Features
The Ghanaian Diaspora and fake pastors
Today, I write about an issue I have been worried about for some time now. It is about how some pastors deceive other people, both at home and abroad.
My focus, however, is more on members of the Ghanaian Diaspora and how they are deceived and even duped by some pastors in Ghana. Please, do not get me wrong; I know there are many genuine and good pastors out there who help to solve people’s problems through powerful prayers and other kinds of support.
My point here is about false prophets or fake pastors who take advantage of others’ predicament to make claims and so-called prophecies in order to dupe unsuspecting people.
Highly religious
Many members of the Ghanaian Diaspora are highly religious. For example, in Europe research studies on religion and migrants indicate an increasing growth of the Charismatic or Pentecostal churches.
In Finland, the many emerging Pentecostal and Charismatic churches are dominated by Ghanaian and other African migrants or people who identify with their African roots.
Many Ghanaian migrants count on their faith and religious convictions and experiences to understand and explain their social realities, including difficult situations such as sickness and suspicions of witchcraft attacks.
Encounters with Pastors in Ghana
Aside their regular pastors, many members of the Ghanaian Diaspora also consult pastors (or even fetish priests) in Ghana to help them with prayers or incantations for spiritual help and protection.
There are many people who believe in men of God. But, I am sure that if you ask some migrants they will tell you many stories of having paid monies to pastors in Ghana only to realise later that it was not worth putting their trust in those so-called men of God.
Usually, the pastors would ask the migrants themselves or a family member of the migrant to give some money with which to work out a remedy for the problem facing the person in question.
Such so-called men of God can give some outrageous ‘prophecies’ in order to put fear in people and make them pay sums of money.
Desperation or fear of spiritual attacks
It is understandable that when one is faced with hardship or some unfortunate situation such as ill-health or loss of job and other opportunities, you become desperate and may seek help from pastors.
Some people are even of the view that the entrenched belief in spiritual things and supernaturalism, as others may term it, would always make people believe in the claims and activities of even fake pastors, no matter how distasteful
Ignorance
Some people think that there is too much ignorance and many people are simply vulnerable. Some people are of the opinion that ignorance is largely the cause. But the question is, is it all about ignorance? That is, do such bad pastors capitalise on merely the ignorance of the people?
How I wish it would not always be a case of people being simply gullible and following the fake pastors.
Occultism or hypnotism
But some people believe that the fake pastors carry out the bad things not just because the people are ignorant, but because the so-called men of God hypnotise their victims.
It is believed that many such pastors are into occultism and only use the name of God to cover up and deceive others. Otherwise, how else would they succeed in taking huge sums of monies from the victims?
To me, these bad pastors use psychology to hoodwink their unsuspecting adherents. No matter what it is, surely there is the need to prevent the duping activities of bad pastors.
Regulations and education
There is need for regulations to curtail such activities by the bad pastors whose untoward behaviours create distaste in society. Their actions undoubtedly create unpleasant perceptions about even the genuine pastors.
As for members of the Ghanaian Diaspora, I think many would heave a sigh of relief if they can find a way to avoid being swindled by fake pastors or that there are quick avenues for redress.
Some people have even suggested that our chiefs and queens should get involved in any action to check the activities of fake pastors who dupe people.
Finally, I wish the media would also play a key role in educating people. There is need for fearless media people who would probe into the activities of fake pastors rather than giving them attention and propagating the false messages of such so-called men (and women) of God.
Happy New Year to you all! Thank you!
By Dr Perpetual Crentsil,
Ghanaian lecturer,
The University of Helsinki in Finland
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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