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Opinions of Friday, 17 June 2016

Columnist: Francis Kwarteng

Crucifying themselves in the name of Akufo-Addo's political ambition 1

Nana-Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo Nana-Addo Dankwah Akufo-Addo

At a time when the rest of the world, especially the West and some parts of Asia, leads in industrial, technological and scientific innovations and advancements, including such vigorous pursuits as the political economy of comparative advantage, of improving the standard of living and the quality of life of their hardworking citizenry, many of us in the African world are on the other hand dangerously still stuck in the backward-thinking historical periodization of the Middle Ages.

Apparently, some elements in the Christian clergy fit the profile of this backward-thinking historical periodization, in that their claim to prophetic credibility and transcendental authority rather sounds hyperbolically pharisaical and also feeds on the contaminated blood of the so-called Revolving Door Syndrome.

For how else can we sufficiently or painstakingly explain this clerical Revolving Door Syndrome that has been gnawing at the soul of a once-progressive nation-sate founded by the Great Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah?

Strange as it may appear, though, our Christian clerics, principally the apocalyptic or doomsday prophesiers, it also turns out, do not receive divinely inspired visions that attempt to provide practical answers to drug discoveries in fighting our progressively escalating disease burden, and for better or for worse pragmatic solutions that should otherwise help us reverse our mournful state of relative technological, scientific and industrial backwardness.

Our economy appears to be always in shambles while the evolution of our technocratic industrialization contemporaneously lags behind the rest of the world, yet these nomadic psychiatric prophesiers have consistently failed to take advantage of their purported relationship with God to ask for workable technocratic solutions to our technological, industrial, and scientific backwardness.

It is also rather more painful when one soon realizes that some of our technocrats are Christians and also expert thieves, professional kleptomaniacal “dogs, ants, mosquitoes and cockroaches.”

All that these psychiatric prophesiers do is to take advantage of election seasons or cycles to commercialize their public images and bodega churches and prophetic snake oil, to commodity the art of prophecy as spiritual manifestations or transcendental statements of mathematical probability, to bolster their attention-seeking Revolving-Door Syndrome in the already-scarred psychology of their gullible following, and to insidiously promote their preferred political candidates.

We have Prophet Kobi, for instance, now running away from his disgracefully botched high-profile endorsement of the infamous fake therianthropic entrepreneurial Pharisee, Bishop Obinim, to the welcoming arms of the more respected but dodgy political theologian and clerical entrepreneur, Machiavellian provocateur Pastor Mensa Otabil.

And the last time we checked we had a thirteen-century bofrot-face prophesier, supposedly the founding pastor of the Church of Rabbi, promising to expose some National Democratic Congress’s members behind the gruesome murder of New Patriotic Party’s J.B. Danquah, but as of yet nothing of great consequence has come out of this daring spiritual or transcendental prophecy.

Then we also have Pastor Edmond of the New Era Church, a medieval “new era” if you ask us, who has dared Ghanaians to crucify him if Akufo-Addo does not win the 2016 elections in accordance with a vision he claimed to have had. Some web portals had this to say about him:

“He also revealed that very soon, he would come out to expose some eighteen members of the NPP, who are working tirelessly for the NDC to destroy Nana Addo’s presidential ambition.

“Pastor Edmond further warned Ghanaians not to vote for the NDC since it is a party that believes in a lesser god named ‘Samba.’”

Did Pastor Edmond say “some”?
It just happens that these co-called election and political prophecies are always about mathematical probability, with a heavy cloud of uncertainty looming large over these concocted prophetic auguries.

In other words the phrase “some eighteen members of the NPP” is not a silver bullet, since the flagbearer himself, Machiavellian characters such as Kennedy Agyapong and Kofi Jumah and Chairman Wontumi, and his top sycophantic advisors are indeed the NPP’s internal enemies and a major threat to Akufo-Addo’s political ambition. In other words the NPP is its own enemy.

As a matter of fact, no one has yet produced any substantive evidence corroborating anyone, namely a double agent, within the NPP working for the NDC.

So far, pending the arrival of evidence to the contrary, we do know this short list of “some eighteen members of the NPP” must include such names as Akufo-Addo, Mac Manu, Chairman Wontumi, Nana Obiri Boahen, Nyaho Tamakloe, Sammy Crabbe, Arthur Kennedy, Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Baah Acheamfuor, John Kuffour, Adofo Rockson, Paul Afoko, Kofi Jumah, Kwabena Agyapong, Yaw Osafo-Marfo, Kwame Mpiani……and the Devil or Satan himself!

The political combustibility of internal corruption, the internecine political warfare between the so-called Kufuor-Asante and Akufo-Addo-Akyem factions, Kofi Jumah’s and Kennedy Agyapong’s martial postures and warlike rhetoric, the suspensions of Kwabena Agyapong and Sammy Crabbe and Paul Afoko, the acid-bathing assassination of Adams Mahama, and the murder of other party supporters within the NPP fraternity…are certainly not the work of the NDC.

They are all inside jobs. And after all, the NDC has its own myriad internal problems and tattered public image to deal with, particularly in the wake of the damaging impact of Manasseh Azure’s more recent investigational exposé on the Mahama presidency and the NDC brand!

Then we will, finally, have to close this chapter by also admitting that it is high time Ghanaian leaders including their religious counterparts developed a practical sense of imaginative vision, rather than emotional corporeal vision, to advance the cause of scientific and technological advance in Ghana in particular and Africa as a whole.

After all, none of these loudmouth prophesiers may actually want to die in order to go to heaven. Peter Tosh reminds us of this on the track “Equal Rights”:

“Everybody want to go to heaven…
“But nobody want to die, Father of the Jesus…

“Everybody want to go up to heaven…
“But none of them, none of them want to die…

No so soon!
Prophet Kobi for one has admitted in the same video in which he appealed to the public to help him to unravel the identity of the anonymous person who had posted another video online that, among other things claimed the prophet had predicted Bishop Obinim’s therianthropic prowess, also pontificated that the end times or Christ’s Second Coming, otherwise called Parousia or Second Advent, is not to be expected in these times as the Great Commission has yet to penetrate every nook and cranny of this planet!

This planet is truly “sweet” for these wealthy prosperity theologians! Tell me now if they truly want to crucify themselves for any politician! Well, they simply want more, namely their fair share of the national booty these kleptomaniacal duopolists have hidden in their political manifestoes!

In other words, these unabashed wealthy prosperity theologians want more than simply Max Romeo’s “Stealing in the Name of Jah” and Paul Kelly’s “Stealing in the Name of the Lord.”

We shall return with Part 2. Stay tuned.