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Churches on wheels
Easter is due! Jesus will die on the cross and be buried in the tomb from where he will resurrect after three days and people who see will think he is ‘Madam High Heels.’
His death and resurrection are of much significance to Christians but people consider it little more than an ecclesiastical drama that was staged in Golgotha during which Jesus was nailed on the cross. Many even do not believe the Lord once lived.
But believe it or not before his death, he lived in the era of Caiaphas and Pontius Pilate who were in charge of religious and secular affairs and who contributed to the successful mis-trial and murdering of Jesus.
The significance here is not his death but his blood which was supposed to save those who believe in the Son of Man. It is for this reason that for Christians, Easter should be a solemn occasion when sinful man must supplicate to the Lord and reunite with Him.
However, in general terms, this is not so. Easter is seen as being synonymous with picnics, swinging on the mountains where old girlfriends are met and new ones impregnated.
It is also an occasion when new dance styles from the capital are outdoored when Amakye Dede is on stage. And it is normally during Easter that people dance as if they were fighting, perhaps with the devil.
FOOTING THE BILLS
Now coming to think of it, devoted Christians must be commended for keeping the flame of the Christian religion burning. At the school parks at night, you are likely to see them vibrating with energy and reverberating in tongues, praying for everybody and the nation so that guinea fowls will stop causing civil wars.
And if you are not aware, such Christians in fact flow in the spirit and when they dance, it is by way of the spirit such that the steps they take are heavenly-inspired.
Most often, you’ll also meet them preaching the good news to the jobless, reassuring them that there is fuller life in heaven where food is free and there is no electricity and water bills to be paid. God foots all bills.
And after every preaching session, they demand ‘chop money’ from those who hear the word. There is nothing wrong with that if the preachers are full-time Evangelists because the Bible stipulates that they must be catered for by the church. But I am against those who are not full time clergymen but go out to preach only when they are broke. They must repent!
Now how do they preach and where? Sometimes it is at dawn so that people can be sufficiently disturbed to wake up and hear that news that would save them. And those who are fornicating at the moment can be delivered.
“We are from so-and-so gospel ministry. Our mission is to bring the good news to your doorstep. It is free; you pay nothing for it. However, there is one condition. Stop whatever you are doing now and listen intently, for your salvation depends on whatever you hear from us this morning.
“If you’ve joined forces with the opposite sex at this moment, I command you in the name of Elijah to disengage. It is only then that you can listen to the gospel and be saved. Halleluyah!”
Now preaching the good news at dawn or at lorry parks is not irritating to people as delivering the gospel on moving vehicles. At the lorry parks for instance, it is only those who are interested who will come around and listen and be blessed. You have no problem with those who want to remain ‘sinners.’
On the other hand, those who organise churches and conventions on passenger buses and force passengers to listen may have good intentions at the wrong place.
First, it is not fair to preach your religion in a bus that has different religions. And those people of other faiths do not want anybody to impose his beliefs on them, no matter how laudable such belief might be. They are entitled to a peaceful ride to their destination and should not be disturbed.
I remember somewhere in the mid-eighties when I was travelling on a bus on which an evangelist was preaching. At the end of it, he asked everybody to shake hands with the person sitting next to him. Unfortunately for me I was sitting between two Alhaji’s who found the entire session irritating. And I was to shake them by hand.
But first I had to make sure they were also prepared to shake hands with me. So I looked into the eyes of the one on the left and realised that he was fuming and ready to explode if detonated. Upon close look study of his visage, I saw that he was also twitching his moustache. I wondered whether I was safe.
SHAKING OF HANDS
Looking into the face of the other, I got horrified by what I saw. He was opening and closing his eyes at me like a maniac. I wanted to ask him whether he was normal but quickly decided against it for fear that he’d break my jaw. If I had insured my jaw, I would have risked it, but I wasn’t covered.
