MESSIAH IN GHANA

the new messiah

What glorious times we are in. Miracles we have been swirling in. with the new messiah in town, what could ever go wrong. I say new messiah because the country has been characterized by a school of messiahs. Right from the days of the Whiteman where the shooting of a gun was a miracle to the present day where floods water can be made to vanish just by the raising of the hand of the all known Asomdwehene into the skies calling for God's mercy. Such that there is this folklore of the Whiteman keeping a bunch of black chaps in a room and warning that anyone who attempts to leave would without mercy be shot by the gun which had been placed in front of the door. Naïve as the Blackman was as then, hordes of them asked to be excused from the ever mute gun.

To the days when Kwame Nkrumah and his CPP redeemed us from colonization of the Whiteman, many were those who worshipped at Nkrumah at his feet. And to them his kind of being had never been seen on this earth. No wonder people around Nkrumah were described as “the gaping sycophants”. But who could blame these men. Not many could speak English as fluently as the Whiteman and not many could fight for independence from our colonial masters.

From there we jumped to the days of Jerry John Rawlings where we even went to the extent of “synonymising” his name with that of Jesus Christ. Baby Jesus we heard many call him. He endeared to many hearts. To some, he was the best thing that had happened to the country. To the old women, how they wish all their men were as handsome as baby Jesus. Husbands were in a dilemma as they saw their wives overtly admire the pictures of a competitor they couldn't fight neatly pasted on the lids of their trunks. But just like his predecessors, his era also came to an end.

But the 21st century messiah prefers to call himself the Asomdwehene. There is nothing new under the sun; that is what people say. But trust me; the new messiah performs miracles that have never been registered in the holy book. The messiah said he is not ashamed that god is the president of this country and on another breath tells us he is the only president of this country; implying that he is God. These pronouncements didn't send a chill down my spine that when his anointed information minister Baba Jamal proclaimed and professed on radio that the messiah with his special powers hurriedly dashed to the Eastern Region upon hearing of floods that was causing misery and making a lot of people destitute. He went there not as it were to present relief items to the people but to rather enigmatically raise his hands into the air and shout gloriously on top of his voice, with the sun stubbornly scorching his ever magnificent face, ' father have mercy on your people”. What a sight it was to behold that magically all the water dried up and taxis had started plying the roads. Incredible Atta!

So when I heard of the mysterious tape that Baba Jamal is alleged to be heard on, with all the brouhaha over the authenticity of the tape, I asked myself, why these people don't just present it to Messiah Atta to determine whether it is really Baba Jamal whose voice is heard on the tape. I believe this would easily solve this problem spare some of us of the agony of the cacophony on our radios every morning. Messiahs do not normally come in handy so when one manifests his presence within our midst let us make full use of him.

Until then I raise my white cloth in solemn worship shouting “ALL HAIL THE MESSIAH ATTA”.

Authored by: Owura Kuffuor
Columnist
ghanagossip.com