Bukom Banku
“There’s no heaven, don’t mind anybody,” Bukom Banku has said, moving his hand as if swatting a fly.
He spoke on Accra 100.5 FM's Ayekoo Ayekoo with Nana Romeo.
The former professional boxer and comic challenged: “If there is heaven, which path or road will you take to get there?”
“When you die, no one sees you going to heaven,” he stressed, arguing: “Heaven is not at the top.”
He posited heaven as “what follows your children when you die because of your good deeds”.
In his view, “when you die, you are simply dead, you won’t return” and “they won’t judge you to bring you to where they are so you disturb them”.
He disputed that visions and hopes of walking on streets of gold in heaven are ridiculous, best likened to the comic TV hit Concert Party.
He offered his thoughts on the nature of God, favouring what seemed like a pantheistic view.
“God is not at the top or above. God is me and God is you,” the man born Braimah Isaac Kamoko said.
He borrowed from the Bible to support his view, citing the first page which teaches God created mankind in his own image.
“It was the spirit speaking, in that instance,” he added, arguing the moment God, “the spirit,” made human beings in his image, he became one and indistinguishable from them.
“God is a human being. I don’t understand people who say God is in the sky. God is not in the sky in the morning nor evening time. There’s no heaven. If you die, you’re dead. You’ll go and someone will come replace you. If you are not dead, someone else will not be created. There were boxers before me who are dead, I will also die in the same way, my son Tilapia will follow and others will come,” the occasional TV personality pressed his point.
Also, Bukom Banku emphasised there is no judgement day or judgement in death: “God has no time for the dead.”
He advocated following in the ways of God as expressed in the 10 Commandments of Moses in the Bible.
“If you do evil, you’re a Satan. If you do good, you’re God – it is what the Bible says,” he underlined, claiming: “The Bible says, ‘The voice of the people is the voice of God’. If you believe in God, you can speak to the mountains and they will move. However, we are selling our power to Satan. That is why when we cry to God, he does not listen.”
“If you follow the Bible, and the 10 Commandments, when you call for food and money, they will come,” he encouraged.
The 1999 All African Games (South Africa) bronze winner admitted he has lived a life of sin before but has changed.
He posited, that instead of going to a place of worship to ask for forgiveness, one must rather ask the person they offended for forgiveness.
“How do you slap someone, leave them and go ask God for forgiveness?” he quizzed. “You seek forgiveness from the one you slapped and then God will forgive you. The voice of the people is the voice of God.”
He added if one seeks forgiveness and it is offered in deceit, “the person who deceitfully offers forgiveness and secretly plots evil will suffer the consequences”.
Bukom Banku said he is well-versed in the Bible and the Quran. Upon questioning, however, he admitted: “While I do Sallah, my stomach does not permit me to observe Ramadan’s fasting.”
He explained it was not a medical barring him “but the moment I wake up, I begin to shake as my body craves food”.
