As I sat in one of the back pews at the Accra Ridge Church on, Thursday, September 5, 2024, as a participant of this year’s, Pastors’ and Christian Leaders’ Conference under the theme, “Transforming Ghana: Discipling The Nation”, I just kept thanking my colleague from Trinity Theological Seminary who invited be for the Programme.
Under the auspices of, Challenge Enterprises of Ghana, the well-attended four day Conference was guided by Apostle Jude Hama and Brother Gbile Akanni.
While focusing mainly on consciously discipling Christians to evangelise for the Kingdom of God, a core aspect centered on consciously working on fishing out transformational God-fearing Ghanaians who can lead the Motherland on growth trajectories of Righteousness and Justice – the foundation of the Throne of God.
As it is, Ghana is fast-approaching the December 7, 2024 General Election and as a, Politician, Nationalist, Statesman and Theologian, I have been gluing my ears to the current talk about the need to forcefully “attack”, Hate Speech, Misinformation and Disinformation.
Hate Speech is none other than, a very conscious and deliberate moves to put out extremely discriminatory information (often loaded with falsehood) in various forms (especially using new media), aimed at humiliating, insulting, and directing vile venom at the target person/s.
In as much as the Hate Speech orbits in the realms of partisan political party interests, the phenomenon of the Hate Speeches arrowed in the direction of State Institutions and the actors within the Institutions is where the heaviness of the canker is weighted.
The dark-hearted agenda of some political high-ups to consciously feed on the ignorance/innocence of their addicted followers, is what worries me as an active participant within the political stratosphere of the Republic of Ghana.
There is no gainsaying the fact that some leaders of political parties have made it their stock-in-trade to always hang their failures on State Institutions – feeding their cultic followers with hate information in order to create the appetite for the blood of such Institutions and the targeted
actors within the Institutions.
It is no secret that in the homestretches, it is the Electoral Commission and the Ghana Police Service in particular, that become the main targets of the hate speeches.
The issue of hate speeches destroying nations is deeply rooted in scripture. In Proverbs 11:11, it is written; “By the blessing of the upright the city is exalted, but is overthrown by the mouth of the wicked”. Also, Proverbs 18:21 has it that, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits”.
Both scriptures explicitly capture the fact that destruction is a product of what the mouth is allowed to put out without let hinderance. In like manner, life, is also a product of the mouth.
Why allow hate speeches to destroy the nation – especially when it is not a national desire but the desire of a few?
Hate Speeches, if allowed to fester unchecked, has only one end; to steal, kill and destroy the peace of the nation. As it is borne out of evil and sadistic inordinate desires for political power, the perpetrators of such acts fit directly into the biblical text of, John 10:10, “The devil comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly”.
As the devil seeks to destroy, it is incumbent on the nation to be alive to the machinations of those who seek to destroy our peace for parochial political gains, and shout aloud to expose them so that Mother Ghana can have “life and have it more abundantly”.
It is extremely critical that all genuine players in the nation-building sphere ensure that there is a safeguarding of the information ecosystem to sustain information integrity.
Hate Speech, has become an “Oppressor”, and per the words of our Anthem, we must “resist oppressor’s rule with all our will and might forevermore”.
Without peace there cannot be any form of development so we all have a collective responsibly to ensure that those who want Ghana to burn, are shunned.
Amen!
Samuel Koku Anyidoho
(Founder & CEO, Atta-Mills Institute).
