Pastor Otabil: Ghana lacks vision, good leadership

Pastor Mensa Otabil says Ghana’s leadership lacks a clear idea to guide the country’s vision and development.

“…If you come to me as a Ghanaian and you say what does Ghana want to achieve in the next 10 years, I don’t know, do you?” Dr. Otabil asked his congregation on Thursday night in Accra during his Church’s 2013 Greater Works Summit.

According to him, “somebody will say well, but there’s a government document so and so and so and when you look at the government document and the English and the grammar that has been used, you have to read about a 1000 pages to get one idea, but there’s no one simple idea that is on the lips of every Ghanaian as to where we want to get in 10 years or five years”.

“So if the nation doesn’t have such a simple message for everybody that is coherent with our aspirations, how do you expect the people to willingly follow,” the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) General Overseer lamented.

He observed that Ghana’s lack of a simple clear vision or idea as to what the country wants to achieve in the short or long term is not a peculiar situation on the African Continent.

“…I’m sure the same goes for Nigeria or Ivory Coast or most African Countries; they may have an idea - I’m not saying our leaders don’t have an idea - but the idea is so sometimes too academic and sometimes the idea is not clear; you don’t really know what they want to achieve but they want us to participate,” he observed.

Pastor Otabil, who was teaching the congregation about good leadership qualities said: “If a pastor wants to build a Church, he’ll come and say we are going to build a 2000-seater auditorium, which becomes the mantra on the lips of every member of the congregation.

He used that analogy to draw the contrast between what, in his opinion, is better leadership within the Church than what pertains at the national level.