Don’t destroy our tradition with your abject hypocrisy; Mr President!!!

During last year’s independence celebration at the independence square, the pouring of libation which has always been part of our nation’s official events was conspicuously missing. Concerns were raised at the time and the reason given by officialdom and other apologists of the current administration was that “it was an oversight” and that the anomaly was going to be corrected so that it doesn’t occur again.

The issue didn’t end there as some self-appointed religious experts jumped into the fray with their characteristic ‘chop-chop’ noise-making and severely castigated our traditional religious adherents, describing them as backward and sticking to outmoded practices where people’s heads are chopped-off in the event of the demise of a chief. The whole issue of libation pouring was then misconstrued for the institution of chieftaincy and therefore took our noble chiefs to the cleaners.

But as expected, the chiefs couldn’t do much to defend themselves against the insults of these government apologists since their position in our Ghanaian society doesn’t always permit them to engage in senseless noise-making on the air-waves. A field day was therefore created for charlatans whose hate for the chieftaincy institution is borne largely out of jealousy and their questionable Ghanaian heritage.

At the time, the issue of the president’s personal knowledge in the whole affair didn’t even come up for discussion since the apologists succeeded in isolating him from the whole debacle with their highly skillful tongue-twisting cocophony.So Atta-Mills calmly slipped through a controversy he personally engineered and expertly executed because he claims to be the real “son of man” who descended from heaven in the year 2008 with a mission to rescue Ghanaians from economic holocaust.

He therefore has absolutely nothing to do with people who are of the Satan and therefore always engaging in adult worship by way of pouring libation. And since he didn’t want to have anything to do with people he sees as infidels, he put a scheme in-place to isolate our traditional practice and its faithful from all our national celebrations.

Ghanaians have short memory

Ghanaians have this amazing character trait that makes us so forgetful of our woes over short period of time. This is good, since it enables us to push aside our troubles and always forge ahead with confidence. However, this can also be very damaging in instances where there is the need to keep track of events that will remind us of our short-falls so we don’t repeat them.

And it is this legendary forgetfulness of the Ghanaian that brought about other bouts of arguments over pouring of libation at this year’s independence celebrations at the independence square in Accra. Personally, I never took part in those empty arguments over whether libation was allowed to be poured or not since I knew it wasn’t going to be allowed at the ceremony, anyway.

The skillful pretender

Saint Atta-Mills, for me, is the most wicked and skillfully pretentious human-being I have ever seen in my entire life. He will bite and suck your blood at night and come out at day time and put his arms around you. Indeed, Ghanaians have a JUDAS incarnate as their current president. And my reason for describing Atta-Mills in this manner is simple: this is a man who claims to be “father for all”, ‘asomdwee hene’ and a true replica of Jesus Christ. He claims to have no sin and that any wrong-doing attributed to him will crash to the ground and scatter!!!

Now, when he made the pronouncement that he was going to be the father for all, I believe he knew at the time that, per our nation’s constitution which made him a president, equally guarantees the right of all citizens to practice whatever religious faith they believe in. For this reason, the people of this nation expected him to ensure that every article of the constitution is strictly adhered to, even as he is religiously enjoying all the comforts guaranteed him by this very same constitution.

But when you are dealing with a double-faced personality as saint Atta-Mills, never expect equity. This is a person who claims to be a born again Christian but has no permanent place of worship. He has personally decided to alienate people he sees as ‘devil worshippers’ during state functions.However,he has personalities as Tony Aidoo,Kwesi Pratt etc., who hate Christians with every sinew in their bodies, as his close advisers. Tony Aidoo actually described all tongue-speaking Christians as “mad people” while kwesi Pratt described our clergy as “worse that armed-robbers”,yet,these are people whose gossips about others actually inform every decision saint Atta-Mills takes!!!

Okudzeto-Ablakwa’s folly

Samuel Okudzeto-Ablakwa who speaks for the government, actually quoted copiously from the holy bible to buttress the point that God abhors the practice of libation pouring(alhaji-alhaji,radio gold 10/3/12),and for me, he was simply speaking the mindset of saint Atta-Mills and for that matter, why the practice has been stopped at state functions. But what Atta-Mills and his ‘chop-chop’ bigots forget is the fact that the very bible they are using as their basis for locking-out our nation’s traditional worshippers at state functions, also does not recognize the Muslim religion.

So, why is Muslim prayer being allowed at state functions when the reason being adduced for the abolition of libation pouring also applies to Muslim worship?Indeed,if a leader can be this confused over such fundamental issues, then any wonder we find ourselves in this gargantuan socio-economic mess since!!!

Who is in-charge

"From what I know, president Atta-Mills is not in control and people are taking advantage of him. as such, my best advise for him is that he must resign in order to protect his image since the buck stops with him but many bad decisions are being taken in his name without his knowledge" - Prof.Frimpong-Boateng,fmr boss of the Cardio Centre,korle-bu('Ghana must know’, hot-fm 10/3/12).

Now, on that very same ‘alhi-alhaji’ programme on Radio Gold where Okudzeto-Ablakwa foolishly tried to justify saint Atta-Mills reckless attitude towards our nation’s religious freedoms, Kwesi Pratt also sought to blame imaginary animate or inanimate objects for the current cancellation of libation pouring at state functions. He copiously quoted Bishop Sarpong who, though a Christian leader, also supports the pouring of libation to support his argument.

Kwesi Pratt’s selective amnesia

He put on his chronic-selective-amnesia-cassock and skillfully forgot about mentioning saint Atta-Mills as the main architect behind this reckless act of denigrating the practice of libation-pouring which has been inherent in our nation’s custom since creation, not forgetting the fact that our constitution also guarantees the right of every citizen to believe in whatever they so desire.

Consequently, my question to Kwesi Pratt is simply this: who is currently in-charge of our nation’s governance and the chief decision maker when it comes to matters of national significance and highly sensitive issues bothering on religion? i’m posing this question just to know from Kwesi Pratt, what exactly would have been his approach to, and who would he have blamed for the current abolishing of libation pouring at state functions if Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo was the president? I REST MY CASE!!!

Justice Abeeku Newton-Offei

E-mail: justnoff@yahoo.com