SAKAWA UPDATE-PROSECUTE LYING SPIRITUALISTS

The government of Ghana has been called upon to prosecute religious and spiritual leaders whose deceptive behaviors,actions and inactions causes long term psychological damage to individuals,families, communities as well as tarnish the image of the country. This call was made by the International office of the International Centre for African Culture & Arts in New York and Virginia,USA, in a reaction to reports and radio discussions on Hot FM and Peace FM today (08/25/09) in Ghana about some young men who are reported to have turned into snakes in their pursuits for spiritual wealth commonly known as " Sika Duro" and contemporary called Sakawa.

The news of the Sakawa snake story was first introduced to the public in the latter part of July by the radio station Peace Fm during their programme, Eturomu Wosum. Then, all except three of the Ghana's 156 community radio stations took up the story and gave it their own twists. The story took Ghana by storm and in homes, offices, schools, churches, mosques and everywhere that people congregate, the most discussed topic was on this Sakawa infamous story.

In our most recent blog introducing Accra based radio station, Hot FM's community development's programme presenter, Wisdom Nyansaboakwa, we mentioned about the investigations on the story that his Nsem Pii team were undertaken to verify the truth or otherwise in the whole Sakawa story. Their findings was that there was no truth in the story and that it was suspected that the story was a cooked up one by somebody looking for self-promotion and or glorification.

In today's talk shows at both HOT FM and PEACE FM, there was nothing to believe about the story. With the turn of events, many questions needed answers, prominent among them is about who is behind this cooked up story? Many callers to the programme expressed their disgust, anger, displeasure and disbelief at the team responsible for a national and international deception and disgrace of our country. One of the leading people associated with the story, one Alhaji Fatawo was interviewed on Peace FM and his answers left no doubt that there is something in the soup. We are no judges but listeners had their own answers and made their own inferences.

Why would some spiritualist make up such a puerille story? Are there laws in Ghana that can prosecute people who deceive the public through their speech, actions and behavior?

With so many negative stories coming up against the work of some of unscrupulous religious and spiritual leaders these days, isn't it time that the government step up its communal policing role and to protect the masses from public deception, unneccessary panic and abuse of public trust in religious leaders?

It is against this background that the offices of the International Center for African Culture & Arts and its partner in Ghana, the Centre for Human Development & Social Change are appealing to the government to prosecute anyone who is guilty of mass deception. Ghanaians need to be treated better.