Features
Election 2020: An astrological perspective of ‘God’s Confusion’
I was not surprised when my media colleague, Kwesi Pratt Jnr, stated that God must be confused, in response to so-called men of God making varying prophesies about who God has destined to win Ghana’s Election 2020. If it can be proven that every presidential aspirant has his own god, then these ‘prophets’ can be forgiven for their weird preferences. But if it is the one omnipotent God we all know who is revealing these conflicting predictions to these people who claim to be His men, something must be wrong somewhere. Is God really confused?
First, God is not, and must not be, mocked. What will the one whose prophesy fails give as an excuse? But why these pastors fall over themselves in the manner they do beats the mind. Methinks it is only a ploy to court social media attention or to make themselves relevant.
In my article on Astrology in National Elections, carried by the Daily Graphic on January 4 this year, I explained how elections and even world affairs are influenced by interplanetary positions in the cosmos. That was how I predicted Elections 2008, 2012 and 2016, with the most difficult being the Triple Conjunction of the 2008 elections because there’s provision for a second round, not third in our elections. But Tain Constituency in the then Brong Ahafo proved the Triple Conjunction theory right.
The Nominal Ruler of this year is Mercury, the Planet that governs Intellect. But Mercury is less favourable in the Chart of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) than the New Patriotic Party (NPP) this year. A smart move by the NPP can get them to retain power, come December 7. That, however, is not automatic because a smart move predicated on the negative could lead to an implosion in their party’s fortunes.
Another Planet, Pluto, has been in transition since December ending of 2008. Its influence on the NDC since then has been negative for the party. Prominent members turning their backs on the group are but a few of this planetary influence.
A retrograde Pluto, Neptune and Uranus bodes problems for the NDC until 2026 when Pluto’s influence would have abated. However, the feminine aspects of the constellation are the likely plus to the fortunes of the NDC with the choice of a woman on the presidential ticket. Let’s not forget also that there are more women on the presidential tickets than have ever been.
In 2016 I predicted that the Universal Energy favoured an Akuffo Addo presidency. That Energy has not dissipated, thus giving him an edge over the other contestants in December. But the Law of Opposites could work against him if he does not open up to the realization that negative forces he has attracted to himself could be at play to force him to look too much inward. In the last elections I also predicted a Tsunami in Parliament. This time if the women candidates give themselves the necessary push and work very hard, there might just be more women in the House than previously. This election will likely see a tremor in Parliament; a wave none has the power over.
As soon as the Electoral Commission (EC) completed balloting for placement on the voter list for the presidential slot, social and main media were in frenzy with all manner interpretation and forecast of who becomes president. For the uninitiated party activist, reading uniformed meaning into the placing creates fun for their campaign machinery. But does Numerology play a part in who wins a contest? The answer is yes, it does; but the placement at a glance alone does not determine anything unless the calculations involve the name and date of birth of the contestants, juxtaposed on the placement on the ballot. Chaldean Numerology has been proved to be the most accurate in these calculations.
People change their names quite often; and this can befuddle the mind sometimes, especially getting the numbers for permutation. Some change their names for numerological reasons or very many other reasons, which must be factored in any calculations; not what we think it should be. So the current name it must be. However, if a contestant changes his/her date of birth, that’s a rather difficult one. For astrological purposes, it is important to know that the exact time and date of birth has an indelible print on the individual, so changing it does not change anything actually. No one can do anything about their ripe destiny.
Some people are quick to condemn these as mere superstition. Well, they cannot be faulted so long as they have not studied some of these Esoteric Sciences. We all come under the influence of these planetary bodies, unless we have overcome the four elements of Air, Fire, Earth and Water. Someone will say, “If you know you know.” But I also want to believe that superstition is in the DNA of humankind.
Esoteric Science is not easy to assimilate. But let me point out that Esoteric Science is predicated on the natural Law of Probability. And a lot of study is involved here.
I am asked the vexed question of what happens when or if a party rigs an election. My simple answer has always been that there is no forgiveness in Nature. The Laws of nature are not left to the whims and caprices of mortals. Rigging the sovereign will of the people is akin to a violation of Natural Law and the consequences can be dire for future generations of the perpetrators. Alternatively, it could plunge the whole society into such upheaval that lives might be at risk. The Natural law of cause and effect is never negotiable.
Paradoxically, every religion knows this, either as the Law of Karma or the Law of Retribution. So, we go back to the question as to whether God is confused. The answer is No.
