Voice from Afar: Ghana must be resurrected

Author: K.B. Asante My people of Kwahu are right in celebrating Easter with more gusto than they mark Christmas. Birth with all its mysteries leads to life. Can death then wipe out this great life into oblivion by one gasp of breath? As we bring the Easter festivities to an end, therefore, let us maintain our vision of the life eternal and abandon that existence which begins and ends with self. Let us promote the good life through our offspring, those around us and humanity at large by rescuing our country from the unfortunate depths to which it has sunk. Ghana must be resurrected! At Achimota I was fascinated by the South Pacific volcanic eruption of Easter Island when the art master dwelt briefly on the islanders’ burial platforms and their surrounding statutes. The islanders appeared to take death and burial as seriously as we take them in Ghana. I then read about Christmas Island but became unhappy. The island was said to be discovered by a Dutch admiral on Easter Sunday in 1722, hence the name. I asked myself: “Did not the island exist before western adventurers?” I was not surprised about what I subsequently learnt because if you discover or find something out of the blue, you use it as you like. And this was precisely what happened. Easter Island was annexed by Chile in 1888 after the inhabitants had been converted to Christianity. Thereafter, the natives of the island were confined to one village where they had 5,000 acres of land for subsistence farming. The rest of the island with 30,000 acres of grass-covered land was leased to a company for grazing of sheep and cattle. I was surprised that a country named to commemorate the victory of life over death was bled to oblivion by human greed. Today, I wonder whether our country is not bleeding through the short-sightedness and greed of our own people in high places. It is difficult to understand what is happening. The majority of the country appears to be devout Christians. And our Moslem brothers and sisters are also strong in their faith. Is it that we practise the outward forms of our belief with its rites and shows to the neglect of deeper meaning? I am afraid there is a great deal of evidence to suggest that some priests or religious leaders mislead the people for gain. As life gets burdensome, they promise not only redemption but riches. “The Lord will provide”, they say. “You give and He will replenish what you contribute 10-fold”. Stories about the fleecing of the poor are difficult to believe. It appears that it is not only the little-educated who run away from facts and succumb to the natural characteristic of wishful thinking. One example will suffice. An organisation with many big brains and professionals has started constructing a building. It now appears that it does not have enough funds and has no plans nor capacity for raising the extra money required. Apparently some are relying on faith. “If you have faith it can be done”; “with God everything is possible”, they appear to argue, even if they do not come out explicitly. Yes, we need faith. Yes, we can do a lot with determination and confidence. But you cannot get money out of empty or unwilling pockets. Good analysis and planning are necessary. It is after one has used the brains and hands given by God that one can confidently ask for the blessings of the Almighty. And so let us move forward with the real Easter spirit. Lying, cheating and stealing may lead to abundant life but they kill the soul. Misleading the poor and underprivileged destroys the innocent life. The country is poor, under-developed and appears to be sinking because we favour the immediate and not the future. Ghana has a great future provided we work for it. Ghana must be resurrected! Credit: K.B. Asante/Daily Graphic

Editorial: The quest for a Better Ghana

Sunday, Christians all over the world celebrated the most important event on their calendar — the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead — which forms the very foundation of the Christian faith. Indeed, for Christians, the resurrection is significant for many reasons. First, it is one of the major pieces of evidence that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; second, Jesus’ resurrection represents an assurance that we have forgiveness from our sins. As Paul contended, “If Christ hath not been raised from the dead, our faith is futile; we are still in our sins” (1 Cor 15:17). Third, the resurrection tells the world that the Kingdom of God is ruled by a living sovereign and, fourth, Jesus’ resurrection proves that physical death is not the termination of human existence. God, who is the Giver of life, has power to reanimate the human body and Christ’s triumph over the grave is Heaven’s pledge to us that we too shall be raised some day. The fifth significance and perhaps the most powerful is that the Lord’s resurrection previews the ultimate victory of Christianity over all its enemies. Sadly, however, we continue to grope in the dark, despite the huge price of redemption paid for us by the Lord Jesus Christ and the great assurances that come with it. Wars, famine, poverty and man’s inhumanity to man seem to have eroded any confidence in the future. The story on our continent is no different and Rev J. N. N. Ocquaye of the Grace Baptist Church, Sakumono, hit the nail right on the head in his sermon on Sunday when he traced the woes of Africa to failed leadership. In terms of resources and endowments, Africa is blessed with all the resources that make for greatness — human, material and ecological. A continent so well endowed has actually no business with poverty. African history has been one sad story ever since. So why has Africa consistently failed to engineer an escape from poverty? Why is Africa a cauldron of conflict, wars and death? Why is Africa entertaining a forlorn, dysfunctional and conflict-ridden conglomeration of failed states in its geo-polity? Why does Africa sustain the last frontiers of hunger, ignorance and disease? And why has it failed woefully to contrive a road map to a more prosperous existence for its teeming population? Everything comes back, again and again, to corruption and misrule. Instead of galvanising the people for peace, development and progress to reflect the very nature of God, majority of our leaders only exhibit greed for power and wealth, to the detriment of the people they govern. Our dear nation is also not without teething problems. Economic, educational and social issues aside, our chieftaincy institution, which used to be the centre of a cultural showpiece, is now gradually grinding into disarray. From Bawku in the Upper East Region, through Yendi, Bimbilla and Buipe in the Northern Region to Tuobodom and Techiman in the Brong Ahafo Region, as well as many coastal towns in the Greater-Accra and Volta Regions, are hydra-headed conflicts that do not make for peace and unity. But no matter how appalling the situation may appear to be, we cannot throw up our arms in despair. That is why the Daily Graphic thinks that all of us — as a people and as a nation — must resolve here and now to use this year’s Easter celebration to mark a turning point in our individual lives and in the life of the nation at large. No freedom comes without a price. And just as God allowed the shedding of the blood of His only begotten Son for the purchase of humanity’s freedom, so must we be prepared to give our all to change the destiny of our dear nation. In our quest for the better Ghana agenda, no sacrifice must be too big or too small for anybody. Let us, therefore, from this moment straighten out all spheres of our lives for the betterment of the nation. For, together we swim or sink. Credit: Daily Graphic/Ghana