No Islamisation Agenda In Ghana – Mustapha Hamid

Aspiring First National Vice Chairman of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, has rejected claims that Ghana is pursuing an agenda to Islamise the country, saying the voting behaviour of Muslims in the 2024 general election provides strong evidence against such assertions. Speaking at the Danquah Institute’s 2026 Liberty Lecture on Tuesday, August 25, Mr Hamid argued that if religion were driving political choices in Ghana, the presidential candidacy of Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, the first Muslim presidential candidate of a major political party, would have triggered overwhelming support for him among Muslim voters.

He said the opposite occurred, with several constituencies with significant Muslim populations voting strongly for President John Dramani Mahama, a Christian, rather than Dr Bawumia. Mr Hamid cited Ayawaso East, Ayawaso North, Asawase, Ejura, Tamale North, Tamale Central, Tamale South and Sagnarigu among constituencies where voters largely backed Mr Mahama despite Dr Bawumia’s Muslim faith. “For me, it does not seem from the political choices of Muslims in Ghana that there’s an agenda to Islamise Ghana,” he said. He maintained that Dr Bawumia’s candidacy presented what would have been the clearest opportunity for any purported Islamisation agenda to manifest itself through electoral mobilisation along religious lines.

“If such an agenda existed, the candidacy of Mahamudu Bawumia would have been the catalyst, and his candidature would have been the opportunity for Muslims to rally around such an agenda, but they didn’t,” he said. According to Mr Hamid, the 2024 election demonstrated that religious identity generally does not dictate political allegiance in Ghana. He said the willingness of Muslim voters to support a Christian presidential candidate over a Muslim contender reflected a deeper national culture in which political decisions are often separated from religious affiliation. “So that means that, consciously, in the Ghanaian psyche, our religious differences do not spill over into our political consideration,” he said.

His comments come amid renewed public debate over developments that some critics have linked to an alleged Islamisation agenda, particularly discussions surrounding the proposed introduction of Arabic as an optional language at the basic school level and government’s interest in interest-free banking. Mr Hamid said such policy discussions should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of an attempt to transform Ghana into an Islamic state. He instead pointed to Ghana’s political history and the conduct of its electorate as evidence of a society in which Christians, Muslims and other religious groups have historically participated in a shared democratic system without allowing religious identity to become the dominant basis for political competition.

The NPP figure also cautioned against narratives that could deepen religious suspicion and undermine Ghana’s longstanding tradition of peaceful coexistence. Ghana has a predominantly Christian population alongside a substantial Muslim community and adherents of other faiths, with religious tolerance widely regarded as an important feature of the country’s social and political life. Mr Hamid’s argument was that the country’s electoral record offers a more reliable indication of the relationship between religion and politics than claims based on individual government policies or public debates. The 2024 presidential election, he suggested, showed that Muslim voters were prepared to make political choices based on considerations beyond the religious identity of candidates.

He therefore urged Ghanaians to assess claims of an Islamisation agenda against the broader evidence of the country’s democratic and social experience rather than allowing isolated policy proposals to fuel religious suspicion. His remarks add to the continuing national discussion over how Ghana can accommodate the interests and practices of its different religious communities while preserving the secular character of the state and the constitutional guarantees of freedom of religion and belief.

By: Joyce Owusu