On Pastor Mensa Otabil’s clarion call to Ghanaians to overthrow the State.
By NDC Norway
We read with chagrin the neoliberalist outbursts of Pastor Mensa Otabil on Albert and Comfort Ocran’s Springboard roadshow (see Ghanaweb, 17 February 2016). Apart from underscoring the religious arrogance that some filthy rich religious leaders in Ghana are wont to display as tin gods, Pastor Otabil’s exhortations are an undisguised and scathing attack on the social democratic ideals that the National Democratic Congress in Ghana stands for: reduction of social disparities in health, education, and the equalisation of opportunities. Such social democratic ideals are under attack all over the world from a fundamentalist Christian, tea party inspired, and American led neoliberal crusade against humanity. True Christian values of social equality, humanitarianism, and solidarity with the disadvantaged have gone to the dogs, trampled upon by faceless and insatiable businesspersons disguised as men of God. No doubt, they have commercialised Christianity beyond recognition, living off their gullible followers.
What Pastor Otabil really means:
Neoliberals like Pastor Otabil refuse to accept the existence of a social entity called “society” in which one can identify a common good, and social values which members of that society share, and which they strive to achieve. Rather, their emphasis is on an individual with a free will propelled through life by the sole aim of ‘self-interest’, ‘self-consummation’ or ‘self-realisation’. We call it self-aggrandisement. What informs neoliberalism is the social Darwinist notion of the ‘survival of the fittest’, the winner takes it all mentality, which is contrary to our African traditional communitarian and solidary values. Neoliberalism is anarchistic in nature, a throwback to the Hobbesian state of nature, of all against all, and a call to undermine the “Social Contract” which undergirds the State. It is a call for the State to end its intervention in the so-called “free market” and other important spheres of life such as education, health and the provision of other basic social amenities, giving a free hand to rabid capitalists to exploit unabashedly the less advantaged in society.
While unrepentant neoliberals and capitalist religious archconservatives like Pastor Mensa Otabil would question the legitimacy of the State as the guardian of the common good and demand that the State stops “monopolizing” and “hijacking” businesses from its citizens, they would quickly add, as the NPP Pastor did, that the State becomes an “enabler” for private entrepreneurs. They would like the State to retreat, but also be at their disposal at the same time, such that when the so-called “invincible free hand of the market” fails them, they can rely on the State to come to their aid, as the Obama administration did during the financial crisis in America in 2009 followed by capitalist European governments. The neoliberalists would like to have handouts from the State, but would deny the common person the same privilege. Such is their hypocritical double standards. They would like to eat their cake and have it.
Legacy of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher:
Calls such as those from Pastor Mensa Otabil are not new. He was just parroting heartless neoliberals like Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher of infamous memory. More than any other leaders in the capitalist world, these two eccentric personalities helped to create an almost insuperable condition of social insecurity and suffering in their countries, which reverberates throughout the world even today. They dismantled social welfare and health provisions by the State to the disadvantaged and disenfranchised, relegating them from the status of citizens to that of noncitizens and social outcasts. Those who for one reason or the other are on social benefits are denigrated by neoliberals as lazy, ignorant and uncultured welfare scoundrels who fail to cultivate their skills and lack the human drive and acumen to succeed in life. For neoliberals ride on the back of the poor, hate common people and deride them. Parallel to the dismantling of welfare and social provisions for the poor is a huge expansion in the prison industry. Prisons all over the world have become warehouses that keep under lock and key the human debris that result from the stringent neoliberal policies that Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan orchestrated during their rules, and which Pastor Otabil is calling for in Ghana on behalf of NPP.
The degeneration of Pastor Mensa Otabil and religious leaders:
Why has Pastor Otabil, a man of humble beginnings, degenerated into a spokesperson for those who would like to rape Ghana by overthrowing the State? In the 1980s, Pastor Otabil preached against the very few Ghanaians who were filthy rich who he claimed hid behind high walls with “Beware of wild dogs” signs on their gates. He blamed them for being selfish. Where and how does Otabil live today? In opulence and behind higher walls, with wilder dogs and wild security men.
