Obvious prophecies, our national blind spot
The nation is still reeling from the sudden loss of our eight gallant statesmen in the recent helicopter tragedy.
In the wake of their passing, a new wave of controversy has gripped our public discourse: the debate over prophecy.
The latest development comes from the Office of the Presidential Envoy for Interfaith and Ecumenism, which has urged all religious leaders to formally submit any prophecy or spiritual insight of national significance to its office for urgent review.
Since the incident, we have witnessed prophet after prophet stepping forward, claiming to have foretold the tragedy.
Social media has been flooded with videos of “evidence”, prophetic declarations supposedly predicting the event.
The narrative is the same: the signs were there, but the warnings were ignored.
This renewed attention to the prophetic ministry in Ghana is not surprising.
Ghanaians are a deeply spiritual people, and in times of crisis, we naturally search for divine meaning.
But amid this frenzy, I am compelled to ask: Why are we so eager to hunt for obscure prophecies while ignoring the obvious ones?
Let me point to a prophecy that does not require dreams, visions or cryptic revelations; one that is already written plainly across our land and water bodies.
If care is not taken:
• Ghana will be importing water in the coming years because illegal mining, galamsey, is destroying our rivers and streams beyond repair.
• We will see more children born with deformities due to the poisonous mercury and cyanide used in galamsey operations.
• We will lose our cocoa production, as galamsey destroys fertile cocoa-growing lands, eroding a key pillar of our economy and foreign exchange.
• Our farmlands will fail to yield enough food, leaving us dependent on imports for our daily bread.
• Our fish and aquatic life will vanish, leaving entire communities without their livelihoods.
• We will face mass displacement of rural communities as farmlands and rivers become unusable, forcing migration to already overcrowded cities.
• We will witness an increase in deadly landslides and flooding, caused by the reckless excavation and removal of natural vegetation.
• We will suffer the collapse of local tourism in areas once famed for their natural beauty but now scarred and polluted beyond attraction.
• We will see a spike in health crises such as kidney and liver diseases from contaminated drinking water.
• We will inherit ghost towns, areas stripped of resources, abandoned and left uninhabitable for generations.
The galamsey menace is not a hidden danger; it is a national wound bleeding in plain sight.
This is a prophecy we can already see unfolding, not in a vision, but in the muddy waters of the Pra, the Ankobra and the Offin; not in a trance, but in the bare, scarred earth where lush forests once stood.
And here is the most sobering part: if this prophecy is ignored, it can lead to a national disaster beyond proportion because it is the lives of over 30 million Ghanaians at stake.
What could be scarier than this?
Why, then, do we chase after dramatic predictions of disaster while turning a blind eye to the warnings we can see, touch and measure today?
True prophecy is not meant to entertain; it is meant to guide, to correct and to prompt urgent action.
Evaluate
As a nation, we must not only evaluate the authenticity of prophecies about the future but also respond to the glaring prophetic messages that confront us daily in our polluted rivers, depleted forests, disappearing cocoa farms, poisoned farmlands and collapsing fishing industry.
If we ignore these “obvious” prophecies in search of sensational ones, we risk fulfilling them to our own detriment.
The tragic loss of our eight statesmen should remind us that life is fragile and leadership is a sacred trust.
May their memory inspire us not only to pray and prophesy but to act decisively and responsibly to end the galamsey menace and secure the future of our beloved Ghana.
The writer is the
Headmaster, St. Thomas Aquinas SHS,
Cantonments, Accra
