Ghana needs change agents as leaders - Methodist priest
A Priest of the Methodist Church, Very Rev. Kofi Owusu, has stressed the need for selfless leaders who will act as change agents at all levels to make for the socio-economic transformation of the country.
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He said the citizenry had a lot of expectations, and that it was the prayer of all that leaders would exhibit Christ-like qualities such as sincerity, truthfulness, honesty, humility and faithfulness.
Very Rev. Owusu of the Gethsemane Methodist Church, Baatsona, near Tema, who said this in a sermon, admonished leaders against appointing people who were not capable into responsible positions only for them to mess up.
That, he said, was very retrogressive and affected the orderly and systematic growth and development of the nation.
His sermon was on the theme: “Building a new nation in Christ” as captured in Isaiah 43: 18-19. He told the Calvary Methodist Society at Community Three, Tema, to do away with the old things and focus on new things in order to progress.
Ghana, he said, needed change agents moulded in the likes of Daniel, Nehemiah, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa and John Wesley.
Limitation
Very Rev. Owusu said it was not always appropriate to make the good old days a guide, as it only served as a limitation.
He advised Ghanaians to disabuse their minds of the wrong notion that being mediocre was Ghanaian and said the Ghanaian was not only intelligent and knowledgeable but capable of being counted among the elite in the world.
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He then asked of the whereabouts of the Limanns of today who would resign from their lucrative jobs abroad and come and serve their country in an apparent reference to Dr
Hilla Limann who returned to Ghana from his diplomatic service abroad to contest for the presidency and became the president of Ghana in 1979.
He told a story of a man who attended an interview for the position of chief executive of a company. This man had finished with the interview and just when he was about to be discharged, a panel member invited him to ask a question if he had any.
The interviewee asked them about the period that the company had recorded losses and the period the panel members had been executives of the company.
Be bold
When he was told that the losses had been recorded for three consecutive years when they were all at post, he looked straight into their eyes and told them they had failed the company and did not deserve to be there. This notwithstanding, the panel members recommended him for the job.
Very Rev. Owusu encouraged Ghanaians to be bold and approach issues as they were, adding that “it is only when we do this in spite of the unemployment situation in the country that we can build a better Ghana”.
On this year’s general election, he asked Ghanaians to refrain from voting based on slogans and rather elect leaders capable of running the nation, adding that “Ghanaians should not allow themselves to be influenced by petty gifts from politicians as they are all part of corruption that bedevils the nation.”