Opinions of Saturday, 2 April 2016
Columnist: Kwarteng, Francis
PROPHET AMEHE ATSU
“For God to listen to our prayers, Bishop Agyin-Asare must bury a bowl of local salt and a bible in the center of Accra to avert the mysterious deaths in the country…God has revealed to me that we are going to loose (sic) a very ‘big man’ in Ghana if we don’t pray. There are so many evil spirits operating in Ghana.”
The title under which this laughably mischievous quote was culled is “Agyin-Asare Holds Key To Ghana’s Freedom—Prophet.” What is wrong with our country and its leaders, religious and otherwise?
What will Christians call it if Kweku Bonsam or Okomfo Yaw Appiah, Bishop Obinim’s ‘spiritual father,’ buries a bowl of local salt and a bible in the center of Accra? Perhaps fetishistic ritualism!
How do we exactly determine “the center of Accra”? Why Accra and its center? And what is it with this “bowl of local salt”?
BISHOP DUNCAN-WILLIAMS
“One of the problems of this country is envy; it’s one of the killers of Ghanaians. We have a problem of envy. We are not like the Nigerians. When a Ghanaian sees you doing well, instead of them to celebrate you, they’ll find ways to kill you, so they will take your glory.
“Everybody has tried to kill me. There are men of God who are waiting for the day of my demise, so they will take my glory. You don’t know what I know. I know a lot. There are people who are scheming to take my members from me and give me a church empty, so their churches will be bigger than me—outshine me.
“They me call me ‘Papa, Papa’ but their heart is not with me. They want to overtake me and outshine me and make me a failure and a disappointment and a reproach, to prove a point, but that will never happen because they did not call me, I said they did not call me, they did not anoint me, the opposite will occur, it will be overturned…
“If you know the fight and the battles I go through to stand in the gap for this nation, there are people, if it wasn’t for my ministry and my prayer ministry, they won’t even be in ministry and yet they wish that something went wrong with me, and it’s because of envy…
As a matter of fact, what Bishop Duncan-Williams is emotionally describing or lamenting about here is nothing more the generational curse that duopolistic politics has imposed on Ghana. Just replace him with the National Democratic Congress (NDC) or the New Patriotic Party (NPP), and what do we have? That is, which of these two political parties replaces Bishop Duncan-Williams automatically puts the other in the stead of his perceived and real enemies. What is more while Sade sings “Soldier of Love,” none of these Christian clerics can bring himself to sing “Soldier of Christ” because almost all of them are theological entrepreneurs in for the acquisition of material wealth and self-aggrandizing moments of unending glorification, much the same reasons our political entrepreneurs are in for kleptomaniacal investment in material wealth.
This may be why, perhaps, here in Ghana we also need a serious re-enactment of the “One Love Peace Concert” and “Smile Jamaica Concert” featuring the great Bob Marley and his band, the Wailer, and others, with Bob Marley using the power of music, namely his Steve-Wonder-loving track “Jamming,” to bring Edward Seaga (Jamaica Labor Party) and Michael Manley (People’s National Party), two political rivals, together in the interest of national peace and development. Regardless, Bob Marley performed at these shows in spite of the fact that he had been a target of political assassination at one point, an event he emotionally recalled on the tracks “Ambush in the Night” and “Running Away.”
Having said all that, we could have only wished if the masses, following the solemn political message of Bob Marley’s track “Babylon System,” had looked deeply at both the NPP and the NDC and the Ghanaian public and, without mincing words, read the following to their corps of unpatriotic, clueless, lying, and wicked leaders:
“We refuse to be; what you wanted us to be; we are what we are: That's the way (way) it's going to be. You don't know! You can't educate I! Talking about my freedom, people freedom (freedom) and liberty!..Rebel, rebel!...Look out now: they sucking the blood of the sufferers…Come on and tell the children the truth…And we've been taken for granted much too long: Rebel, rebel now!...We've been trampled on (rebel), Oh now! We’ve been oppressed, yeah!...
FINAL THOUGHTS ON POLITICS AND RELIGION
The likes of Agyampremu Kofi, which appeared and still does as Kankan Nyame in the deranged psychology of Nkrumah Nkrumah’s dying enemies and detractors, and the secular political theology of carefully concocted lies which accompanied the immanent creation of the non-existent Kankan Nyame in Ghana, we should add, Nkrumah’s enemies and detractors frustratingly, diligently, and tirelessly foisted on Ghanaians, facts Prof. Agyemang Badu Akosa aptly describes and eloquently lays bare here:
“Ghana’s day of shame February 24, 1966 was followed by an avalanche of well orchestrated falsehoods to attempt to justify the dastardly deed and demean the independence of the nation.
