The Death of the Heroes and the Lies of the Prophets

This week has witnessed the most significant tragedy in the history of Ghana since the killing by firing squad of the eight military officers (including three heads of state) and also three judges who were murdered and burnt beyond recognition.

In this tragedy, some of our best leaders have perished in a virtual conflagration, just like the metaphorical conflagration that bedeviled the country on June 4, 1979; and also December

31, 1981. This government is the successor and an assign of those eras of pogrom and chaos!

And if you look at the foregoing context in which I am casting these facetious innuendos, it is possible for you to make all kinds of superstitious allusions and fictitious allegations . And that is why this period is a field day for our prophets. Their power derives from the misfortune of the nation. When blood is wantonly spilled in any bizarre incidents or accidents, that is when their power thrives and flourishes, and that is when they reap their profits as prophets.

And for a nation that has not done anything meaningful to alleviate superstition through proper education, all forms of concupiscent remedies are prescribed. Our school system does not train us in cause and effect, or in rational or logical sequence of thinking. So our stock in trade is to believe without cause. And our people have not yet worked out the statistics of these prophecies to find out which of them imminently fail, and which of them are accidentally or coincidentally fulfilled. Because if they do, everything will turn out to be predictions based on the instincts and common reading of events and even the gossip and rumors in town. So even where these prophecies are fulfilled, their fulfillment has nothing to do with God or spirituality but simply happenstance and coincidence.

But more bizarre than the so-called prophecies themselves are the remedies prescribed by the prophets for the propitiation of the Gods. One of them has recommended the release of Evangelist Mama Pat (the Reverend Doctor Agradaa) to appease the wrath of God whose fiery anger upon the nation has been rekindled by the incarceration of his con-woman. Another recommends the sacrifice of a herd of cattle to quell the displeasure of the God. While others have invited individual politicians in the country to their shrines or sanctuary for directions to avert other imminent disasters which the God has gratuitously planned upon the head of the leaders of the country. All these are not withstanding the prayer sessions collectively organized by the state to supplicate the good favors of the godhead. Even promptly after assuming office, the President himself knelt before a convocation of the priesthood to commemorate his mandate from God and to solicit his blessings therefrom!

Nothing is new here. In the Bible, whenever the prophets wanted to be powers behind the throne, they always concocted their prophecies and made sure that they conspired with hostile powers to make them come to pass. People overlook the actions of the Prophet Samuel who sabotaged the leadership of Saul and led to his eventual downfall. If you read the books of Isaiah, Ezekiel and Jeremiah, these books are a compendium of abominable curses of these prophets upon God’s chosen ones; and it almost always appeared that they were in cahoots of other nations to destroy Israel. Even Isaiah himself regarded a foreign power under Cyrus as the Messiah to both punish and pacify Israel, according to the uncertain temperaments of a preposterous God of limitless laws and wanton grievances. He could even send his evil spirits to fill these prophets to prophesy falsely, as in the case of Ahab when he inquired of God of the outcome of an impending war. See I Kings 22:19-23. So God can even instigate his own prophets to prophesy falsely!

Prophecy led to the near annihilation of the people of Israel insofar as it toxified the minds of the leadership with psychological trauma and the inferiority complex that led to their destruction. It is the same thing that is going to happen in Ghana under prophecy of these prophets that are prophesying to achieve their profits. Since the death of these good men who perished in a helicopter crash, videos upon videos have emerged on the internet with each prophet taking credit for the fulfillment of his or her prophecy.

There are some factors to consider as an initial matter: That these people that perished are among the best in our society is not under question or doubt. Of Dr. Boamah who was the Defense Minister, the record reflects that nobody ever accused him of any corruption or misbehavior anywhere. He was kind to everybody and humble beyond measure….A true wise man and a jewel within his society. He was the only child of his mother and the pillar of his family.

I never knew Dr. Murtala Mohamed very well, but since his death, I have reviewed his statements and found him to be a man without blemish: Honest, humble, devout and a true patriot of his country.

Of the rest that died tragically on that doomed craft, various degrees of accolades have been ascribed to their names as true servants of the nation, the crown jewels of their professions and the pillars of their families…..They were all great family men whose passing will wreak havoc on their families for sure!

