The University of Ghana (UG) has firmly dismissed allegations that it has revised its statutes to support or promote LGBTQ+ activities.
The claims, which surfaced following comments by anti-LBGTQ+ advocate, Moses Foh-Amoaning during an interview on Onua FM, were addressed in an official statement issued by the university’s management.
According to the university, the accusations are “completely false, misleading, and defamatory,” and distort the intent behind the institution’s recent updates to its statutes.
Management clarified that the 2024 statute review was carried out strictly in accordance with national laws and the university’s internal regulatory processes. They stressed that the updated statutes do not contravene Ghanaian law and contain no clauses that endorse, admit, or promote LGBTQ+ activities.
Instead, the revisions were purely linguistic. Gendered pronouns such as “he”, “him”, “she” and “her” were replaced with gender-neutral terms like “they” and “their”. The university said this change was aimed at avoiding repetitive wording and ensuring inclusive language for all genders, without altering the actual meaning or legal implications of the statutes.
The statement added that the use of the singular “they/them” has become widely accepted in modern English over the past two decades and is reflected in academic, legal, and religious texts. As an example, the university pointed to the 2011 New International Version (NIV) Bible, which uses the singular “they/them” in passages such as James 4:17: “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”
By Vera Owusu Sarpong