“The struggle was pivoted on the declaration of positive action which gave Ghanaians the opportunity to show their abhorrence for the system of colonialism. That was the point of separation between those who were prepared to stand up to be counted and those whose brief was incremental participation in the governance by the Governor and his cohort of collaborators and compradors.
“The falsehoods included taking gold bars to Egypt for Madam Fathia, looting the nation’s coffers, consulting ‘Kankan Nyame’ and the practice of occultism, killing Ghanaians and throwing them to the lions in the flagstaff zoo and so many others. The reality of the situation was that there were no gold bars in Egypt and poor Madam Fathia struggled beyond recognition in her life thereafter. It is public knowledge now that Nkrumah died with not event a plot of land to his name and yet subsequent.
“It is worth mentioning that the land on which the Peduase Lodge is built was a gift to him and members of the Convention People’s Party contributed to the start of the building for him but he characteristically was to give the building to the state as Ghana’s Camp David. The fertile figment of his detractors’ imagination conjured many images of Nkrumah that was to make many Ghanaians form a damaging impression of the man who liberated them.
“The Ghanatta cartoon series were to cast a very critical and psychologically damaging picture of Nkrumah and yet he was a disciple of theology and a practicing human-centered individual who cared for Ghanaians beyond measure. His government’s chief pride was the welfare of the people and at every turn he told Ghanaians he would work hard to abolish poverty, ignorance and disease. ‘Kankan Nyame’ existed as a fetish shrine in Guinea but Nkrumah did not consult it. It is however, a shame that Ghanatta has died not apologizing to the country for misleading Ghanaians….
MILTON ALLIMADI
“Foreign powers [the US and some Western European countries] allow bandits financed by Rwanda and Uganda to wreak havoc in Congo’s eastern region, which contains most of its resources. Under this planned chaos, private corporations enjoy absolute rent; they siphon off Congo’s resources through Rwanda and Uganda without paying fees or taxes to the central government” (our emphasis).
WHAT IS MILTON ALLIMADI FUNDAMENTALLY SAYING?
This is what we see across Africa including Ghana. Not only this, and that we also religion, primarily Islam and Christianity, being used by some to enslave and materially and intellectually impoverish the masses. It is as if the masses are hemmed in from every conceivable angle. There is also what Fela Kuti appropriately called “colo-mentality,” a debilitating political symptomatology, on the track “Colonial Mentality” that is gnawing at the conscience and intellect of the educated and ruling classes across Africa. In fact, and perhaps more generally, we may have to add for emphasis that this debilitating political symptomatology is an entrenched facet of the African psychology, meaning that it cuts across the political geography of the continent.
On what basis can an African who is a member of the Muslim clergy within Africa itself claim Arabic will be the language of choice in heaven? On what basis can an African who is a member of the Christian clergy within Africa itself claim English will be the language of choice in heaven? On what basis can an African who is a member of the Jewish clergy within Africa itself claim Hebrew will be the language of choice in heaven? American-based Kenyan writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o says Jesus never spoke English (see his book “Something Torn And New: An African Renaissance.” It is generally believed among biblical scholars and bibiologists that Jesus primarily spoke Aramaic).
What will then happen to African languages, which the same God reportedly created? Perhaps they will be discarded in the dustbins of heaven, or those of hell. Then, ironically, we have Führer Akufo-Adoo seeking the face of God in Israel’s so-called Holy Land, the Wailing Wall, when this face of God is supposed to be omniscient and omnipresent. Führer Akufo-Adoo, Sammy Awuku and the leadership of the NPP run toward the International Democrat Union (IDU), a right-wing bankrolled by the UK-based Westminster Foundation for Democracy…what, in other words, Dr. Molefi Kete Asante calls one of his books “Rooming in the Master’s House”…
And then the shocking news of Rev. Pat Robertson reportedly using his private plane to secretly cart part of Zaire’s natural wealth to the United States, natural wealth in the form of diamond concessions in secret arrangement with Mobuto Sese Seko, with the same shady clerical character also reportedly lobbying for Mobuto Sese Seko and Charles Taylor in the U.S. Congress…What more need we add?
