Of god curses and Ghana economy
Posted by By Akogun Akomolafe at 24 August, at 15 : 14 PM Print
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archbishop duncan williams
“Archbishop dey for London,
Pope dey for Rome,
Imam dey for Mecca
My people dem go dey juba pope, juba iman, juba bishop dem.
Archbishop na miliki
Pole na enjoyment
Imam na gbaladun.” – Fela Anikulapo-Kuti
And just as we had occasion to cheer some right-thinking priest who called on our political leaders to develop a national vision, http://alaye.biz/2013/08/ghana-a-need-for-national-ideology-and-vision/ , came another of our garbed clergymen, spewing the usual rubbish that has become the staple of so-called men of god in our part of the world..
According to a myjoyonline headline of August 19, 2013, credited to Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams: Ghana’s Economy is Cursed and Broke.
The Archbishop reportedly said: “We really need to pray for Ghana,” he told his congregation in a recent sermon which was played back on Radio XYZ’s Christian programme, ‘Voice of Action’ on Sunday August 18, 2013.
According to him, “somebody has cursed the economy”.
“It’s sabotage…so we need to break that padlock. We need to remove demonic sanctions and embargoes on the economy and we need to command a healing of our economy and the nation and we need to command new infusion,” Duncan-Williams said.
According to his calculations, Ghana has lost about US$2bn due to a fall in the prices of two major export commodities – gold and cocoa.
He said the government of Ghana set certain targets based on projected revenue from gold and cocoa, and so the price-dip puts Ghana in a precarious economic situation. “…We’ve lost like US$2bn – we have to go and find that money to inject into the system – because of the price of cocoa and gold falling,” he noted.
Explaining further, the Christian Action Faith Ministries’ Presiding Archbishop said: “…I’m told that they [Government] projected also based on 127,000 barrels of oil a day and we are producing about 90,000 now, so I think we [have] fallen behind by about 37,000 barrels and all that is money that we don’t have; we’ve spent it already. So one way or the other, we are broke. Until we find those monies, we are broke. That’s how bad it is”.
“We need to pray for the president and those who manage our finances to come up with weightier inventions and new ideas to create money not only taxes and taxing us because already we don’t have the money so when you are taxing, where are you getting it from. We don’t have it, we are all broke and you are taxing us. You have to find ways and means to create more money not taxing us from the little we have to feed our children”.
Astute readers of this column must have noticed that we are totally fed up with all the jejune nonsense our elite (political as well as religious) keep on spewing to keep us in bondage and in utter ignorance.
So, the Archbishop reportedly said: “We really need to pray for Ghana.”
Hmm.
Just one question for our Archbishop: Pray, tell us one single thing your god has done for Ghana with all the prayers that millions of Christians offer to it daily?
The Archbishop reportedly continue: “It’s sabotage…so we need to break that padlock. We need to remove demonic sanctions and embargoes on the economy and we need to command a healing of our economy and the nation and we need to command new infusion.”
Let’s blame lazy journalism for the bad grammatical construction in the sentence above, but would the Archbishop kindly tell us what exactly is ‘demonic sanctions?’
Why engage in these types of childish superstitions in analyzing serious issues like declining national economy?
Why come out into public domain with these type of pure and arrant nonsense even if one donned the attire of an Archbishop?
The Archbishop concluded his sermon thus: “We need to pray for the president and those who manage our finances to come up with weightier inventions and new ideas to create money not only taxes and taxing us because already we don’t have the money so when you are taxing, where are you getting it from. We don’t have it, we are all broke and you are taxing us. You have to find ways and means to create more money not taxing us from the little we have to feed our children”.
Sorry, Archbishop, but inventions are simply not the products of prayers, but of applying brain power to tackle problems and coming up with solutions.
We can pray all we want, but until we start to use our brains to come up with creative ideas, we shall not make any progress.
We can dream all we want. We can fast all we care, and we can burn all the candles of the world and apply all the olive oil available, all shall come to naught, if we do not use our brains to look for solutions to the challenges that face us.
I affirm here that only a liar will report solving a problem through prayers alone.
We have lamented severally in this column that the actions of our elite is not only unconscionable, but ought to be condemned with every force at our disposal.
There they are, enjoying all the goodies and the comfort that modern science can provide, only for them to turn around and ask us to beg god for services that are considered basic in many societies.
Those that rule us do not beseech god when they are sick; they rush themselves to the best hospital available outside the country – at our expense, we should add.
Our elite do not ask their own children to wallow in prayers; no, they send them to the best schools outside the country or the international ones inside it.
How dare they, in this age and time, keep on telling us inglorious lies about a god coming down from heavens to come and solve problems for us?
How dare they, in this age and time, tell us that only god can solve problems that human beings, in other climes, have successfully and demonstrably solved?
How dare they keep on disturbing us with dated miracles of some invented son of a Jewish tribal god?
How dare they continue to disturb our peace with useless religious pyrotechnics and imbecilic prayer retreats, concocted to separate the excitable and the ignorant from their money?
How dare they continue to annoy us with the infantile tales from their so-called holy books, we knew was compiled at the instigation of a truly murderous pope?
