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Mr. Akufo-Addo just does not have the guts to tell Ghanaians that he opposes the Human Sexual Rights and Family Values law, also referred to as the anti-gay bill according to Johnson Asiedu Nketia, National Chairman of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Despite being passed by the House unanimously, the bill is still sitting on the desk of parliament.
Prior to the Supreme Court’s decision in the lawsuit contesting the bill’s approval, the President has already stated that he will not sign it. The opposition NDC, which charges the president of applying different rules to different people, is one group that has heavily criticized this stance.
The party contended that despite the party’s filing of a lawsuit at the Supreme Court, the President did not hesitate to approve the contentious E-levy, for example.
The President’s letter to the House telling them not to forward the law to the executive has infuriated Parliament even more.
Taking a cue from a similar request made by the Attorney-General to get the Supreme Court to sit quickly on a case in which an opposition MP had filed a suit to stop parliament from approving some new ministerial nominees, Parliament has since written to the Chief Justice to expedite the hearing of the legal challenge.
The NDC Chair stated on JoyNews’ PM Express on Wednesday that the President’s justification for not signing the bill makes it obvious that he does not want to do so, but he lacks the guts to state it outright.
“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” Asiedu Nketia stated.
The NDC National Chairman is particularly disappointed that the President asked 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 stated.
NDC scribe claimed that President Akufo-Addo was the mastermind behind the lawsuit that is allegedly keeping him from signing the bill; he concluded that the President was part of a plot to stop the anti-LGBTQI+ bill from becoming law because it was not a coincidence that the President could cite an unfiled lawsuit as justification for his refusal to sign the bill.
“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.
Pointing to the private legal practitioner cum journalist Richard Dela Sky who filed the suit, the NDC Chair suggested that he was in bed 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.
The NDC Chair argued that he knew those specifics about the lawsuit and that he had proof to support them when the host called his attention to the outrageous assertions.
Source: Ghanatodayonline.com
