God is law (2) - Law of national governance
Ghana is in distress. The national debts are mammoth.
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The physical environment is devastated and woeful. Joblessness is eating up people. Financial stress is breaking up marriages and driving people out of the country. Crime has risen. National development has stagnated.
How have we managed the nation that we are in such a direful situation?
In answering this question, we shall look at some prime requirements that a nation must satisfy if it is to progress and attain wealth and development for the citizens.
Already, we have established the Bible as God’s Constitution for the governance of humanity, so that shall be our reference point.
Ghana proclaimed its 1992 Constitution with these words: In the name of the Almighty God. After that proclamation, what next? As a nation, have we formally committed ourselves to God? Ghana prides itself in saying it is a secular nation! Do we know the implication of that statement?
The foundation of Ghana’s multifarious problems arises from the absence of a national ideology that defines our relationship with God who established our nation. No one should be so naïve to mention democracy!
Kwame Nkrumah established Ghana on the basis of Marxist materialism, and that is still the guiding spirit of the nation! When Ghana commits to God formally, then Deuteronomy 11: 1 shall supervene:
Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.
When that is done, then and only then would the results confer blessings on our nation. Because Ghana has not committed itself to God, we do not have the confidence of conviction of what is right and acceptable to God, and what is not.
The nation has hesitated to outlaw LGBTQ in Ghana! This shows folly and national cowardice! It’s a big shame!
Thanksgiving
Again, on account of Ghana having not formally committed itself to God, we have not designated a Day when the nation would express gratitude to God for the natural endowments of Ghana, and for the relative peace and other blessings Ghana have. The tendency to take things for granted was voiced by American President, Abraham Lincoln in these words:
"It is the duty of nations, as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God. . .and to recognise the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord. . .
(Proclamation of April 30, 1863, for a nationwide day of fasting and prayer)
What God expects of Ghana in thanksgiving is stated in Isa 12:4-6 (NIV): Give thanks to the LORD, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done.
The universal acknowledgement and exaltation of God as the Creator of the universe, and the God of mercies, takes our mind off the fact that the universe and humanity are governed by laws; that God is a God of Law, and Law is Order, and by laws have the universe been managed all these innumerable years.
Judicial integrity
The administration of justice in Ghana is of great concern to God. He says at Deuteronomy 16: 19-20: “Do not pervert justice or show partiality. Do not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and twists the words of the righteous.
Follow justice and justice alone, so that you may live and possess the land the Lord your God is giving you.”
Bribery affects the quality of justice administered in the country. When the sense of what is just, or right, or fair, or conscionable is in doubt, the nation is weakened and the people become heartless and dishonest.
Politicians make promises that they break with impunity, and they go behind the scenes to compromise the law. The consequences are:
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So justice is driven back, and righteousness stands at a distance; truth has stumbled in the streets, honesty cannot enter.
Truth is nowhere to be found and whoever shuns evil becomes a prey. (Isa 59:14-15 NIV)
The high number of lawsuits in Ghana, and the slow pace of completing trials attest to the dismantling of trust in the nation, and heightening acrimony among the citizens.
As of June 2023, 3928 Appeal cases were pending; District courts had 30,016 cases, and, altogether, 130,262 cases had been filed for hearing at various levels of Ghanaian courts. (Judicial Service Statistics).
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Moral probity, leaders
The sanctity of leadership is defended on the thesis that leadership must replicate the divine leadership exercised by God. In other words, the leader is God’s servant on earth and, for that sake, he must manage the nation according to principles that find favour with God.
The President, for example, “must not multiply wives that would turn his heart away from God”; neither must he “multiply to himself silver and gold” (Deut 17:17).
And the reason is that Kings detest wrongdoing, for a throne is established through righteousness. (Prov 16:12 NIV).
Sound though this admonition is, when Ghanaian and African Presidents, along with their appointees, begin to amass wealth and properties, they imperil the nation and create great distress among the people.
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Some of Africa’s richest Presidents have gained much at the expense of their countries.
Examples are: Ali Bongo of Gabon, since 2009, whose wealth is estimated at US$2 billion, while his people live in poverty; Teodoro Obiang of Equatorial Guinea, since 1979 military coup, with wealth of US$700 million, and the people in poverty. Enough!
National support
I wonder how many citizens would associate themselves with the statement quoted here: that those in authority must be seen as servants of God, to whom we owe the loyalty of service and obedience. By these two standards the health and stability and ultimate progress of a nation are assured. (Romans 13: 1-2 NIV).
The contrary state of disunity, chaos, bloodshed, and the multiple damages that accrue to a nation should then be viewed as various stages of deterioration flowing from departure from the principles of loyalty of service and obedience to a government.
We are bound to the inescapable derivative from the assertion that God is Law by seeing God in everything we do and judging ourselves by the degree to which we conform to, or depart from, the law inherent in every situation of experience.
The writer is a lawyer.
E-mail: akwesihu@yahoo.com