Features
The passport to hell
NATIVES of Sikaman are very religious people. Procure a Bible, hire an interpreter, get four benches, a chair, table and two candles and arrange them like you see in a church room. You have established a church and the natives will start coming to you for consultation. The ladies will come around mid-night if you ask them to.
Getting followers is normally not a problem but if you are finding it difficult, you only have to learn to be a good dancer so that your floor shows will be a side attraction.
Start a funky Christian hymn and dance in accompaniment. An old retired witch passing by is likely to join you. She wants last minute salvation. For sure, a civil servant wanting to fight VAT spiritually will also join the fold with his own brand of kpalogo. A church has indeed been born.
The demise or survival of such a mushroom church will, however, depend on the competence, cooperation or roguery of the interpreter. If for instance he is not properly fed before a church service, he can decide to give his own interpretations to reflect the extent of his stomach palaver. It is, in fact, a form of strike action Kumi Preko!
“You are standing on holy ground”, the pastor will say. “If you don’t receive your miracle and healing here, then Jesus is not alive. So long as Jesus is alive, no disease, no problem will come here and go back unsolved. Halleluyah!”
The hungry interpreter who wants to subvert the process of the new church will interpret thus “The pastor says this is a church for idiots and those who are idle and have nothing doing. It is also a church for those who want entertainment like you can get in the discos. Meanwhile he says the service is becoming boring so if you’re feeling sleepy you can go home and sleep”.
The pastor will immediately sense foul play and will call the interpreter aside to ask him whether he is normal.
Are you mental?” he’d ask.
“You gave me only one ball of kenkey so whatever you were saying didn’t enter into my ears”
“Did you use the kenkey to seal your damn ears?”
“No, I mean it was not sufficient for my stomach”.
“So if I give you three balls can you handle the job?”
“Yes, but if you make it four, I’ll not make any mistake again. But the fish must be double, or else I’ll develop kwashiorkor”.
With the increase in the ration of the almighty interpreter and a rise in his Sunday stipend, the church gains ground and before long, membership increases with beautiful women in the majority. They have got problems that can only be solved at the beach at midnight.
Yes, most women go to church for various reasons among which are learning to dance, seeking marriage, courting potential boyfriends, making business smooth and flowing and seeking healing for fibroids. Some women also go to avoid their sexy husbands who always desire to start climbing them as early as 7.30 p.m. By the time they return from the evening service such husbands are tired of waiting and resort to snoring.
Men also are not left out of the Christian show. They attend to pray so that God can reveal to them whether their wives are witches or not, because since marriage, they have not prospered. They’ve tried everything including lotto, but still … There must be setting behind!
Well, prosperity or not, Christian churches have been established all over the place. At Ashaiman alone, there are about 500 churches or Christian sects, some fellowshipping in converted kitchens and under trees. Many are breakaway factions but they all have the same objectives together with the orthodox churches that is SAVING SOULS. But are Ghanaian churches really saving souls?
Whether orthodox, spirito-charismatic charismato-magical, almost all churches in Sikaman have tragically deviated from the virtues of soul winning and now concentrate on financial matters.
Luckily, one man of God, Reverend J. K. Atto-Brown who obviously was becoming embarrassed by the unbridled and unwarranted ways of ministers of the word who concentrate more on money than saving souls, spoke his piece of mind.
“It is a well-known fact that a greater part of our worship time is often devoted to fund-raising activities, while very little attention and time is given to the spiritual message to feed the souls of members”, he said.
Reverend Atto-Brown also observed that the method used by churches to collect monies from their members clearly shows how Satan could easily adulterate spiritual worship with materialistic concerns.
Not long after he spoke his mind, another Reverend Minister, Francis Botchway, lambasted ministers of churches for using too many methods to collect monies from their members.
In fact, financial issues have gained priority in our churches to such extents that organizing offerings and collections have become major activities of the modern church. The sermon is hurriedly preached to give way to more serious matters – silver collection, etc.
Members are compelled to donate towards the building of a new church house that never gets built, a-new organ that never gets bought, pastor’s welfare, pastor’s transfer, harvests, funerals, tithing and sundry others.
Contributing to some of these things isn’t a bad idea but anything which becomes compelling, straining and excessive to the point that members are distressed and feel exploited is not good for the church.
Moreover, a large percentage of these monies are not properly accounted for and pastors often quarrel with their church elders over embezzlements of church funds and the like.
The whole palaver has become one suggesting that you have to pay money to get salvation and a visa to heaven, which must not be the case. Salvation is free. It also suggests that if you are poor then you better stay at home and go to hell. Poverty, therefore, becomes a passport to hell.
Anyway, the self-appointed Reverend Kofi Kokotako recently told me that there is no place for the poor man in heaven because heaven is a luxurious joint. The guy is not serious.
Anyhow, our Christian churches need to be reformed. The exploitation must stop so that even the poor can have the chance of getting salvation. Worshipping God must not be another luxury. Must It?
This article was first published on Saturday May 27, 1995
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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