“By the Grace of God!” is probably the most beloved Ghanaian expression. That Grace is what supposedly allows all the good that happens in a Ghanaian life to happen.
My friend, the writer, and publisher Nana Awere Damoah put it best when he wrote, “The best health insurance policy in Ghana is the Grace of God”.
Are we Ghanaians the only recipients of this Grace?
I doubt it because aren’t we all humans supposed to be God’s creation?
If so that Grace is showered on all and makes good things happen everywhere!
Some countries and people apparently are getting a lot of this Grace. Some have so much of this Grace of God, they even lend us some!
Is this God that unjust and unfair that he distributed this Grace in such an inequitable manner?
Maybe this so-called Grace does not exist!
Or maybe you get what you demand of this Grace.
Maybe you get what you ask for, demand for work for, even beg for, borrow for…
Maybe you even get what you steal!
Ask the men and women who are living in opulence in Accra from money they stole from the coffers of the country how they are doing today and I bet you $100 the answer will be, “Nyame adom oooo!” (By the Grace of God!).
Ghanaians woke up yesterday to the news that the Bank of Ghana (BoG) was creating the Consolidated Bank Gh. Ltd to take over five struggling banks in the country – Sovereign Bank, Royal Bank, The Beige Bank, Construction Bank and Unibank. The five banks had run into liquidity challenges. I guess when the owners of those banks made it a practice to steal from their own banks and customers, they made those banks illiquid. When those who were supposed to watch these institutions went to sleep on the job, these banks were destined to fail.
Interestingly, at those times when these owners were flush with the cash they had stolen from their banks and customers, if one had asked them how they were doing, they would have answered with a smile, “By God’s Grace”.
As the Bank of Ghana spends taxpayer money to bail out these banks thus depriving the common Ghanaian of things like ambulances and schools, ask the Ghanaian how he is doing and he will reply, “By God’s Grace”. The same Grace that allowed these bankers to steal is also making Ghanaians apparently docile and accepting of such financial crimes.
The poor and destitute live by the “Fa ma Nyame” (Give it all to God) ideology and hope for an eternal life that comes after this miserable interlude. An interlude that they’ve been made to believe does not matter and whose misery they accept, happy with the droplets of that Grace that fall on them occasionally.
The powerful, the politicians and bankers also chant the “Fa Ma Nyame” mantra and claim they believe in a better life after this one but they go a step further. They make sure this life is NOT miserable. If they have to steal from the coffers of the nation to do that, they do. If in stealing they leave a lot of Ghanaians poor, destitute, hungry, uneducated, without healthcare, drinking water and power, it matters not. It is all “by the Grace of God!’
In 1555, the preacher John Bradford saw a criminal walking to the gallows somewhere in England and uttered these words:
“There but for the Grace of God goes John Bradford”.
Maybe when the powerful who steal from Ghanaians see the suffering masses that is what they say to themselves in the comfort of their air-conditioned V8s.
Maybe these powerful men, these politicians, and greedy bankers need to realize what happened to John Bradford – he was burned at the stake months later. That Grace failed him! Or did the Grace summon him to that eternal life?
Whatever the case is, I hope the people of Ghana will realize that one gets the amount of Grace one demands…or steals!…and demand their fair share of this Grace!
