President Mills Decries the Ominous Charlatanry of Bishop Obinim

What a shame that the Ghanaian version of political correctness seems to demand that no politician touches or speaks ill of the church and his or her pastors. This absurd intellectual and political weakness by our corrupt and myopic politicians has provided considerable advantage to numerous charlatans to masquerade as pastors or Men of God. To the discerning Ghanaians and me in particular, this is unexaggerated political incorrectness bordering on the inability of the Ghanaian leadership to manage the affairs of Ghanaians in particular, and the Blackman in general. Hence, the question, "Can the Blackman manage his own affairs?"

The ongoing ramifications of churches with silly names are unprecedented in the annals of religion. Some dubious characters have come to see the setting up of churches as the easiest way of acquiring wealth, fame and power. The congregation is their cocoa farm, so to speak. As crooks as most of them are, they have trained in the art of divination by securing satanic powers from fetish priests. They perform their so-called miracles in the name of Jesus but they are actually not of Christ.

Look at the recent bizarre occurrences in Ghana involving pastors of all questionable shapes and forms of character. Not long ago, one pastor going by the nickname, "Jesus One Touch" was sleeping with his own ten-year old daughter. His nefarious libidinal or lustful activities with the daughter became public knowledge when luck evaded him in the end. They arrested, charged and sentenced him to a term of imprisonment. Another pastor by name Rev. Vaglas Kanco defrauded a British woman of £120,000. The court has jailed him for 18 months. Today, it has become a public knowledge that one pastor Obinim has been making love to his colleague's wife resulting in pregnancy and birth of a baby-daughter. He has also publicly boasted of casting an evil spell on the innocent daughter culminating in her absolute vegetative state. He boasts of rubbing his hand in the victim's head, ruffling her hair, touching her legs and sole to render her infirmed. These are just but a few instances of the prevailing deplorable nonsensical acts by our modern day Ghanaian pastors. Yet these seemingly devil- incarnates still have a large following. Are they not themselves equally guilty of sins as their pastors?

For how long are our Members of Parliament, government and judges going to sit doing nothing decisive to reverse the tide while the pastors take us mental, physical and spiritual hostages? For their crazy crave for wealth, they ensure that their congregation attend church service seven days a week. They organise crusade upon crusade. They make awful lot of noise about what they are able to do just to win over the weak minds in a bid to defraud them of their little money. Have our politicians ever thought about the adverse effect the numerously mushrooming churches with the attendant seven days and nights church service having on the economy? If yes, how do they plan to resolve the canker? How do we as a nation become productive when the citizenry have been enticed or brainwashed to frequent church all week long? Ghanaians spend most of their time at church than at work or at home. No wonder we are always hungry with a tray in hand begging for alms in the sensible Whiteman's land. No wonder though we are in the midst of plenty, we still live in abject penury.

China was clamping down on what they perceive as illegal churches about three weeks ago. No wonder China is without external debts. She is the largest creditor in the world with more than enough money to lend to needy nations by which action they may eventually control most countries either directly or indirectly. China unlike Ghana, believes in strict professional work ethics. They believe in productivity hence not letting fake churches to obstruct their pursuit of economic super power. Why is Ghana allowing herself to stagnate if not retrogressing socially and economically by the activities of our so-called miracle-delivering pastors? For the tithes and other obligated money offertories, the pastors would always and at all times want to see people flock into their churches.

Our politicians should please wise up. We cannot continue to wallow in stagnation and stupidity, as does a pig that wallows in its own shit. President Mills is likely to be peeved at the recent bad revelations about the pastors and churches he so relies on to achieve his "Better Ghana Agenda"

The so-called charlatan pastor Obinim for having touched the child with the intention to harm her, and has harmed her should be prosecuted. His own confession for having harmed the child is more than enough to cause his arrest, prosecution and see this fake pastor's arse in jail. Prof. Bondzi Simpson, the founding Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Cape Coast asserts how successfully possible it is to prosecute Bishop Obinim in his submission on the subject as published on Modernghana.com on Saturday, 13th August 2011.

Our politicians should please make a promulgation banning most of the shamelessly springing up mushroom churches and fake pastors. They should also make a law to regulate attendance to church service thereby helping to spare would-have-been wasted man hours spent in churches. It is about time our politicians saw the threat of hunger, social and economic decadence in perpetration by our "Sakawa" pastors. This has nothing to do with infringement on their human rights. If curtailing the excesses of these fake pastors, wastage of time spent at church services are infringements on people's rights to worship, then so be it.

Rockson Adofo