Ghana Looks Into History To Hear From God

 By Banji Ojewale

Ghana, Black Africa’s oldest independent nation, is preparing for two landmark events in 2026 and 2027. In 2026, the Black Star land will be looking decades back, recalling 60 years after the tragic overthrow of the legendary Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, its founding president.

*Mahama

Then, in 2027 Ghanaians and the international community will celebrate the 70^th anniversary of the country’s bold and befittingly blistering break with colonial servitude. The one sought to kill the foundation for a different approach to governance adopted by Nkrumah in a world weighed down by imperialistic paradigms. The other, an unforgettable African narrative scripted by Africans, will bring back the story of how one country triggered the revolution that consumed the Western imperatorial order imposed on the continent since the 19^th Century.

Ghana is going to be ground zero for the two international events, and, remarkably, John Dramani Mahama, an Nkrumahist, who was elected president last year and took the oath of office early in 2025, will host the celebrations. He has repeatedly said his centre-left National Democratic Congress, NDC, administration is committed to the full rehabilitation of Nkrumah and what he stood for: people-centric politics and governance and Pan-Africanism.

The Ghanaian leader is anticipating a momentous feast, as it were, to honour the country’s history, and to give a hint that better days await Ghana and Africa on account of the efforts of the past and the present.

But President Mahama contends that his compatriots must be grateful to God for seeing their country through tumultuous seasons, sparing it a collapse and extinction during the locust years of devastating military rule, and making it to now rate among leading African nations in such critical indices as security, education, health, economic development, youth and female employment, urban renewal, rural facelift etc.

 Mahama, a devout Christian unfettered by bigotry, is arguing that God must be acknowledged as a strategic Partner in the enterprise to turn the Ghana dream into a reality. The country can’t remain locked in history; she mustn’t be a genie trapped in the bottle, helpless, idle, watching storytellers prattle about a receded greatness. She needs to be unclasped from the idyllic existence of the past. Mahama is telling his people that there must be Divine input to breathe in comprehensive success, not only to the forthcoming events, but also to his Reset Ghana Project.

 So on the first day of July this year, the president brought the Church and the state together at the forecourt of the State House in Accra, the capital, for the maiden edition of the National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving.  In ways far more than a symbolic gesture to prove his point of seeking God’s intervention in Ghana’s march into the future, he reached for the land’s giants of faith and told them that the peace and stability their nation has experienced over the decades have been enabled by the loving ‘’mercy and grace of the Almighty God’’.

The Ghanaian leader said: “This Thanksgiving Day is not just about ceremonial rejoicing, but it is also about returning thanks and reaffirming collective trust in God, who has brought Ghana this far…Every peaceful sunrise, every healing, every act of kindness in the land is not by Ghana’s strength alone, but by divine hand of providence…Ghana’s success story—its peace, stability and resilience—must be understood as a gift from above, and not a product of mere human effort…We are here to say thank you  to the Almighty God through His beloved Son.’’

He went on to dismiss claims that a nation’s durability lies in its skyscrapers competing with the clouds or in its humongous budgets. No, Mahama ruled. “Ghana’s strength lies in the virtues of its people—honesty, discipline, compassion and courage. It is in these quiet strengths that Ghana’s true power and destiny reside.’’

*Pastor Kumuyi

These are noble principles largely disavowed by the mostly materialistic people of the world, but cherished by lovers of humanity, peace and sincere worshippers of the true God. The dearth of these attributes in the home, workplaces, schools etc. has led to the moral mayhem threatening to decapitate society.

So, one after the other, the clerics who gathered at Ghana’s National Day of Prayer Thanksgiving said all Ghanaians must go back to God for healing and a transformed spirit required for the reordering of their nation. As the citizens peep into their golden past, it would make them lean on Heaven for help to rediscover the treasures of the lost age.

But to the consternation of the crowd at the State House, one churchman stepped forward after praying to give out hundreds of free copies of Daily Manna, the devotional book authored by Pastor William Folorunso Kumuyi, the founder and General Superintendent of Deeper Christian Life Ministry, DCLM. Universally revered for his holiness stand, discipline and muscular scholarship, Dr. Kumuyi transfers all these characteristics into the daily devotional teachings. The National Overseer of Deeper Life Bible Church in Ghana, Pastor E. K. Tumsiah, made the presentation to the Thanksgiving Day participants. Dr. Tumsiah said the "generous contribution reinforced Deeper Life Bible Church’s commitment to national transformation through prayer, godly living and dissemination of sound Christian literature.’’

Now, isn’t it fascinating and instructive to note that the theme for meditation in the Daily Manna of July 1, 2025, (the Thanksgiving Day in Ghana) was also about transformation? Kumuyi wrote: “The important lesson here is to speak progress, advancement, productivity and fruitfulness into our lives and families. We can begin the reconciliation process and help bring healing and progress to our world by releasing our hearts to be transformed by grace through Christ’s blood.’’

Incontrovertibly then, the true Church, as an apolitical institution, but operating dynamically in a milieu of other levers of the machinery of state administration, can meaningfully contribute to the national agenda. It can throw in moral and spiritual arsenal the world needs to balance the development of citizens, so we don’t get headed for a cul de sac, a perilous point of no return, where all you’d be exposed to are a leadership and citizenry forever sentenced to a pursuit of antisocial activities.

*Ojewale is an author in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria.