The Head of Political Science Department at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST, says comments by the renowned Minister of the Gospel, Archbishop Duncan Williams, suggesting that the cedi’s fall is spiritual is most unfortunate.
The General Overseer of the Christian Action Faith International Ministries, Archbishop Nicholas Duncan Williams in a Sunday Church service led his congregation to pray fervently for the cedi, commanding the currency to halt its fall against major trading currencies.
The highly revered Arch Bishop’s prayer comes on the back of a significant dip in the value of the cedi since the beginning of the year. The cedi, which begun its year’s trading at 2cedis 40peswas now trades at 2cedis 60pesewas while the Pound Sterling which went for 3cedi 80peswas now trades at 4cedi 20pesewas.
In earnest, the General Overseer directed the church to lift up the Ghana cedi as he declared “I command the cedi to recover, that the cedi will not fall. I command the cedi to climb. I command the cedi to resurrect; I declare a miracle for the economy”.
President John Dramani Mahama, the Finance Minister Seth Tekpeh and the Governor of the Bank of Ghana Henry Kofi Wampah were not forgotten in the barrage of intercessions as innovative ideas and massive breakthroughs were requested from the heaven for them.
The devil’s interference in the affairs of the President and the Central Bank was zealously exorcized. The Archbishop’s comment appears to have been met with condemnations as his critics are of the view that the depreciation of the cedi cannot be given spiritual connotations.
One of the critics, who believe the Archbishop’s prayer is an exercise in futility, is the Head of Political Science Department at the KNUST, Dr. Richard Amoako Baah. Analyzing the cedi’s depreciation on ‘Help Line’, a programme aired on Ultimate Radio in Kumasi, he said the Archbishop’s prayer was an exercise “made in futility“.
“It’s kind of comical in the country where we can even pray for the Ghana Airways to resurrect and now the cedi is being commanded as if it were a person walking on the streets and when you tell the cedi to rise up, is the paper suppose to stand up or what?” he wondered.
He says attempting to address such physical issues with spiritual connotations “makes no sense“. He indicated that although spiritual things were real, some amount of logic and reasoning should be applied in making such public entreaties.
“If God put us here to be doing these things, then what is the point in giving us a brain? The cedi is depreciating because there is pressure on the supply and demand for the dollar. More Ghanaians want the dollar and people right here in Ghana want to convert their cedi accounts to dollar accounts, businesses are operating in dollars and imports are swelling and this is simple economics. Are we now going to pray to change the economics of the country”, Dr. Baah questioned.
He said pastors of such caliber just want to draw more attention to themselves by saying the things people want to hear and by so doing discredit their offices.
Dr. Amoako Baah opined that it was time Ghanaians tackled tangible issues more realistically and moved away from praying for everything without doing the needed things to turn around the country’s fortunes.