By Dr. Akofa K. Segbefia
Writer’s email address:
akofa45@yahoo.com
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THE journalist is a hunter. He goes after human rats and grasscutters personified, matters about whom he can salt and spice and present as news. The fatter and juicier the catch, the better, because sensation is essentially our cup of tea.
Our job is to sell news and sell it in grand style.
Because the journalist is a hunter and is created with a special kind of nose for sniffing out news, he is usually not welcome in many places. He is seen as someone who has been born to make people uncomfortable.
The problem is that some people don’t want things written about them even if it is promotional and favourable. When it entails publishing their pictures alongside the story, they are doubly scared.
“Please, don’t use my picture. People will think I’ve got money and come for loan,” someone told me.
Anyhow, journalists are seen as intruders, undesirables, born with plenty of okro in the mouth; maybe some also in the nose. Some of my friends are no longer too close because they fear I’d give them full coverage in the Sikaman Palava column. Ha ha ha! What a funny world!
Well, people like my Uncle, Sir Kofi Jogolo, my former classmate and born-mathematician, Kwame Korkorti, and ex-football star cum human-salamander Kofi Kokotako don’t mind featuring in the hilarious inches of this column. Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty is one personality who has to be mentioned in this palaver.
These are people who are going to live long, primarily because they see the world as one big ball of fun. When Kwame Korkorti was told that his dear mother was dead at home, he smiled and asked the bearer of the message whether his mother had cooked the afternoon meal before claiming she was dead. Until her death, Korkorti ate his lunch at his mother’s end.
When my Uncle Kofi Jogolo was picked and lost 1,500 dollars and a good amount of Sikaman currency, he didn’t lament the loss. Instead he was amused. In fact, he was almost glad about it, because he grinned from ear to ear, stroked his delicate moustache and congratulated the thief, adding that “He is smarter than I am.” Yeah, Jogolo is the man who employs a Swedish barber to trim his moustache.
And when Kofi Kokotako was unemployed and was nearly hit by an articulated truck, he called the driver a fool. “The idiot should have killed me,” he said to me. “Didn’t he know I was unemployed and suffering?”
Today, Kokotako is employed as a Reverend and is not doing badly at all. Thanks to the regular silver collection.
And what about Kofi Owuo, the celebrated poor man. His wife left him not because he was poor, but because he swore in front of her that he would never prosper.
The following dawn the wife packed bag and baggage and went back to her parents and told them all about her husband’s alliance with poverty. Her parents were bewildered and called the alliance unholy. They had no option than to send back Owuo’s drinks to end the marriage.
Kofi Owuo alias Death By Poverty did not contest the issue. He was more engrossed thinking about how to become poorer than to contest what he called a frivolous matter. The wife could go to hell, he said. These are people longevity smiles upon. Nothing worries them.
Getting back to talking about journalists. I’d say that anywhere there is journalism, the issue of press freedom is not too far away. Is the press free? That’s one question foreigners want answer to when they are on visit.
Well, journalists celebrate a yearly WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY to drum home the idea of press freedom as a very important thing in the practice of journalism.
This year’s was celebrated almost a fortnight ago but people didn’t see much of us because we are normally not good celebrants. We should have mounted a float to roam the entire capital, dancing asaboni to brass band music just like PTC did recently.
Although journalists are known to be very good dancers because they walk very much, on that day, they were all busy writing. It was the Minister of Information, Mr Kofi Totobi Quakyi who saved the day by addressing a forum organised to mark the day.
He is a man I’ve always admired since his radical university days. He spoke much on press freedom, cautioning the press not to abuse the freedom granted by the Fourth Republican constitution, but to use it for the progress of society.
Well, press freedom has been defined by many journalists as the freedom to ‘write nonsense’. This definition is not quite accurate. I asked one staff reporter to define press freedom. It took him fifteen minutes to put up something.
“Press freedom is the freedom that is enjoyed by the press that enables journalists to publish or broadcast any kind of material so long as it is absolutely true, is not libelous and slanderous, and is not against the national interest.”
I gave him eight out of 10, a straight A. I guess every journalist is old enough to know that certain things he or she writes is for or against the national interest. We certainly must guard against writing against the national interest; that is very important.
There is also the question of criticising government. The government can be criticized, so long as the criticisms are genuine and the President and his ministers are not insulted and called names. Let us criticize, but let us do it decently so that the journalistic profession can be revered, and its nobility acknowledged. We are not war mongers, are we?
One area in which journalists are not spoken well of is the complaint that they misquote people. Journalists sometimes misquote people, but in four out of five complaints it turns out that nobody is misquoted after all.
When we interview people they say things unreservedly and we publish unreservedly. When the publication is out and their friends or superiors read it and accuse them of having said too much to the press, then they start claiming they were misquoted.