As it were, I raised my head a bit and lowered it down coolly as the bus sped on. I guess the Evangelist didn’t see the expression on the faces of the Alhajis. If he had, he would have apologised for organising a Christian sermon for Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, Krishnas, and forcing them to shake hands.
In fact, when these Alhajis alighted at Nima Police Station and were going away, one of them said a sentence which I heard the word ‘walahi.’ Lucky me.
Preaching on buses is also not good because the driver’s attention is distracted. He might even join singing the chorus and unconsciously try to dance alongside. Before he realises that he is not in a church room, it is too late, Obituary!
Deaths on our roads have often occurred because drivers merely want to change a cassette they are playing which meant their attention was distracted for just a few seconds.
I think a law must be put in place to stop evangelists from preaching on moving vehicles. Passenger vehicles must not be turned into church rooms. They can still convert people at the lorry parks if they choose to.
If Moslems, Krishnas, Bahais, Buddhists, Shinotoists and all others also want to use moving vehicles to spread their respective ‘gospels,’ how would it be like in Sikaman?
Features
Tears of Ghanaman, home and abroad
The typical native of Sikaman is by nature a hospitable creature, a social animal with a big heart, a soul full of the milk of earthly goodness, and a spirit too loving for its own comfort.
Ghanaman hosts a foreign pal and he spends a fortune to make him very happy and comfortable-good food, clean booze, excellent accommodation and a woman for the night.
Sometimes the pal leaves without saying a “thank you but Ghanaman is not offended. He’d host another idiot even more splendidly. His nature is warm, his spirit benevolent. That is the typical Ghanaian and no wonder that many African-Americans say, “If you haven’t visited Ghana. Then you’ve not come to Africa.
You can even enter the country without a passport and a visa and you’ll be welcomed with a pot of palm wine.
If Ghanaman wants to go abroad, especially to an European country or the United States, it is often after an ordeal.
He has to doze in a queue at dawn at the embassy for days and if he is lucky to get through to being interviewed, he is confronted by someone who claims he or she has the power of discerning truth from lie.
In short Ghanaman must undergo a lie-detector test and has to answer questions that are either nonsensical or have no relevance to the trip at hand. When Joseph Kwame Korkorti wanted a visa to an European country, the attache studied Korkorti’s nose for a while and pronounced judgment.
“The way I see you, you won’t return to Ghana if I allow you to go. Korkorti nearly dislocated her jaw; Kwasiasem akwaakwa. In any case what had Korkorti’s nose got to do with the trip?
If Ghanaman, after several attempts, manages to get the visa and lands in the whiteman’s land, he is seen as another monkey uptown, a new arrival of a degenerate ape coming to invade civilized society. He is sneered at, mocked at and avoided like a plague. Some landlords abroad will not hire their rooms to blacks because they feel their presence in itself is bad business.
When a Sikaman publisher landed overseas and was riding in a public bus, an urchin who had the impudence and notoriety of a dead cockroach told his colleagues he was sure the black man had a tail which he was hiding in his pair of trousers. He didn’t end there. He said he was in fact going to pull out the tail for everyone to see.
True to his word he went and put his hand into the backside of the bewildered publisher, intent on grabbing his imaginary tail and pulling it out. It took a lot of patience on the part of the publisher to avert murder. He practically pinned the white miscreant on the floor by the neck and only let go when others intervene. Next time too…
The way we treat our foreign guests in comparison with the way they treat us is polar contrasting-two disparate extremes, one totally incomparable to the other. They hound us for immigration papers, deport us for overstaying and skinheads either target homes to perpetrate mayhem or attack black immigrants to gratify their racial madness
When these same people come here we accept them even more hospitably than our own kin. They enter without visas, overstay, impregnate our women and run away.
About half of foreigners in this country do not have valid resident permits and was not a bother until recently when fire was put under the buttocks of the Immigration Service
In fact, until recently I never knew Sikaman had an Immigration Service. The problem is that although their staff look resplendent in their green outfit, you never really see them anywhere. You’d think they are hidden from the public eye.
