We Are Jokers – Otabil

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Created on Monday, 03 March 2014 00:00

We Are Jokers – Otabil

03 March 2014

The General Overseer of International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensa Otabil is not amused about the way in which national issues are reduced to jokes.

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“We’re polluting ourselves. We have issues we can’t solve. We have problems we can’t solve. We are overwhelmed all around us yet we have a lot of time to joke and to laugh and to act as if this is the most normal environment to live in.

The motivational speaker was addressing the 2014 Spring Board Road Show Convocation as part of the church’s 30th anniversary in Accra over the weekend.

Pastor Otabil wondered why Ghanaians create jokes out of very serious issues and by so doing, belittle very weighty matters.

Without directly mentioning the DCE who recently said ‘Tweaa’, the pastor said “one District Chief Executive makes a comment which we should be angry with, but it has become a national joke and we just carry on and on and on and I’m wondering ‘what is wrong with us?’ Can’t we for once be serious and face life and stop joking?”

Pastor Otabil encouraged the youth to depart from the generation of jokers and rather become thinkers in order to make an impact.

“So my challenge to the young people here is you have to take life seriously, especially when you are an African. If you are an American you can decide to joke. If you are a Chinese you can joke a bit. If you’re British you shouldn’t be joking because their Kingdom is coming to an end. If you are European this is a bad time for you. If you are a Chinese, Indian, Asian; this is a good time for you. If you are an African you should be frowning,” he said.

“And you have to think and you have to stop allowing yourselves to make serious things appear funny because it looks like one of the ways to satisfy us is to just give us something to entertain ourselves with and we’ll entertain ourselves with it for life.

He said “in a nation where people cannot take charge of their destinies and turn their future in a different direction, there must be something wrong about the people and how they see life and how they see their own goal in life.

Don’t Beg Foreigners

Speaking later at the commemoration of the church’s 30th anniversary celebration at Accra Sports Stadium yesterday, Pastor Otabil said, “Not all help is good help. Actually some help can cripple you. Sometimes I wonder whether as Africans we have allowed ourselves to be crippled by our overdependence on foreigners.

“Instead of pushing out of our cocoons by ourselves, we beg for others to come help us. In the process we have become a crippled people. Look around us and see how we have crippled ourselves like that butterfly. Our farms are crippled. Our rivers are crippled. Our environment is crippled. Our industries are crippled. Our schools are crippled. Our local talents are crippled, yet we look for some help from outside,” he said.

“We fail to see that the more we look up to others, the less we see of the strength that God has given to us. I believe it is time for us to push out of our cocoon and we have to do it ourselves.

1957 versus 2014

Pastor Otabil also said that the country had retrogressed since the attainment of independence.

“I don’t think this is the Ghana that the people of 1957 were envisaging,” adding that “the Ghana of 1957 worked better than the Ghana of 2014.

“It worked better. At least we knew how to deal with sanitation in 1957. We didn’t have toxic waste dumped on us in 1957. We knew how to clean our compounds. We knew how to wash our compounds. There were sanitary inspectors who made sure things were right but we don’t have them any longer,” he regretted.

By William Yaw Owusu

Source: Daily Guide