If African leaders do not make us permanent slaves and prisoners of the IMF/World Bank, they will surely make us one of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the Islamic Development Bank (IDB)…On the religious front however, infamous therianthrope Bishop Obinim, an ophidian messenger of God who, the former has already told us, can also liberally transmigrate into lions and tigers when he undertakes his [Bishop Obinim’s] sting-biting nocturnal missions with him, is reportedly taking umbrage at a movie “Angel Obinim: Just One Word” whose script questions his self-proclaimed supernatural powers and other controversial claims. A Christian like Bishop Obinim cannot pray for his enemies and detractors who offend him. Our duopoly is also unforgiving when opponents run afoul of the law.
We do however agree that one appeals to a higher transcendental power for redress and for moral guidance on mortalized lived and living experiences, while the other takes advantage of conventional secularism and mortal limitations in intellection. But both processes are however largely subjective. It is a practical given that the secular and the spiritual sometimes overlap in time and space. We may even hazard that this is a serious philosophical question not open to the rigorous process of mathematical and scientific verification. It is beyond the likes of Bishop Obinim and his cabal of theological gangsters, including Bishop J.Y. Adu, Rev. Owusu Bempah.
Yet rather than put the Christological Beatitudes into practice and appeal to divine mercy and forgiveness on behalf of his cinematographic biographers, this therianthropic fraud is threatening to use his supernatural powers to bankrupt his cinematographic biographers. They call themselves Christians when it suits them but when it comes down to putting Christianity in practice, they suddenly become anti-Christianity and un-Christlike. Even Mahatma Gandhi, a devoted Hindu, made good use of the set of Christological Beatitudes all his life. No wonder Joseph Hill of Culture sings “Jah Alone A Christian.” And no wonder Rawlings looks at the mushrooming of churches across Ghana and corruption in the church and remarks: “If we can behave in such an ignorant manner, should it surprise you that the country is being consumed by so much filth?”
What is wrong with African leaders that the masses cannot simply see? Perhaps Walter Rodney’s influential book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa” has some of the answers!
FÜHRER AKUFO-ADDO AND THE EMOTIONAL SUBLTETY OF HIS DANGEROUS POLITICS
Führer Akufo-Addo’s “I love Ghana more than myself” is hypocritically sickening, a deceptive and insincere statement only coming in the wake of his finally being caught pants down after having successfully sneaked in South African mercenaries to train some members of his political party, all in contravention of Ghanaian security laws. This statement also belies the man’s unbridled push for political power. But we hope Ghanaians are discerning enough to see through his gimmicks and on this basis reject him and others who do not have the people and country at heart.
Only the Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah truly loved Ghana more than himself. Thus, Führer Akufo-Addo’s uncle J.B. Danquah, Obetsebi-Lamptey, etc., were all terrorists, anarchists, political nihilists, and anti-democratic. These men never understood democracy and died defending their beliefs in political terrorism and anti-democratic philosophies. Again, we hope Ghanaians will see through Führer Akufo-Addo’s gimmicky revisionist canard that these men truly fought and died for their beliefs in democracy.
We make these bold statements of fact because Führer Akufo-Addo and some of his influential relatives including Aaron Eugene Kofi Asante Ofori-Atta, who later became a Minister for Justice and a Minister for Local Government in the Convention People’s Party (CPP), made a pact with Nkrumah and his CPP in spite of threats to their persons. Führer Akufo-Addo’s revisionist propaganda is thus a convenient one meant to distort the true political history of Ghana just so he could conveniently sneak in his unbridled push for political power and his royal entitlement to the presidential throne, just like his uncle.
In the final analysis, Führer Akufo-Addo and those of his relatives who rejected their relative’s anti-democratic, nihilistic, and terroristic tactics did so because they strongly believed in the pacifistic and inclusive politics of the great Nkrumah. Otherwise how do we sufficiently explain their total rejection of Danquah and his divisive politics? Ghanaian political animals are just funny!
WHAT WE SHOULD DEMAND OF POLITICAL AND CLERICAL LEADERS
Politics and religion, we dare say, are respectfully making citizens hopeless and helpless prisoners of material occultism and transcendental mysteries. For this reason, and this reason alone, we should ask our politicians to go back to the blueprint of patriotic Nkrumahism, the same way we should ask our clerics to go back to the authentic blueprint of soteriology. The eras of duopolistic kleptomania and prosperity theology should be things of the past. “Resisting against the system…For we no want no devil philosophy,” Bob Marley sang on the track “One Drop.”
