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The Second Lady, Matilda Amissah-Arthur, says she has warmed Vice President Kwesi Amissah-Arthur’s bed at night for the past 36 years and can state on authority that he is not a homosexual and has never been one.

“I’m his wife, we have two children. We’ve been married for 36 years. You think if he was gay I would be living with him? Or you think if he was gay I wouldn’t know?…No, No, No, my husband is not gay, has never been gay. We are happily married, we have two children,” Mrs Amissah-Arthur stated on Joy FM’s Home Affairs programme last Saturday morning.

Her comments have reignited public interest in the waning speculation that Vice President Amissah-Arthur may have led a gay lifestyle in his secondary school days at Mfantsipim School and possibly initiated a few juniors into the act.

Saturday’s interview was the first time the vice president’s wife was speaking publicly about the sensitive subject of her husband’s supposed sexual orientation; and opinions have since remained divided on whether or not she should have responded to a subject that was almost buried.

Mr Amissah-Arthur was Governor of the Bank of Ghana when his alleged same-sex orientation first became topical in January 2012, but he blocked his ears to the speculation and did not pass a single comment on it until August same year when he was nominated for the position of Vice President and had to face the Appointments Committee of Parliament over the issue.

He told the Committee that the speculations were originated by an old secondary school mate who was peeved because he (Amissah-Arthur) had refused to continue to give him money.

“It is not true, it is absolutely not true. I have not seen this gentleman (the old secondary school mate) for 40-something years. I saw him once just for about two minutes. He came to my house to ask for money and I gave him a little money and I have not seen him again…It absolutely cannot be true of the claims that are being made,” he stated and said he was not prepared to give out any more money to anyone over that subject.

Though Daily Guide, the first media house to break the story about the sexual orientation of the top government functionary, did not mention Amissah-Arthur’s name in the story, he told the Committee he was the one the story was talking about but could not go to court because his name had not been mentioned.

The story broke after a respectable-looking man by name Joseph Kwabena Owusu-Sekyere, believed to be in his late fifties, personally and confidently walked into the offices of Daily Guide in 2012 and narrated how he had a gay relationship with a former deputy minister of state who was then heading a very reputable bank that has its headquarters on the High Street in Accra.

At the time of the interview, issues of gay rights had dominated the media landscape, with government officials shying away from it, including suspected gays in government.

Though Mr Owusu-Sekyere mentioned the name of the person he was referring to, as well as other top politicians who could bear witness because they were all secondary school mates,  Daily Guide shielded the identity of the characters involved.

The elderly man said he and the said banker had kissed, caressed, romanced, licked and sucked each other’s sex organs in a long-standing homosexual relationship.

“After secondary school, I travelled to the United States of America and he went to the university but when I returned, he had been made a deputy minister and we continued our sexual relationships although he was married.

“I would go to his office during lunch time and we would drive to his house because the wife would not be home by then. We would kiss, fondle each other, make love and he would give me money. There was this time his house boy nearly caught us,” Mr Owusu-Sekyere narrated.

Interestingly, Owusu-Sekyere said he did not mind at all if photographs of him were taken and splashed on the front page of the paper because, according to him, too much hypocrisy was being displayed over issues concerning homosexuality.

“Look, everyone knows this and they used to call us ‘Creptua’. You ask him about it or just mention my name and he cannot deny. I can go with you when you are ready to ask his side of the story…He was very passionate about it and was deeply involved so I do not understand all the hypocrisy going on about gays and the attempt to portray the whole thing as if it just started or as if the big names in society are not involved…I can mention a lot of names of people in government and give you the evidence if you really want. I can mention several old boys who were in school with us and they can all confirm this,” he noted.

Owusu-Sekyere explained that he entered secondary school in 1966 and left in 1973 while the top banker entered the same school in 1964 and left in 1971.

He said their sexual relationship lasted from 1969 to 1971 when the ex-minister, then his senior, left secondary school.

He said they however continued later on in their adult life, sometimes on the blind side of his wife, either in his car or hiding in the garage of his residence.