu Nketia said, “I don’t trust in the independent-mindedness of whoever that filed the process.
The NDC Chair pointed to Richard Dela Sky, a private legal practitioner and journalist who filed the suit, suggesting that he was closely aligned with the government.
“Who doesn’t know the Citi FM man, Richard Sky? Richard Sky works in the chamber of the Attorney-General, and he was sponsored to do his law course by this government. And the man has returned and he’s working with the Majority Leader. There’s circumstantial evidence and that’s my belief.”