Bread Before the Bill: Inside Mahama's Calculated Delay on Ghana's Anti-LGBTQ+ Legislation

On March 30, 2026, Ghanaian President John Dramani Mahama stood before civil society organizations at the Jubilee House in Accra and declared that the country's polarizing anti-LGBTQ+ bill was not his government's priority. "We are still grappling with the provision of basic needs of education, health care, jobs, food, clothing, and shelter," he said [1]. "It is not the most important issue we face as a nation" [2].

The statement landed in the middle of a turbulent week for Mahama. Days earlier, Lincoln University in Pennsylvania had revoked an honorary doctorate over his stance on LGBTQ+ rights [3]. His delegation to the United States — officially to present a reparatory justice resolution at the United Nations General Assembly — became overshadowed by protests and institutional backlash [4]. And back in Accra, the very bill he was distancing himself from continued its march through Parliament.

The question at the center of this story is whether Mahama's invocation of economic hardship represents a genuine policy prioritization or a calculated stalling tactic on legislation that puts Ghana at odds with its most important financial partners — while also threatening the basic safety of its LGBTQ+ citizens.

The Bill: What It Actually Says

The Human Sexual Rights and Family Values Bill, first introduced as a private member's bill in 2021, passed Ghana's Parliament unanimously on February 28, 2024 [5]. It never became law. Then-President Nana Akufo-Addo declined to sign it, and the bill lapsed when Ghana's 8th Parliament dissolved ahead of the December 2024 elections [6].

On February 17, 2026, a group of 10 MPs reintroduced the bill in the 9th Parliament, restarting the legislative process from scratch [7]. As of late March, it has been referred to committee for review [8].

The bill's provisions extend well beyond existing Ghanaian law, which already criminalizes same-sex intimacy under Section 104 of the Criminal Offences Act with a penalty of up to three years [9]. The proposed legislation would:

• Imprison anyone who identifies as LGBTQ+ for up to three years [7]
• Impose five to ten years for "promotion" or "advocacy" of LGBTQ+ rights [5]
• Criminalize organizing groups or associations working on LGBTQ+ issues, with three to five years' imprisonment [5]
• Require mandatory reporting of LGBTQ+ individuals to authorities [10]
• Target parents, teachers, journalists, doctors, and human rights defenders who support LGBTQ+ people [7]
• Force the dissolution of LGBTQ+ organizations and criminalize their donors [7]

Human Rights Watch has called the reintroduced bill "draconian," arguing it would violate constitutional guarantees of equality, nondiscrimination, freedom of expression, and privacy [7].

Comparison With Other African Anti-LGBTQ+ Laws

Ghana's proposed penalties, while severe, sit at the lower end of a regional spectrum of criminalization.

Source: Human Dignity Trust / Human Rights Watch

Data as of Mar 31, 2026CSV

Uganda's Anti-Homosexuality Act of 2023 prescribes up to 20 years for same-sex conduct and the death penalty for "aggravated homosexuality," making it the harshest such law on the continent [11]. Nigeria's Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act imposes 14 years at the federal level, while 12 northern states applying Sharia law prescribe death by stoning [12]. Cameroon's Penal Code criminalizes same-sex relations with up to five years [13].

What sets Ghana's bill apart is its breadth. Unlike most African anti-LGBTQ+ statutes that focus on sexual conduct, the Ghanaian bill criminalizes identity itself — merely identifying as LGBTQ+ would be an offense — and extends liability to a wide circle of allies, including medical professionals, educators, and family members [7][10].

The Economic Argument: Real Crisis or Convenient Shield?

Mahama's framing of the bill as secondary to economic concerns arrives at a specific moment in Ghana's recovery from its worst financial crisis in a generation.

In late 2022, Ghana's inflation peaked at 54.1%, the cedi lost more than half its value, and the government defaulted on its external debt [14]. The country entered an IMF Extended Credit Facility (ECF) arrangement in May 2023, securing a $3 billion program over 39 months [15].

Source: Bank of Ghana / IMF

Data as of Mar 31, 2026CSV

By November 2025, inflation had dropped to 6.3%, falling below the Bank of Ghana's 8% target [16]. The primary fiscal balance posted a surplus of 1.1% of GDP through the first eight months of 2025 [15]. Gold and cocoa exports surged, the cedi appreciated, and international reserves exceeded program targets [16]. By December 2025, the IMF completed its fifth review under the ECF, disbursing an additional $385 million and bringing total disbursements to approximately $2.8 billion [15].