We have encountered these ‘misquotation palaver’ every now and then and reporters are usually accused of this transgression. However, when they bring out their note-books or recorders, it is realised that they wrote nothing out of the way. “Book no lie”.
My advice to people who deal with the press is that if they do not want anything written, they shouldn’t say it. What they want to say is OFF-RECORD, then of course, there is no reason to say it. When you say it, you’re taking a risk. In that instance, you can’t also claim to have been misquoted or words put into your mouth.
And it isn’t every journalist who would be circumspect in matters that are supposed to be off-record, because journalists often want to be as sensational as possible to make their stories saleable. So say just what you want to see published and you won’t later regret it and claim you were misquoted.
Well, I’m not holding brief for journalists, because a few of us are notorious for colouring our reports sometimes sand-papering the words so much that they look very bright in front of readers.
As I once said, when the police tells one such notorious pressman that the thief stole a brown goat, the pressman would want to know whether the goat was bearded. Of course, the police would say ‘Yes’.
However, in the press report, it appears, “A gang of notorious goat-thieves were apprehended in the early hours of yesterday. In the car in which they were riding was a brownish-red goat having a long beard. Upon further examination, it was realised that the goat also had a greyish moustache.”
When the story appears, the police are naturally disturbed. A single thief turns out to be a gang of thieves. The goat also becomes a chameleon and changes colour to brownish-red. And a moustacheless goat overnight wears a greyish moustache whether you like it or not. Luckily the journalist does not add that the moustache was trimmed by a Swedish barber.
Yes, we have a few of such mischief-creating, chronically notorious journalists. But they are one in a hundred. In any case, we make the world. And we shall always do our best to make it a happy place to live in.
This article was first publish on Saturday, May, 20, 1995
When I hear of people who are of the opinion that they cannot make it in life unless they travel abroad, l become sad.
Whenever I see on TV, news of people, that is migrants who have drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, while attempting to cross to Europe, l become filled with sadness and then anger.
The underlying factor is desperation born out of loss of hope, in life. When an individual tends to believe that his only hope of making it in life is to travel abroad, the risk of dying at sea, does not deter him or her.
The role of some pastors on shaping the mindset of people, especially the youth, leaves much to be desired. You hear them declaring on various media platforms how they can pray for you to get a visa to travel abroad, instead of encouraging them to find something to do to improve their lives as the Bible teaches that God will bless the work of their hands.
The GREATER WORKS CONFERENCE is geared towards renewing the minds of people with a specific focus on people of African descent to rid themselves of the negative perception of lack of capacity to excel in life.
Pastor Mensa Otabil believes that every human being, no matter the skin colour, was created in the exact image of God and therefore has the capacity to do exploits.
The whiteman was not created in the image of God while the Blackman was created in the image of something other than God. The Black person therefore can achieve whatever the whiteman can achieve.
The development in terms of industrialisation that is lacking which has generated unemployment for the youth, is due to lack of effective leadership. The lack of moral integrity in society, is what is causing the lack of job opportunities, which is as a result of corrupt acts which drive away private investment.
A culture of inferiority complex exists which needs to be dealt with, so the African can develop the self worth necessary for personal development which can then result in capacity deployment to avhieve personal goals.
Success in life begins with the individual’s recognition that he or she is capable of achieving the dreams he or she has conceived in his or her mind. The Bible teaches that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy is understanding according to Proverbs 9:10.
Christianity was the driving force behind the development of Europe because no society can sustain development without high moral values. GREATER WORKS therefore is a deliberate project to shape the minds of people, especially the youth, who will become the leaders of our future, to prioritise morality in their daily lives.
This is the only way to see a massive transformation in every aspect of our lives as Ghanaians and Africans in Ghana and the rest of the continent.
Since the inception of the GREATOR WORKS CONFERENCE, it has made a lot of impact in the lives of many people from the youth up to the senior citizens level. I recall the testimony of a church member who was motivated and pursued higher education and became one of the youngest Chartered Accountants in this country. Year after year, the impact of the conference has been enormous and lives in Ghana and across the continent, are being transformed.
Black people have started regaining their self confidence and the youth have started getting into areas that previously were considered out of bounds. At a personal level, certain ideas that some years ago, l would have not dreamt about suddenly has become realistic dreams.
The Christian lifestyle has impacted on my children and those close to me. Mindset change starts with one individual, then another and then gradually it spreads like a viral infection until a critical mass is attained and them a massive impact. There is hope for the future.
By Laud Kissi-Mensah
