Otabil is a pastor, businessman and politician - MP

The general overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Dr. Mensa Otabil, has three careers going for him namely; preaching the gospel, doing business and engaging in politics, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tamale North, Alhassan S. Suhuyini, has dissected.

In his estimation, he said, “I think Pastor Mensah Otabil is a politician, and continued that since the Man of God does the three, he should allow himself to be criticized or must not get offended when people criticize him as a businessman or politician, just as he blasts governments when they fail to take prudent decisions.

“The point I am making is that in the same light when people also make investment in Capital Bank and he together with his managers and other board directors, take decisions that affect their investment, just like he has the right to criticize managers of Ghana, he pays his taxes to, he should understand when people criticize him for the way he has managed Capital Bank, it’s only fair” he told host, Randy Abbey on Good morning Ghana.

The former radio host, was reacting to accusation by Pastor Otabil last Sunday that, people who themselves look like insult, went criticizing him, when a bank in which he had shares, was declared insolvent and taken over by the GCB bank, together with one other, UT bank on Metro Television yesterday in Accra.

The MP said, pastor Otabil in the past, had course to register his displeasure about how Ghana was being managed and he led the charge to criticize managers of the economy, which he the MP believed it was his right to do so.

He said “Why he [Pastor Otabil] should understand when people criticize him. We all belong to a nation called Ghana, let’s call it a corporate entity and we all pay our taxes so when the managers of our taxes are not doing the things that we expect them to do, he leads the charge, he criticizes them”.

He added that, in the same vein, if people invested in his bank, believed in his sound judgment but ended up rendering the bank bankrupt, then the people who trusted his judgment have the right to criticize him for bringing discomfort to them.

In the view of the legislator, Pastor Otabil, does pure politics sometimes with his utterances which he disagrees with but he is still a fan of his teaching of the gospel.

Though a Muslim, Suhuyini, said he respects and adores the preacher when he wears his Man of God jacket because aside teaching the word, he inspires, motivates his followers which he is part.

“Trust me unless I don’t have time, there’s no day I miss his preaching. In fact, I would walk into his shops and buy his CDs. That is how much I love his preaching. I am motivated by it, I have quotes in my notebook and research that I have done based on my fellowship of him even though I’m a Muslim.

I love him when he preaches the word, when he motives, and when he inspires. But I disagree with him when he does politics and I I’m free to, I’m allowed to and I see it when he does politics”, he said.

However he said, some people are unable to differentiate the three sides of pastor Mensa Otabil, which makes it difficult for them.

Suhuyini said, unlike those people, he is able to know when the pastor is doing pure business like the capital bank saga and he takes decisions that in the long run did not benefit the bank and its customer, doing politics or preaching the word.

“I’m able to differentiate my love for his preaching, motivation and inspiration from my disagreement with his politics I’m also able to see that he’s a businessman and he does business like it has just shown and he’s capable of also making bad decisions”, the MP said.

According to him, pastor Otabil, does politics when in the era of one government, a fellow man of God says the Cedi can be revived with prayers and he jumps into the fray and say that no, that is not it, but the issue has to do with lack of wisdom and not prayer.

The first time MP, continued that he knows Pastor Otabil, is doing politics, when he predicts that this year, the economy will grow in leaps and bounds and goes ahead to offer prayer for it to come to fruition then, he knows he is no longer wearing his pastoral jacket but has jumped into national discourse with respect to the economy.

“He says it is not a prayer problem, is a wisdom problem. He says it is because he has stake in the corporate entity called Ghana and he’s free to say that even though I heard that last week he said the economy will boom.

I remember another pastor praying for the Cedi and he said it’s not a prayer thing, it was a wisdom thing and that’s where I say that he I see him as a politician but yesterday he said the economy will grow in leaps and bound he prayed for that to happen good, but that’s the politics I see him do there”, the Tamale North legislator said.

However, the New Patriotic Party (NPP) MP for Assin North, Rev. Ntim Fordjour, who disagreed completely with his colleague said, as a Man of God himself, he s will with the biblical quotation that says that “Thy shall not touch my anointed nor do them harm”. According to him, it was a pledge he has made not to interrogate or criticize anyone doing the work of God be it Christian, Muslim or any other religion.