Source: IMF Country Report

Data as of Mar 31, 2026CSV

Public debt, which peaked at roughly 93% of GDP in 2022, fell to approximately 45% by late 2025 through restructuring and fiscal consolidation [15][16]. GDP growth is projected at 4.8% for 2026, and the IMF has signaled Ghana is on track to complete the program [17].

These figures complicate Mahama's framing. Ghana is still classified as being at "high risk of debt distress" [15], and millions of Ghanaians continue to face poverty and unemployment. But the acute crisis phase — the one that might plausibly demand all government bandwidth — has passed. "The economy is stabilizing," as the IMF's own assessment noted in December 2025 [16]. The question economists and observers are left with is whether the remaining challenges are genuinely so consuming that no legislative bandwidth exists for a bill that Parliament is already actively reviewing.

The Foreign Aid Calculus

The financial stakes of the bill extend beyond domestic economics. A Finance Ministry document, reported by Bloomberg in March 2024, estimated that $3.8 billion in World Bank funding could be jeopardized if the bill became law [18]. This precedent was not hypothetical — after Uganda passed its Anti-Homosexuality Act, the World Bank announced it would not extend new public funding to Kampala [18].

The United States, Ghana's top bilateral aid donor (providing over $210 million annually in recent years), issued its own warning. The U.S. State Department expressed "strong disapproval" and warned that adoption would "harm bilateral relations as well as damage Ghana's economy and international reputation" [19]. The EU and other multilateral institutions signaled similar concerns [19].

These warnings carry particular weight given Ghana's ongoing IMF program. While the IMF does not formally condition lending on social legislation, the institution and the World Bank have "suggested that their aid and loan packages might have to be reconsidered" [19]. For a country that has received nearly $2.8 billion in IMF disbursements since 2023, the implicit message is clear.

A countervailing factor complicates the donor pressure picture: the Trump administration's 2025 executive orders suspending USAID programs and eliminating LGBTQ+-inclusive development policies [20]. With Washington itself retreating from LGBTQ+ rights conditionality in foreign aid, the leverage of Western donor pressure has shifted in ways that are still being assessed.

Mahama's Double Game

The tension in Mahama's position is not subtle. On March 30, he told civil society in Accra that the bill is "not a government bill" and "not a government-sponsored bill" — it is a "private member's bill" [1]. He emphasized he "cannot anticipate Parliament" and framed his role as purely procedural: "I swore an oath to uphold the Constitution… once they pass it, then it comes up to the Presidency" [1].

Yet just four months earlier, in November 2025, Mahama told the Christian Council of Ghana: "If the Parliament of the people of Ghana endorse the bill and vote on it and pass it and it comes to me as President, I will sign it" [21]. He outlined three government positions: marriage is between a man and a woman, gender is determined at birth, and the family is the foundation of the nation [21].

Melanie Nathan, executive director of the African Human Rights Coalition, described this pattern as a "double game." Writing on March 28, 2026, she argued that "by hiding behind process, he avoids taking responsibility while allowing the machinery of persecution to move forward unchecked" [22]. At home, Mahama signals solidarity with the bill's proponents; abroad, he adopts the language of democratic procedure and executive restraint.

In January 2025, Mahama went further, suggesting the bill should be reintroduced as government-sponsored legislation to ensure broader support and stakeholder consultation [23] — a position that appears to contradict his March 2026 insistence that it is Parliament's matter alone.

The Constitutional Path Forward

Under Ghana's 1992 Constitution, the president has several options when a bill reaches his desk. He can sign it into law, return it to Parliament with recommended amendments, or refer questions of constitutionality to the Supreme Court [6]. There is no formal veto power per se, but withholding assent — as Akufo-Addo effectively did — can stall legislation.

Because the bill lapsed and was reintroduced in a new Parliament, it must pass through the full legislative process again: committee review, public memoranda, debate, and a vote [7]. This process provides Mahama with time. As long as the bill remains in committee, his pledge to sign it remains costless.

Whether the delay is strategic or incidental, human rights organizations note that it does not halt the bill's harms. The bill has not been enacted, but its legislative momentum has already emboldened extralegal persecution.

The Human Cost

According to local LGBTQ+ rights organizations, 2024 saw the highest number of documented human rights violations against LGBTQ+ individuals in Ghana in recent memory [24]. These included forced evictions, physical assaults, blackmail and extortion, online doxxing and threats, arbitrary arrests, gang rape and other sexual violence, conversion practices, and employment discrimination [24].

