The Power of Prayer?

Prior to the December 2024 presidential election, the then National Democratic Congress presidential candidate, John Mahama, announced that if he became president for the second time, he would institute a national prayer day.

His stated aim was to bring together all Ghanaians – Christians, Muslims, followers of African Traditional Religions and other minority religions, as well as religious ‘nones’ – to express gratitude and seek divine guidance for the country as it travels through uncharted waters in a volatile and fast-moving international environment.

It will be recalled that the then president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, announced soon after he became president in March 2017, that he would build a national cathedral to the glory of God.

This would fulfil a promise he made to God to construct such an edifice if he won the 2016 presidential election after two failed attempts.

Today, more than eight years later, it is clear that things have gone awry in relation to Mr Akufo-Addo’s plan. There is no realistic chance that a national cathedral will be completed any time soon, if ever.

The national cathedral project is one of the targets of the Mahama administration’s Operation Recover All Loot (ORAL) initiative.

There is concern that some of the estimated $58 million of taxpayers’ money already spent on the national cathedral project is not properly accounted for.

There is nothing tangible to show for the expenditure, except a huge crater in a plot of valuable land in central Accra, previously occupied by state buildings, judges’ homes and financial firms. 

Ghana’s putative national cathedral was imagined as a sacred space for all Christian Ghanaians, a focal point of national religious services. It was also intended as the home of a ‘Bible museum’, a national conference centre, and, according to Dr Paul Opoku-Mensah, Executive Director, National Cathedral of Ghana, since November 2017, the national cathedral would become a major tourist attraction, earning the country millions of dollars.

National Day of Prayer

President Mahama’s recent announcement that July 1 is to be a statutory Public Holiday, a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving, may be an imaginative response to the debacle of the national cathedral. President Mahama stated that the July 1 holiday would ‘correct’ a decision made by a previous administration.

This removed Republic Day from the list of national holidays.

By linking July 1– the ‘day [Ghana] cut ties with colonial rule’ – to a ‘National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving’, a time for all Ghanaians, regardless of faith, to come together in gratitude and reflection’, President Mahama was indicating a focal point of national prayers without the massive expenditure required to build a national cathedral.

President Mahama's proposal to designate July 1 as a National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving might seek to reinterpret a significant date in Ghana's national story.

Once celebrated as Republic Day, marking Ghana's full severance from colonial rule in 1960, July 1 had, in recent years, faded from official observance.

By restoring its importance, President Mahama appears to be offering Ghanaians a unified reflective space rooted in gratitude rather than monumental expenditure.

Unlike the national cathedral initiative, which emerged from a singular promise and became an opaque and costly top-down project, the proposed National Day of Prayer and   Thanksgiving may look to a more inclusive, pluralistic form of observance.

Crucially, the day is not framed solely in Christian terms. President Mahama’s stated intent is to include all religious and non-religious communities: Christians, Muslims, followers of African Traditional Religions and those with no religious belief.

In a religiously diverse nation, this approach suggests a conscious effort to imagine national spirituality, not through bricks and mortar, but through shared values and participation.

Whereas the National Cathedral was conceived as a Christian space, even if intended to serve national functions, the proposed National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving emphasises broad-based inclusivity.

The principal actors in this context may not be solely religious leaders and government officials, but also ordinary Ghanaians from all walks of life who choose to gather in churches, mosques, shrines, community centres or simply pause in their homes for quiet reflection and the giving of thanks.

The shift is significant: rather than dictating a singular form of national religiosity from above, President Mahama’s idea enables all citizens to express their own forms of devotion, hope, and concern for the nation’s welfare.

It is, in effect, a decentralised model of sacred observance.

Contrast

This distinction between top-down imposition and bottom-up participation is crucial.

The National Cathedral, though initially cloaked in national rhetoric, never garnered widespread support, especially as costs ballooned and promised benefits from tourism to moral uplift remained unrealised.

In contrast, a National Day of Prayer, modest in cost and symbolically rich, may well resonate with citizens, precisely because it reflects a more grounded and accessible form of national unity.

In sum, President Mahama's initiative is not only about spiritual values but is also a subtle critique of past excesses.

Whether it endures will depend not on politics alone, but on whether Ghanaians themselves embrace it as their own.

This is a lesson to current and future political actors about how to approach the issue of national monuments and institutions. 

The writers are an Emeritus Professor of Politics, London Metropolitan University, UK and a Political Scientist.