Religious leaders like Otabil are making it big in the so-called incompetent system that they think Ghana is. Like vampires, they suck out the last cedi from their credulous congregants in the name of God and invest the wealth they have amassed in businesses. They live glamorous lives under the pretence of God’s blessings and benevolence. They wear expensive suits and live in multi-million dollar homes. They put pressure on their congregants through their pulpit exhortations to amass wealth and do the same. What they preach is the new Prosperity Theology or the Gospel of Success. They spout a mellifluous and charismatic message: God desires His followers to acquire riches, experience vibrant health, and live comfortable lives. “Name it; Claim it!” is their mantra. And the number of goodies God doles out—whether in the form of a lucrative job, an increased bank account, or even physical healing—depends entirely upon your faith (often shown by how much you’re willing to give to the church). “Sowing a seed,” is the euphemism they use to make you empty your pocketbook. This Gospel of Success results in a misplaced hope, a skewed reality and wishful dreaming. So today in Ghana, the more churches sprout like mushrooms, the more the moral decay in society. Precisely, because religious leaders preach more about money, and encourage their followers to amass wealth than against the moral decay in society. For the more wealth many of their followers amass through their nefarious activities, the more they pay in tithes and thanksgiving to make Atonement for their guilty consciences. They have dragged the masses from the traditional churches that provide the education that has brought some of us thus far in life.
What do we see today in the field of education? Most religious tycoons like Pastor Otabil have ignored basic and junior secondary education. They prioritise investment in higher education where there is more money to be made. And they charge exorbitant fees. Central University, Otabil’s business, is the most expensive university in Ghana. Mind you, if you have little fee arrears from the previous term, you have to pay extra charges. Most of us got our education at Presbyterian, Catholic, Muslim, and Anglican schools based on values that were different from what the charismatic Christian churches are preaching today. Many will argue that religious tycoons like Otabil are philanthropists who give scholarships to deserving poor students and support other social causes. That is exactly the notion of the “trickle-down effect” that is part of neoliberalism. The notion is that if the State enabled rich people or the upper classes to get richer, they would become benevolent to the lower classes. In other words, when the rich get richer on the back of the poor, they are able to turn around and give away 1% of their wealth to those they have exploited in order to show the world that they are not selfish after all. We challenge Pastor Otabil to tell us the percentage of his enormous wealth he spends on the poor in Ghana. He should tell us where he got his wealth from in the first place, if not through church collections, and exorbitant fees he charges at Central University.
Go to Tema harbour, and you will see the number of container loads of goods and building materials that get tax and duty exemptions because they belong to churches. So if you want to import luxury cars and other items, just get a well-known pastor, pay him or her some few bucks and bam! you get everything duty free. That is how they live off the State. We are believers too, but the atrocities that are taking place in Ghana in the name of God is just appalling. Therefore, Pastor Mensa Otabil is right. We need a Revolution in Ghana. Not the kind of neoliberal capitalist revolution he is calling for, but a moral one that will eradicate the kind of daylight robbery charismatic churches like ICGC are committing in Ghana.
NDC and the common good:
One thing is clear, however, which Otabil and his NPP cohorts cannot deny. Indeed, Otabil is right. In the midst of the moral decay in Ghana today, the NDC government has been able to build more roads and other infrastructure than any other government since Kwame Nkrumah launched his five-year development plan. Today, Ghana can boast of new and improved public school facilities, especially for pupils in basic and junior secondary schools whose parents cannot afford to send them to expensive private schools Pastor Otabil is calling for. Schooling under trees is almost over. The “dumsor” that plagued Ghanaians for many years, even under President Kufuor, is over. Pastor Otabil cannot deny that. Powerful forces are undermining the Mahama administration’s efforts to curb corruption in Ghana, but the government is unrelenting, and the international community is noticing it with admiration. The NDC government has chalked many successes that NPP apologists of religious and other persuasions would like to derail. Yes, some mistakes occurred along the way, but the government has learnt from them. NDC will continue to invest in people, in Ghanaians, and continue to rejuvenate the economy. All in the name of the common good and in solidarity with common Ghanaian men and women. NDC’s ultimate aim is to create a Ghanaian society similar to those in the Scandinavian countries, where belief in the State and equalisation of opportunities are paramount.
Therefore, Pastor Mensa Otabil can go to Hell with his neoliberalist NPP and unchristian demagoguery!
NDC Norway.
