Ghana’s queer movement is losing a fight it could be ‘winning’

Illustration description: A split illustration shows two contrasting scenes separated by a dark brick wall. On the left, several officials sit around a conference table beneath the Ghana flag in a formal meeting room. On the right, a small crowd of people holds protest signs in a dim outdoor setting.

In March, the international community watched as a resolution introduced by Ghana was adopted by the United Nations, declaring the transatlantic slave trade the “gravest crime against humanity.” It was a moment of profound historical validation, a diplomatic victory that positioned Ghana not just as a victim of history, but as the moral conscience of a global movement for reparatory justice. For a few hours, the government in Accra stood tall, draped in the mantle of righteousness, condemning a centuries-old structure of brutality, dehumanisation, and systemic oppression.

It should have been the perfect pressure point. Instead, it became a glaring testament to the intellectual bankruptcy and strategic timidity that now define the queer advocacy movement in Ghana. To be clear, this is not a jab at any individual, but at the collective.

For much of the past five years, the coalition of LGBTQ+ rights organisations in Ghana has operated under a predictable, static, and ultimately ineffective playbook. Press releases, highlighting headlines with no analysis, and desperate pleas to Western embassies have become the sum total of their advocacy. There is no innovation, no strategic heterogeneity, and, worst of all, no understanding of the ancient military principle of divide and conquer.

Every organisation seems to be doing the same thing at the same time. When the anti-LGBTQ+ bill was first introduced in 2021, I stood at the forefront of public advocacy as the then communications director for LGBT+ Rights Ghana. I witnessed intense outrage, not only from the public, but also from the same organisations that were supposed to stand and fight alongside us. They closed their offices and pointed fingers at me for daring to challenge the status quo. Fast forward to today: as the bill has been reintroduced to Parliament, the collective response has been a uniform chorus of outrage. While morally justified, it is strategically lazy, allowing the government and the bill’s proponents to consolidate their defences against a single, predictable enemy. When you attack the castle gates from the front every single day, you cannot be surprised when the guards are always there to meet you.

The UN resolution on the slave trade was a golden opportunity to change the architecture of the battlefield. It was a moment when Ghana was vulnerable. The government sought global legitimacy and praise for its moral leadership on historical atrocities. It wanted the world to see it as a defender of the oppressed. 

Where were the queer organisations? Where was the sophisticated, surgical strike? In all honesty, I wasn’t surprised. Reflecting on the fourth-cycle Universal Periodic Review (UPR) for Ghana at the UN in Geneva in 2022, I witnessed how unprepared and unwilling the majority of the representatives from Ghana’s queer organisations were to engage in actual diplomatic work. On 29 November 2022, the date set aside to assess Ghana’s human rights record, during which I served as the official speaker highlighting the gross human rights violations against the LGBTQ+ community, they were nowhere to be found during the proceedings. They only appeared afterwards. Their excuse: “We couldn’t find the room.” 

Imagine if, within hours of the resolution’s adoption, a coalition of queer advocates had issued a statement, not just condemning the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, but drawing a direct legal and moral line between the two. The message should have been: “You seek to define the transatlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity based on the dehumanisation of a people. [Yet] you are attempting to codify into law a bill that dehumanises a segment of your own population. You cannot be the standard-bearer for historical justice while simultaneously legislating modern injustice. If you have the moral authority to condemn the past, you forfeit the right to create a new class of ostracised citizens in the present.” 

It took the efforts of a few of us to raise this point on X, which, thankfully, sparked some degree of conversation. One notable outcome was JustRight Ghana drawing the attention of Lincoln University to the matter, leading to the cancellation of an event to confer an honorary degree on President John Dramani Mahama, citing the anti-LGBTQ+ bill as the reason. 

This is the art of “dividing and conquering”: not dividing the community, but separating the government from its own narrative. It is about exploiting the hypocrisy that emerges when a regime occupies two contradictory positions.

Rather than uniting the entire political class against them, advocates could have used this moment to appeal to the self-interest of the very diplomats and politicians celebrating the UN win. They could have argued that passing the anti-LGBTQ+ bill days after receiving global acclaim for human rights advocacy would expose Ghana to accusations of rank hypocrisy, potentially undermining the very reparations dialogue the government claims to prioritise.

This approach would have required a level of strategic nuance that seems absent from the current movement. The obsession with “unity” within the advocacy space has bred a culture of conformity. There is no diversification of tactics. No group is willing to play the “bad cop” while another plays the “good cop.” No organisation focuses solely on economic pressure while another focuses on international law, and another builds domestic faith-based alliances. Instead, all fight for the same headlines, use the same language, and alienate the same potential allies with petty politics.

