Former President John Dramani Mahama has criticised the act of praise-singing people for their wealth without questioning the source of their riches.
He says the very morals and “value of cleanliness” that characterised the Ghanaian society has been eroded, including the communal assistance that propelled the wellbeing of humanity.
“So the question one must ask is, what happened to our value of cleanliness? What happened to our value of being each others keeper, where communal assistance to each other on our farms and in other tasks that we had to undertake were easily available,” he asked at the National Development Conference organised by the Church of Pentecost at Gomoa Fetteh in the Central region Wednesday, July 26, 2023.
The 2024 flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress expressed concern over how the obliteration of the moral fabric of society that has made mankind celebrate people for their wealth without recourse to the source.
“What happened to our abhorrence of greed and thirst? Why do we celebrate persons who today are wealthy with dubious sources of income and yet society is not concerned about what the source of income is and is only about the person’s wealth,” he lamented.
The former President who is a student of history stated precedents of polities that collapsed as a result of losing their moral and ethical values.
“Ethics have a direct impact on national development and as a student of history I can say unequivocally that in history, all civilizations that have fallen have done so after they lost their moral and ethical compass.
“It’s our prayer that Ghana continues to maintain its moral compass in order that we can continue to ensure national development, prosperity and dignity for our people,” he prayed.
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Meanwhile, Chairman of the Church of Pentecost, Apostle Eric Nyamekye, speaking at the same event charged politicians to think about the welfare and future of Ghana rather than thinking of winning elections.
According to him, politicians see the problem people go through in this country, yet refuse to take the bull by the horn because of elections.
He said it was time politicians forego the present pleasures and the thought of winning the next elections and rather build a better future for the unborn generations.
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“This is what most politicians fear to do. We don’t have to live for four years. We will achieve nothing. If we are living for four years, four years. The Protestants, they lived with the next generation in mind. So sometimes instead of disturbing the present to have a better future, they think of the next four years, [and] they stop,” he stated.
Speaking further, Apostle Nyamekye bemoaned the daylight suffering of the masses that politicians have turned a blind eye on, failing to address them because of the fear of stepping on toes to affect them in the “next elections.”
He asked “how many of us don’t see women lying down on the streets of Accra selling on the roads? Three lanes, one lane is for the market women. Nobody wants to talk and when the NPP decides that let me push them back, his fellow colleague will call him, remember, next year is election. If we don’t stop these things, we’ll not change this nation. How can we live for just four years and for the next election?”
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He maintained that, the future of Ghana is determined by the decisions of today.
“This nation that we have received has come from our forbearers. We should also live for the next generation not for the next four years.
“The future is determined by the present. What we do today, will give us a better Ghana or otherwise. We can begin creating the future today if we want to,” he size.
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