Time for moral vision to propel nation — Apostle Nyamekye
The Chairman of the Church of Pentecost (CoP), Apostle Eric Nyamekye, says it is time to develop a national moral vision to serve as a platform for national development.
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“A nation with conflicting values cannot meet its intended development aspirations.
“It is a fact that everything rises and falls on the leader, but it is also true that the character of the people a leader supervises will determine the leader’s success or otherwise,” Apostle Nyamekye said in an exclusive interview with the Daily Graphic yesterday.
“When the people a leader presides over do not uphold values, achieving success as a leader would be difficult to attain.
“Why didn’t Moses, Israel’s greatest leader, enter the promised land?
The character of the people.
Why did the whole high priest, Aaron, make for Israel a golden calf to worship?
The pressure from the people.
Why was he prevented from entering the promised land? The people,” he said.
Speaking on a wide range of issues of national importance, including how the country could negotiate the current economic situation, Apostle Nyamekye said no leader would enter his envisioned “promised land” if the people were unwilling to go there.
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“So, for us to really see development as we desire, we need to pay attention to the kind of people we want to become in future,” he said.
When asked about the release of the second tranche of the support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said “it is a positive development and bodes well for the country’s efforts at economic development”.
Democracy
Apostle Nyamekye explained that democracy must centre around the citizens in a manner that the country’s developmental goals and political manifestos met the needs of the people.
He stressed the need to incorporate good moral principles into the concept of national development to produce citizens of good character to help drive development.
“We are not by this saying that infrastructure development, technological advancement and others are not important. No!
“We think that the key to a nation’s development lies in the character of its people, and that a nation does not rise in development above the character of its citizens,” he said.
He added that the most important factor in the development of a nation was the nature of its citizens, in the shape of their character, values, competence and commitment to the course of the nation.
To establish strong institutions and structures, the Chairman of the CoP said the country’s citizens must abide by principles such as working with dignity, patriotism, respect for all, contentment, integrity, kindness, love, among others.
“Moral principles are fixed.
They do not change with every new event or situation.
Moral principle is a compass forever fixed and forever true; and that is important in business as it is in the classroom,” he added.
Apostle Nyamekye said the discipline of living by these values must be intentional in order to result in behavioural change.
That, he said, would create an environment that would be hostile to corruption such as bribery, over-invoicing and under-invoicing, pollution of water bodies and air, deforestation, immorality, deviant sexual behaviour, false judgments, among others.
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“Legislators keep enacting laws, and that is good. But laws in themselves do not solve a nation’s problems, but laws are interpreted by human beings and, therefore, the character, the values, the competence and commitment of the judge to the course of the nation is as important as the law before them,” he said.
Religion
The Chairman said religion provided the opportunity for deep spirituality and morality, stressing that these were essential for national development and salvation.
He added that as a highly religious country, it was important to make an intentional effort to translate the religiosity in terms of practices of the external customs, rituals and traditions of a religion into morality.
Referencing the Biblical text in Proverbs 14:34, which states that: “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people”, he said “righteousness” in the passage did not necessarily refer to an individual’s right standing with God, but rather adhering to God's moral standards as found in His Word, evidenced in the values, principles and lifestyle of the Kingdom of God.
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