The reintroduction of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill is an existential threat. It requires a wartime mentality. Wars are not won by holding hands and singing the same song; they are won by flanking the enemy, exploiting contradictions, and striking when their guard is down.

On 30 March 2026, during the Presidential Dialogue with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)—from which queer CSOs were conspicuously absent—President Mahama stated that the anti-LGBTQ+ bill was no longer a priority: “I explained during my recent engagement with the World Affairs Council that it is not the most important issue we face as a nation. We are still grappling with the provisions of basic needs of education, health care, jobs, food, clothing, and shelter.”

This caused an uproar from the opposition, who believed the current government only used the anti-LGBTQ+ bill to secure power. The opposition, this time led by Honourable John Ntim Fordjour, held a press conference to accuse the current government of deliberately avoiding LGBTQ+ issues while allowing advocates to promote their agenda at national monuments. Fordjour made reference to the two South African activists, known as Rue and Lue, who posted a photo kissing at the Independence Arch (also known as Black Star Square) and the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra in June 2025.

There is now an ongoing public debate and renewed push for the swift passage of the anti-LGBTQ+ bill, yet this discourse is barely shaped by queer organisations. There is no communication strategy to engage local media. Once again, the queer community has been rendered reactionary, rather than proactive in setting a national agenda.  

The UN resolution provided a chink in the government’s armor— a moment of vulnerability, where their desire for international prestige clashed with their domestic authoritarian impulses. Exploiting this could have changed the course of the fight in favour of the LGBTQ+ community in Ghana, including setting the terms of national discourse. That the movement failed to do so is not just a missed opportunity; it is an indictment of a current leadership unwilling to adapt. 

This failure is also a departure from a well-established playbook of strategic advocacy. History offers clear precedents. During apartheid, South Africa’s desire for international legitimacy became its Achilles’ heel. As it sought to maintain its standing at the United Nations while institutionalising racial oppression, starting in 1950, the global community and subsequently newly independent African nations, used UN platforms to systematically isolate the regime, transforming it into a pariah state through sanctions and diplomatic condemnation. 

More recently, Egyptian civil society demonstrated the power of exploiting a governmental dependence on foreign relations. When President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s regime cracked down on activists and NGOs, including the notorious “Case 173,” human rights advocates successfully pressured the Biden administration to condition critical US military aid, leading to the withholding of nearly $130 million in 2022. This culminated in some prisoner releases and partial steps toward closing the case.

Even Israel’s Ambassador to Ghana, Roey Gilad, inadvertently revealed the potency of this tactic when he revealed that Israel, the United States, the UK, and the EU all pressured Ghana to drop the “gravest crime” phrasing from its UN resolution, proving that Ghana’s government was, at that moment, highly sensitive to international opinion and willing to negotiate. 

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If Egyptian activists could leverage US aid to force a retrial, and anti-apartheid movements could weaponise the UN to isolate a regime, why did Ghana’s queer movement fail to confront President Mahama with the glaring contradiction between demanding reparations for historical dehumanisation while advancing legislation that dehumanises living Ghanaians? The playbook exists. It simply was not used.

If Ghanaian queer advocacy continues to rely on the same tired tactics—refusing to embrace strategic innovation and the uncomfortable necessity of political asymmetry—it will not only lose this battle over the bill; it will remain perpetually on the back foot, reacting to a government that has proven itself far more ruthless and strategically adept.

You cannot defeat a government that understands how to wield history as a weapon if you do not know how to use the present moment as a shield. As President Mahama prepares to host the diasporan conference in June 2026, a more urgent question quietly hangs in the air: will the queer movement finally learn to divide and conquer? The President’s own words have already handed them the strategic dagger. These statements have not gone unnoticed. If religious leaders can publicly pressure the President on his own contradictions, why cannot a strategic queer movement do the same?

June’s diasporan conference, where Ghana will showcase itself to Africans abroad eager to reconnect with the homeland, presents an almost too-perfect stage. Will the queer organizations remain silent as the government courts international affection while sidelining a bill it once promised to champion? Or will they finally seize the moment, exploit the vulnerability, and force the President to reconcile his global performance with his domestic retreat? The stage is set. The question is whether anyone will walk onto it.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Minority Africa.

*Abdul-Wadud Mohammed is an advisory board member at Minority Africa.

Edited/Reviewed by: Caleb Okereke, PK Cross, and Uzoma Ihejirika. 

Illustrated by Rex Opara.