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MUST READ: Ghana’s Homosexual Debate Gets A Feature In The New York Times; ‘In Bed With The President Of Ghana?’ – Andrew Solomon Writes

John Maham And Andrew Solomon
John Maham And Andrew Solomon

International gay lobbyist Andrew Solomon has called on President John Mahama to take a lead role in promoting gay and lesbian’s rights in the West African sub-region.

Solomon says the mere fact that there is a national debate on gays and lesbian rights in Ghana, even if the debate is to have gays lynched, is a meaningful progress for him.

The gay lobyists made these remarks in an article posted in the New York Times on February 9, 2013.

The article made reference to the raging debate on homosexuality in Ghana; his (Solomon) relationship with President John Mahama and how it all began, including the recent denial and quick u-turn of the Information and Media Relations Minister Mahama Ayariga on the relationship between President John Mahama and Andrew Solomon.

According to him the president personally called to apologise to him, a day after his minister had put out an obviously incorrect information.

He denied ever raising funds for John Mahama’s campaign in the 2012 elections as well as paying an amount of $20,000 to purchase the president’s book.

Solomon also denied categorically that he was desperately pushing for Nana Oye Lithur to be appointed as Minister, just so she could champion gay rights in Ghana.

He said he has no such power to meddle in the foreign affairs of another country adding “The only way I may have influenced him on gay rights was by welcoming him into the household of a joyful family with two dads. It is deeply unsettling to be implicated in a national scandal, to know that my attempts to be kind and helpful to someone would become his millstone.”

Below is the full article published in the New York Times

When my husband-to-be and I met the Ghanaian politician John Dramani Mahama at a friend’s wedding near Accra eight years ago, I liked him immediately. I kept up with his fortunes mostly through mutual friends, and I was happy to learn in 2009 that he had been elected his nation’s vice president.

When I read a draft of his trenchant memoir, “My First Coup d’État,” in 2010, I offered to introduce him to some agents and editors in New York. Many people in the developed world expect African heads of state to be either terse and political or bloated and ideological. The surprise of John Mahama’s book is its tender humanism, and I thought it would go a long way toward breaking down prejudice in the United States.

I blurbed the book when it was published last July; I hosted a party to celebrate its publication; I conducted an onstage interview with John Mahama at the New York Public Library and I am thanked in the book’s acknowledgments.

Soon after, the Ghanaian president, John Atta Mills, died and John Mahama stepped into the presidency; in December, he was elected to another term. Two weeks ago, the Ghanaian press suddenly exploded with references to Mr. Mahama’s relationship with me.

“President John Dramani Mahama has been fingered to be in bed with one Mr. Andrew Solomon, a gay lobbyist,” blared one unfortunately worded report. Another announced, “Andrew Solomon reportedly gathered a few affluent people from the gay community to raise campaign funds for President Mahama with the understanding that when President Mahama won the elections, the president would push the gay rights agenda.” I was reported to have paid $20,000 for copies of the book.

The occasion of these revelations was Mr. Mahama’s appointment of what one newspaper called the “fiery human and gay rights advocate, Nana Oye Lithur” to head the newly established Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection. In confirmation hearings before a parliamentary committee, Ms. Lithur averred that “the rights of everybody, including homosexuals, should be protected,” thus invoking a firestorm. I was presumed to have pushed through her nomination, even though I had in fact never heard of her. The argument that Ms. Lithur was selected not for her formidable skills, but because of a foreign devil fit with the continuing position among some Africans that homosexuality is an import from the decadent West.

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