Posted on: www.dailyguideghana.com
By
William Yaw Owusu
Saturday August 16, 2014
Motivational preacher and General Overseer and founder
of International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) Pastor Mensah Otabil says the
current state of affairs in Ghana shows that the country’s ship is sinking.
“I have just
let you know that we are in this ocean and our ship is going down,” he threw
the caution at the 2014 ‘Festival of Ideas’ organized by the ICGC in Accra last
Thursday.
“I haven’t given you a lot to be happy about. That’s
not my job! We can’t pretend it is a party on board our ship and I hope the
captains of the ship don’t behave like the captain of the first Titanic who was
so over confident that he allowed thousands of people to die just because he
wasn’t prepared for the crisis,” he said ominously.
President John Mahama had said in a message at this
year’s Eid-Fitr festival in Kumasi told Ghanaians that he is the captain of the
ship and he knows where he is taking the country to.
Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, a presidential hopeful
then told President Mahama that the ship he was steering was sinking, which
Pastor Otabil is chorusing that he was not the government and therefore “I don’t
control the economy”…“If they make good decisions, good for us, if they don’t,
we prepare for the worst”.
All
is not well
Pastor Otabil said “it has been said that we are in
a crisis in our country. That’s a bit subjective based on who is saying what?
But we can all say all is not well,” adding “I believe that we need a new
leadership response in our national life. We cannot continue partying and we
cannot assume that things will get better.”
Pastor Otabil who also found one of Ghana’s leading
private tertiary institutions Central University College said “it is obvious
that the times we are in require leadership that respond to crisis with clarity
and with purpose.”
Likening Ghana’s current situation to the story of
the Titanic, the British ship that sunk in 1912 when everybody thought it was unsinkable;
Pastor Otabil said that because the handlers of the ship hadn’t really planned
on how to evacuate, they didn’t know what to do when the disaster occurred.
“On the morning of April 15, 1912, the Titanic sunk.
It was a ship that was considered unsinkable. It had the latest technology of
its day. It had been built with the intention that it will survive the hazards
of the sea and yet it hit an iceberg and within two and half hours it was down
on the ocean’s floor,” he said.
He said “we have to act intentionally, decisively,
methodically and if we do at the national level, I think we can avert a
national disaster,” adding “but also as people who are players in our national
life whether as pastors, educators, finance people we can’t afford to be
perplexed and so overwhelmed by what we hear, we see that we become frozen in
action and do nothing.”
Cedi
Fall
He said “much as I am a pastor and I believe in God,
and I believe in prayer that we can turn things around, the Cedi has a very
peculiar mind on its own. Much as I wish the Cedi would remain where it is and
improve in value, that scenario of ten to one is a possibility. I don’t wish it
or hope for it or expect it, but it can!”
“Instead of sitting here hoping that everything will
be alright, I think it will be great for us to face the reality that things could
get worse and if they do, what do we do? As much as we want to assume the best,
the worst could be happening.”
Deterioration
He said he had never seen prices go down in Ghana
adding “it seems as if we are on a permanent trajectory of deterioration. When
things go bad they don’t revert to normal so I find it very difficult to see
things getting back to normal based on my experience as a Ghanaian.”
“Since I am not government, I don’t control the
economy. I only respond. Some people make those decisions then I respond. If
they make good decisions good for us, if they make bad decisions I still have
to respond. I still have to move my ship. I still have to move on and still try
to rescue a few and save what I can save.
He encouraged business owners saying “it may be choppy
waters in the future but you still have to move. You still have to be decisive!”
Business
as usual
As usual the NDC appointees have started attacking
the Pastor for expressing his views about the current state of affairs in the
country.
Dr. Edward Omane Kofi Boamah, Minister for
Communications told Joy FM that
though he is hesitant in touching what he called ‘God's anointed’ he believed Pastor
Otabil’s position was unfortunate.
"I have a limitation here; the good book says
touch not my anointed. But the kind of picture he is trying to paint is
unfortunate.”
He said he saw "a certain push which if we are
not careful may create the kind of situation he is trying to paint" in
Pastor Otabil’s message.
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