It is time we say enough is enough to all these religious stupidities concocted by totally amoral and unconscionable people in priestly garbs.
In this age of information overload, we ought to be affronted when some so-called men of god come out to tell us utterly imbecilic lies like economies been cursed by angry gods.
We know, even if we do not know much else that the Jesus the Christians chant like a mantra was ignorant of basic laws of economics.
His retort when asked whether or not to pay tax was: “Give unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is his.”
The supposed son of an omniscient god did not know that money belongs to the one that sweated to earn it, and not to the one whose portraiture is embossed on it.
It is like telling one to give the Ghana paper money to the Big Five because their pictures are on them!
No, Archbishop, we know why we are in the fine mess we are and it has absolutely nothing to do with the curses or anger of some gods.
The reasons we remain mired in poverty is obvious except for those totally purblind to see.
To begin with, the reasons we remain poor is principally because we choose to believe that manna will come from heavens, or deluded ourselves that money grows on trees.
We remain poor because we got mired in the fiction that we shall continue to receive donor support to maintain the lavish lifestyles our elite have set up for themselves.
We remain poor because we refused to apply basic common-sensical laws of economics in our national life.
A good example is the Single-Spine Salary Structure we introduced without anyone factoring how it was going to be financed and sustained.
O, yes, we love cheapo cheapo things, especially those that will make us look good and win us electoral votes. But however much we pray or hope, the day of reckoning shall surely come.
Today, our elite realized their folly and now tell us that they have no money left in the kitty.
How on earth did we end up using up to seventy percent of our budget just to maintain the machineries of running a government – pay salaries and emoluments?
And we pretend not to know why we are poor, and some Archbishop inanely pretend that it has to do with curses form gods!
And he expect us to take him serious!
We pay our officials good salaries and allow them to vote out-of-this-world ex-gratia awards for themselves, when all that they do was to collude with their friends to steal funds in so-called judgment debt, no one should pull wool over our heads by claiming that we are in economic bad shape because god cursed us.
When our officials, with their brains in the right places, allowed personal greediness and selfishness to override their sense of responsibilities and signed contracts that are clearly detrimental to our national interests, we ought not to blame any god for our economic woes.
When, in this age and time, our officials still sign agreement that gave foreign companies the right to repatriate one hundred percent of their earnings into offshore accounts, then we have no one but ourselves to blame for our economic problems.
When our officials continue to see our treasury as the war booty of a conquered people, to be dispatched at great speed, then we shall continue to have problems with our economy, irrespective of what the gods think or do.
When we have three ministers in the ministry of agriculture who cannot formulate policies to make us become self-sufficient in our staple foods, we will continue to be mired in economic difficulties. When the trio continue to draw salaries and emoluments when all we see are large importation of rice, sugar, chicken and pork legs; we ought to blame ourselves and not some angry gods.
When, after over a hundred years, we still allow foreign firms ship our resources (gold, timber, cocoa etc) in their raw states, without adding any value to them, we do not need the gods to curse us before we ran into economic quagmire.
When our officials signed contracts that give us only about ten percent from our oil revenue, we should blame ourselves,
When, after close to sixty years of self-governing ourselves, we still lack the industrial capacity to manufacture the most basic of our needs, let no one tell us ungodly lies about gods cursing us; we are the architects of our own misfortunes.
When after all these years, we still do not have a coherent educational, industrial, agricultural, technological or even a cultural policy, we should be ashamed of ourselves.
When we refused to embrace science and technology like other societies do, we ought to blame ourselves for our under-development and under-achievements.
When we spend more time in churches than in schools or laboratories, we should blame ourselves for our wretchedness.
When we would rather dance and party than engage in production, we do not need god’s curses to remain poor.
I repeat what I have always affirm, no society has ever broken the yoke of underdevelopment which did not start by giving the gods and the priests a wide berth.
No single modern nation has been built by priests and by prayers.
No modern society has registered any progress when the people remain as unserious as we are – all dancing and jiving; all politicking and praying.
All the progress, all the advancement in human development we have seen have all been through the efforts of men and women, brave enough to leave the gods and the holy books and religions alone, and applied their brains and intellect into solving purely temporal and human problems.
Our Archbishops and Imams should stop insulting us with patent and absurd lies about gods interfering in the affairs of man.
Our elite (political and religious) love to use the most modern of scientific inventions, but they keep preaching the sermons that will keep us ignorant and un-informed; it is time we tell them to stop.
Or will the good Archbishop tell us that the Big Jeep he uses to tool around town was put together through prayers?
Tchaah!
About the Author
Femi Akomolafe is a passionate Pan-Africanist. A columnist for the Accra-based Daily Dispatch newspaper and Correspondent for the New African magazine. Femi lives in both Europe and Africa, and writes regularly on Africa-related issues for various newspapers and magazines.
Femi was the producer of the FOCUS ON AFRICANS TV Interview programme for the MultiTV Station.
He is also the CEO of Alaye Dot Biz Limited Dot Biz, a Kasoa-based Multimedia organisation that specialises in Audio and Video Production. He loves to shoot and edit video documentaries.
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