The pattern predates the bill's latest iteration. After the legislation was first introduced in 2021, twenty-one LGBTQ+ activists were arrested and detained for holding a human rights education meeting, on the grounds that they were "promoting homosexuality" in an "unlawful assembly" [9]. Police forces have used existing anti-LGBTQ+ laws to justify raids on private gatherings, extortion, and denial of legal protection when LGBTQ+ individuals report crimes committed against them [24].

A 2025 report by Rightify Ghana documented how politicians "weaponized homophobia" during the 2024 election campaign, using anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric as a tool for voter mobilization [25]. This electoral dynamic helps explain why Mahama — who won the presidency in December 2024 — has been reluctant to openly oppose the bill.

No reliable census data exists on the size of Ghana's LGBTQ+ population. Criminalization itself makes accurate measurement impossible, as individuals have strong incentives to conceal their identities. What is measurable is the climate of fear: Human Rights Watch has documented how the bill's legislative progress, even without enactment, has produced a "chilling effect" on civil society, healthcare access, and public life for LGBTQ+ Ghanaians [7].

What Ghanaians Think

Public opinion in Ghana overwhelmingly supports criminalization of same-sex relationships. Afrobarometer polling has consistently found that over 90% of Ghanaians hold negative views toward homosexuality [26]. A 2021 survey showed just 7% of the public expressed tolerance for same-sex relationships [26]. These numbers have remained largely stable across multiple survey waves dating back to 1999 [26].

The bill's proponents in Parliament cite these figures as evidence of democratic legitimacy. Religious leaders — both Christian and Muslim — and traditional chiefs have been among the legislation's most vocal sponsors [5]. Their arguments center on national sovereignty, the protection of "family values," and resistance to what they characterize as Western cultural imposition [22].

Some Ghanaian legal scholars have argued the bill is consistent with the 1992 Constitution, which does not explicitly protect sexual orientation as a ground for nondiscrimination [9]. The Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling upholding the colonial-era law criminalizing "unnatural carnal knowledge" reinforced this interpretation [27].

International legal analysts counter that the bill violates Ghana's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, both of which Ghana has ratified [7][10]. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, called the original bill's passage "deeply harmful" in February 2024 [10].

Historical Precedent: Do Delayed Bills Die?

Mahama's strategy — if it is one — has a mixed track record in the region. African leaders have previously invoked economic or procedural grounds to sideline socially conservative legislation.

Akufo-Addo's handling of this same bill is the most direct precedent. By neither signing nor vetoing it, he allowed it to expire with the parliamentary term [6]. But the bill returned within months of the new Parliament's seating, suggesting that procedural delay alone does not extinguish legislative momentum when public support is this strong.

Uganda's experience offers a contrasting case. President Yoweri Museveni returned an earlier version of the Anti-Homosexuality Act to Parliament in 2014, citing concerns about its breadth. The bill died with that parliamentary term. But it resurfaced in 2023 and was signed into law in a significantly harsher form [11]. The delay did not kill the legislation — it intensified it.

Nigeria's Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act followed a different trajectory. First introduced in 2006, it was debated across multiple parliamentary terms before President Goodluck Jonathan signed it into law in 2014 [12]. There, too, delay served not as a burial but as a runway for eventual passage.

The pattern across the continent suggests that bills with 90%+ public support tend to outlast the governments that attempt to shelve them. Economic conditions may shift the timeline, but they rarely change the outcome absent a broader shift in public opinion.

What Comes Next

The bill is now in committee in Ghana's Parliament, with civil society organizations submitting memoranda for and against [1]. Mahama has said he will let "democratic processes" run their course [2]. Parliament could move quickly — the bill's proponents have made clear they want passage — or the committee process could extend for months.

Ghana is scheduled to host the African Inter-Parliamentary Conference on Family and Sovereignty in May 2026, a forum that Human Rights Watch has linked to U.S.-based far-right advocacy groups [7]. The conference could accelerate legislative momentum.

Meanwhile, the IMF program is expected to conclude later in 2026 [17], which would reduce one source of external financial leverage. And the shifting posture of the U.S. government on LGBTQ+ rights in foreign policy has weakened the credibility of Western donor pressure [20].

For Ghana's LGBTQ+ community, the distinction between a bill that is "not a priority" and a bill that is actively progressing through Parliament is academic. The documented violence, arbitrary arrests, and social persecution continue regardless of the president's characterization of the issue's urgency [24]. Whether Mahama is buying time, managing competing pressures, or simply stating the obvious about a nation with limited governance bandwidth, the bill's trajectory appears set — and the people most affected by it have no procedural shield to hide behind.