Ghana: Pro-LGBTQ billboard pulled down following uproar

June 10, 2022 Elwin Mandowa

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City authorities in Ghana’s capital Accra have pulled down a pro-LGBTQ billboard at a strategic location following an uproar over its presence.

The billboard, which has four hands joined as a team, is said to have been mounted at the strategic spot of the motorway with the inscription “When all Ghanaians are treated equal no matter where they are or who they love that’s true freedom.”

An LGBTQI+ group had reportedly revealed on a radio station in Accra that it sponsored and put out the said billboard.

It sparked an uproar with some lawmakers sponsoring the bill aimed criminalizing the activities of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI) asking Ghana’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) to, as a matter of urgency, invite those who put up a billboard at the Accra end of the motorway.

Ningo- Prampram MP Sam George who speaks for the lawmakers also gave the IGP 24 hours to pull down the billboard promoting the activities of LGBTQI+ community.

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“The IGP, Dr George Akuffo Dampare, must within the next 24 hours carry out the necessary security operations to ensure that the billboard, which was an upfront to the 1992 Constitution, was taken down.

Failure to take action, as citizens we will take action as enjoin by our Constitution to defend the Constitution,” he said.

Speaking on behalf of the MPs at the site where the said billboard has been mounted, Sam George said it breeches Articles 11 and 26 which talks about Ghana’s cultural sovereignty.

“As sponsors of the bill before Parliament and as members of Parliament who represent the aspirations and will of Ghanaians, we have deemed it important to show up here today to register in the strongest way our displeasure, discomfort and abhorrence for this unholy, un-culturable and untraditional advertisement that has been put up on this road,” the MP said.

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He subsequently announced on his facebook page that the billboard has been pulled down. Many Ghanaians have taken to social media to comment on the development.