Michael Omari Wadie, a former constituency chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said Ghana’s parliamentarians would vote in favour of gay rights if each of them were bribed with an amount of $1 million from the gay community.
Omari Wadie first made the alarming indictment on Kassapa Fm Monday and repeated it with justification on Neat Fm Tuesday morning.
Not even a caution, protest and threat from the MP for La Dadekotopon, Nii Amasah Namoale, who was in the Neat Fm studio with Omari Wadie, could get the latter to withdraw his accusation.
“If the gay people are able to convince the President and the issue is taken to Parliament, and these gays say they are giving each MP one million dollars for them to sign, I tell you, they will come out to declare Ghana a gay state,” Omari Wadei told Kassapa Fm on Monday.
“If you like, let us make President Mahama take the bill to Parliament and let the gays—you know Andrew Solomon and his people—tell the gays to organise themselves. How many parliamentarians do we have? 275. Yes, 275. So let the gay community raise $1 million for each of them, and give $1 million to each MP; you would see how the MPs would vote. That is why we want the President to come and speak openly on this gay matter so we know his position,” Omari Wadie stated on Neat Fm during the ‘Ghana Mo Tie’ morning show Tuesday.
Namoale, apparently unhappy with the indictment from Omari Wadie, threatened to report him to Parliament but the former NPP chair insisted on his claim that Ghana’s parliamentarians could be induced with money to vote for same sex marriage in the country.
The La Dadekotopon MP noted: “Ghana’s parliamentarians do not take bribe; we do not take inducement, we are paid by the State. I will raise this matter on the floor of Parliament: that Omari Wadie says if each parliamentarian is given a bribe amount of $1 million from gays, it would influence the way we vote when the issue of gay rights comes up. When he first said it, I told him there and then that we do not take bribes and he is saying it again.”
Nii Amasah Namoale
Not even a caution from the host, Akwasi Aboagye, that Omari Wadie should retract the accusation before he was dragged to Parliament’s Privileges Committee got him to back down.
Omari Wadie insisted President Mahama ought to come clear and state publicly what Ghana’s position on the gay debate is.