The first time I saw a group of them walking somewhere, I nearly mistook them for some sixth-form going to the library. Their ladies are pretty though.
So after all, Sikaman has an Immigration Service which I hear is now alert 24 hours a day tracking down illegal aliens and making sure they bound the exit via Kotoka International. A pat on their shoulder.
I am glad the Interior Ministry has also realised that the country has been too slack about who goes out or comes into Sikaman.
Now the Ministry has warned foreigners not to take the country’s commitment to its obligations under the various conditions as a sign of weakness or a source for the abuse of her hospitality.
“Ghana will not tolerate any such abuse,” Nii Okaija Adamafio, the Interior Minister said, baring his teeth and twitching his little moustache. He was inaugurating the Ghana Refugee and Immigration Service Boards.
He said some foreigners come in as tourists, investors, consultants, skilled workers or refugees. Others come as ‘charlatans, adventurers or plain criminals. “
Yes, there are many criminals among them. Our courts have tried a good number of them for fraud and misconduct.
It is time we welcome only those who would come and invest or tour and go back peacefully and not those whose criminal intentions are well-hidden but get exposed in due course of time.
This article was first published on Saturday March 14, 1998
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Features
Decisions have consequences
In this world, it is always important to recognise that every action or decision taken, has consequences.
It can result in something good or bad, depending on the quality of the decision, that is, the factors that were taken into account in the decision making.
The problem with a bad decision is that, in some instances, there is no opportunity to correct the result even though you have regretted the decision, which resulted in the unpleasant outcome.
This is what a friend of mine refers to as having regretted an unregretable regret. After church last Sunday, I was watching a programme on TV and a young lady was sharing with the host, how a bad decision she took, had affected her life immensely and adversely.
She narrated how she met a Caucasian and she got married to him. The white man arranged for her to join him after the marriage and processes were initiated for her to join her husband in UK. It took a while for the requisite documentation to be procured and during this period, she took a decision that has haunted her till date.
According to her narration, she met a man, a Ghanaian, who she started dating, even though she was a married woman.
After a while her documents were ready and so she left to join her husband abroad without breaking off the unholy relationship with the man from Ghana.
After she got to UK, this man from Ghana, kept pressuring her to leave the white man and return to him in Ghana. The white man at some point became a bit suspicious and asked about who she has been talking on the phone with for long spells, and she lied to him that it was her cousin.
Then comes the shocker. After the man from Ghana had sweet talked her continuously for a while, she decided to leave her husband and return to Ghana after only three weeks abroad.
She said, she asked the guy to swear to her that he would take care of both her and her mother and the guy swore to take good care of her and her mother as well as rent a 3-bedroom flat for her. She then took the decision to leave her husband and return to Ghana.
She told her mum that she was returning to Ghana to marry the guy in Ghana. According to her, her mother vigorously disagreed with her decision and wept.
She further added that her mum told her brother and they told her that they were going to tell her husband about her intentions.
According to her, she threatened that if they called her husband to inform him, then she would commit suicide, an idea given to her by the boyfriend in Ghana.
Her mum and brother afraid of what she might do, agreed not to tell her husband. She then told her husband that she was returning to Ghana to attend her Grandmother’s funeral.
The husband could not understand why she wanted to go back to Ghana after only three weeks stay so she had to lie that in their tradition, grandchildren are required to be present when the grandmother dies and is to be buried.
She returned to Ghana; the flat turns into a chamber and hall accommodation, the promise to take care of her mother does not materialise and generally she ends up furnishing the accommodation herself. All the promises given her by her boyfriend, turned out to be just mere words.
A phone the husband gave her, she left behind in UK out of guilty conscience knowing she was never coming back to UK.
Through that phone and social media, the husband found out about his boyfriend and that was the end of her marriage.
Meanwhile, things have gone awry here in Ghana and she had regretted and at a point in her narration, was trying desperately to hold back tears. Decisions indeed have consequences.
NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’
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