Minority cites Chatham House remarks and alleged Downing Street assurances as evidence of government’s secret reversal
A bombshell claim buried in the NPP Minority Caucus’s June 4 statement has set political circles buzzing: that President John Dramani Mahama, during engagements in London this week, effectively signalled to the British government that Ghana’s anti-LGBTQ+ Bill is far from becoming law – a position that would place him directly at odds with the public expectations he helped create during the 2024 election.
The Minority statement noted that at a public engagement at Chatham House – the prestigious London-based international affairs institute – President Mahama appeared to suggest that his administration is in no particular hurry to see the Bill enacted. More seriously, the statement claims that “certain assurances” were given by the President to the British Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street to the effect that the Bill remains far from becoming law.
“We have further been reliably informed that certain assurances were given by the President to the British Prime Minister at No. 10 Downing Street that the Bill remains far from becoming law,” the statement read. “If accurate, such assurances would represent a remarkable departure from the urgency with which the NDC pursued this matter while in opposition.”
The implications of the claim, if verified, are profound. It would mean that the President of Ghana made private commitments to a foreign government on a matter of domestic legislation that directly contradicts the position he and his party campaigned on, and that Ghanaian citizens were not informed.
The NPP has stopped short of calling this confirmed fact, acknowledging it is based on reliable information. But the party says the pattern of behaviour, the amendments, the quorum controversy, and now the London remarks , creates a coherent picture of a government intent on allowing the Bill to die quietly.
The Minority is calling on the Mahama administration to come clean: Does the President intend to assent to the Bill or not? And if private assurances have been given to foreign governments, the Ghanaian people deserve to know the terms and the rationale.
The NPP says the issue is no longer about LGBTQ+ rights per se, it is about whether Ghana’s President is governing with transparency and honouring the explicit commitments made to the electorate that brought him to power.