We also do believe the people must be tired by now with both politicians and clerics preaching “devil philosophy” to them. On “Babylon System” Bob Marley sang: “Yeah, we’ve been trodding on the winepress for so long; Rebel, rebel!...Building church and university…deceiving the people continually…me say them graduating thieves and murderers…”
“I, I’m a going to take a just-a one step more; because I feel like bombing a church,” Bob Marley sang on “Talking Blues.” “Now, now that you know that the preacher is lying.” And here we go again as we have done many times before: “Here comes the conman, coming with his con-plan; we won’t take no bribe; we’ve got to stay alive; we gonna chase those crazy, chase those crazy baldheads, chase those crazy baldheads out of town…”
CONCLUSION
Let us also make it clear by adding that the non-existent Kankam Nyame, who incidentally exists only in the immanent construction of misguided and dangerous men who are only known for their Machiavellian trademark of “spiritual wickedness,” as Bob Marley correctly puts it, has now assumed a sacred abode otherwise called The Ark or the Holy of Holies, of the God of Bishop Obinim and his alleged spiritual Okomfo Yaw Appiah, Jesus Christ of Dzorwulu, Rev. Owusu Bempah, Prophet Kumchacha, Bishop Adu, Jesus Christ of Mantukwa…and that of the “crazy baldhead” politician of Ghana…Bishop Adu should come back again and tell us what he has in store that can help the BNI finally unravel the mystery behind Danquah’s sad and unfortunate murder!
Finally, and this is immensely important, the concocted political theology of lies by some unconscionable grotesque caricatures in the clergy and that of their supportive political brothers and sisters need to be quashed and neutralized for good before they turn into some uncontrollable strains of monstrous Frankenstein romantic chocolate bars in the leprotic hands of these dangerous ahistorical men without conscious…That means and means only speaking truth to power as Bob Marley, Harriet Tubman, Kwame Nkrumah, Lucky Dube, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, Nelson Mandela, W.E.B. Du Bois, Peter Tosh, Martin Luther King, Jr., Paul Bogle, Amilcar Cabral…surely and tactically did. We need to hold our religious and political leaders’ feet to the fire.
In other words, we should not allow religious leaders such as Bishop Adu to make public statements with dire or serious national security implications to go free, with their public statements remaining unexplored. This is why we are entreating Bishop Adu to come again! Neither should we allow those politicians who consistently take advantage of the masses through grandiose electioneering promises that are not even fulfilled for whatever reason (s) to come clean.
Last, but certainly, not least, it is painfully unfortunate for a dinosaurian pneumatologist in the person of pre-exilic prophet Kwabena Tawiah to declare the following: “I can tell you on authority that Nana Addo will win the 2016 election and he will become the president of Ghana.” If in fact Nana Addo will win the 2016 election as this dodo-prophet claims, why add “he will become the president of Ghana?” By “authority,” was he referring to his theological the ballot box, the Electoral Commission (EC), the Chair of the EC (Madam Charlotte Osei), or the God of Bishop Obinim and Rev. Kumchacha and Bishop Adu? Why are other clerics also claiming President Mahama is going to retain the presidency? If both claims are prophetically correct and sustainable, why is this God of our competing clerics an author of confusion and contradictions?
Finally, and importantly, if it is the God of Bishop Obinim and Rev. Kumchacha and Bishop Adu, how exactly is this God going to vote on behalf of the masses for Nana Addo? Through electoral rigging? Killing President Mahama? Killing all the other presidential candidates? Changing the results in the strong room of the EC? Or What? Exactly how is this God going to do it?
References For All Three Parts
Ghanaweb. “Nana Addo Will Win 2016 Election—Prophet Tawiah Asserts.” March 27, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “I Will Expose People Who Hired J.B.’s Killer—Bishop J.Y. Adu.” March 22, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Ashanti Town Snakes Are Gods—Kweku Bonsam.” March 17, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “NPP Will Lose Another Great Leader If—Owusu Bempah.” March 21, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Too Many Churches In Ghana?” March 25, 2016.
Prof. Ayemang Badu Akosa. “Rehabilitation of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah Is Incomplete.” National Commission Culture website. September 21, 2010.
Ghanaweb. “Video: Obinim's 'Spiritual Father' Speaks—‘His End Is Near.’” March 11, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Some pastors wish me dead—Duncan-Williams.” March 28, 2016.
Kim Sengupta. “.An African Adventure: Inside Story Of The Wonga Coup.” Independent. March 11, 2008.
Milton Allimadi. “The Choice Is Clear: Africa Must Embrace Nkrumah’s Vision And Unite.” Black Star News.
Ghanaweb. “Agyin-Asare Holds Key To Ghana’s Freedom—Prophet.” March 28, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “If I were violent, Ghana would’ve burnt in 2012—Nana Addo.” March 27, 2016.
Ghanaweb. “Obinim Angry Over New Kumawood's Movie Poster.” March 28, 2016.