Now contrast their exemplary character to that of these notorious prophets and mountebanks who now claim credits for their deaths and required these great men to consult with these charlatans to save their lives. Where do they come from? And what did they achieve in their miserable lives with any God to make them the chosen prophets to communicate the wishes of God? If they had passed their academic exams, then maybe they would have been lawyers or engineers or doctors; but no: they all became powerful for God because they academically failed in life. In fact they are known for their lechery and adultery, and the fleecing of the flock to gain money with which they buy nice cars and build beautiful mansions. So the wealth of the country is lodged in their pockets to use as they like, all in the name of God!

After they failed in the genuine endeavors of life, they resorted to hokum and fantasies and fraudulent rituals as an easy alternative to their wealth and power. And like lobotomized idiots, we have them tax free incentives to incentivize their rape of the nation.

We have their antecedents in the Prophet Moses, who after escaping a charge of murder, saw God in the wilderness as his pathway to power. He was angrily watching sheep and bewailing his fate when he saw God in a burning bush…. The rest is history. So is it the case that men begin to see God when they become hungry or frustrated due to their failure in life?

Moses was also prolific in his enactment of useless rituals and wasteful sacrifices: In the Book of Leviticus, there is a panoply of wild rituals of sacrifices that are scarier than that performed by Ajagurajah. The worship of God there is made of burning of livestock and foodstuff for the inhalation by the deity who was always angry and out to catch and kill the ancient Israelites.

In the end, that nation was obliterated from the surface of the earth without any trace. Because no matter what the people did, God was never satisfied. Eventually, he told them in Ezekiel 20: 23-25, that he intentionally lifted his hands against his own people, and gave them bad laws which he knew they could not obey and also bad edicts which he knew they could not fulfill.

The lesson here is to avoid the prophets like the ten plagues of Moses. They have never helped any nation on earth from the beginning of life. In fact if you read the Histories by Herodotus of Halicarnassus, there is the Oracle of Delphi known for its riddles as an answer to every question. Once King Croesus of Lydia consulted the Oracle to inquire whether he should attack Persia, whereupon the Oracle intoned that if he attacked that other nation a great empire would fall. Satisfied with the answer, that king elatedly attacked Persia, thinking that this other great empire was going to fall. It turned out that it was his great empire that the oracle was referring to. Croesus was soundly defeated and nearly burned alive!

The point here is that it is always a win-win for a prophet when he declares the oracles of God: If the prophecy comes true, he wins as having spoken the truth; and if the prophecy fails, he takes his credit as having performed rituals to avert it! Even if a prophet performs his rituals and still the tragedy occurs, he can conveniently excuse himself by concocting reasons why the propitiation failed.

So the simple fact is that a prophet will always win. And if so, why bother about what they say or do?

The problem is, if something is going to happen anyway, what is the purpose of knowing about it beforehand if you cannot do anything about it? The solution is simply to ban prophecy. If they see anything, they should keep quiet and buy their own ritual items to propitiate their Gods as an act of patriotism. Unfortunately, we are past the times when we kill these prophets, otherwise I would recommend this final solution; but it should suffice that we enact laws to silence them. They are causing fear and alarm in the country, and they will lead us to the labyrinthine quandary if we were to choose to follow their multifarious albeit delusional prophecies or directions.

We must accept the inevitability of fate as very strong stoics. There is no record on earth that shows that people die as the wages of their sins. The fool that wrote that the wages of sin is death also died eventually by being cruelly beheaded. And so did he also receive the wages of his sin? As human beings, all we should do is our very best; not because we want rewards or immortality, but because a clear conscience is worth the brevity of our lives instead of a long life of guilt. We can die peacefully or calmly or happily whether we do good or bad. In the same vein, we can die violently or accidentally or miserably or painfully whether we are good or bad. But we should be good whether we have rewards for doing good or not. That is the wisdom in life.

These brothers that have died did nothing wrong to die so tragically. And nobody can claim to know why they died. It should suffice that they died in their service to their country and to their people. If we go trying to explain why they died so tragically, we will be going in circumlocution until we also die miserably and uselessly.