Fetish priests hijack advertising industry

Spiritual healers have now taken over the advertising industry by erecting large billboards across the country to promote their businesses.

From larger structures to miniature signposts, the traditional priests and priestesses, mallams are competing for space with churches and the business community along highways, advertising their shrines and services which include career success, wealth, good marriages, booming business, as well as problem-free visa acquisition.

Highways including Accra-Nsawam, Nkawkaw-Kumasi, Koforidua-Abetifi, Koforidua-Bunso, Kasoa-Cape Coast and dusty-pothole-filled rural areas like Kasoa-Bawjiase are lined with such billboards. Advertisers Association of Ghana says the minimum cost of producing a billboard is between GH¢3,000 and GH¢80,000.

On the Accra-Nsawam road, one such noticeable billboard is that of Nana Kwaku Bonsam. Nana Bonsam’s billboard standing defiantly on the Accra-Nsawam road, describes him as a “powerful spiritual man” and “the great authentic man.”

The billboard, which has two pictures — one with the spiritualist in priestly regalia and in a trance and another with him in a black smock and riding a black horse – lists his litany of services to include seeking vengeance and solutions to bareness, stalled promotion, debt, madness, spiritual attack, marriage problems, poverty, and impotence.

On the same road, not to be outdone by the intimidating Nana Bonsam’s effigy, there is Nana Ababio, who tags himself the spiritual father and provider of all spiritual problems.

Those adverting themselves in the Islamic fold are Mallam Ibrahim, who tags himself as ‘wonderful man; Mallam Musah, the spiritual and herbal last stop; Kunfayakun Herbal Spiritual Centre operated by Sheikh Dr Black and White; with a rather tall list of remedies for all manner of physical and spiritual ailments. Others on the Accra-Nsawam road include Hare Krishna Temple and Mallam Zacharia Ibrahim.

On the Kasoa-Winneba road, there is a long chain of billboards belonging to Alhaji Baba Fear God, Nana Atia Yaw and Nana Oboanipa, Bobivi Kwame among others.

While some spiritualists have received applause for their efforts in sometimes exposing people in search of quick money, their stock in trade is faith-based healing and, sometimes, magic which preys upon the gullibility of their wealthier followers and the desperation of the poor.

The messages of healing, miracles and prosperity easily find sympathetic echoes among a populace down on the economic ladder. With the vulnerable at their mercy, the emphasis is on good life, an antidote to the despair that thrives in society outside the walls of their shrines.

The spiritualists are not advertising their trade only on billboards. They are deploying all forms of technology including radio and social media. Nana Bonsam for instance has close to 3,864 friends on facebook and a website, www.kwakubonsam.com.

That, according to Nana Bonsam, had become necessary because “as society changes you also have to change. As we speak, the Internet is changing the face of communication in the world. We cannot continue to rely on the past and expect it to make any difference.”

“In the past, all these did not exist so our forbearers limited themselves to small corners. We need to expand our frontiers and bring the African traditional religion to our young people who are losing their heritage to foreign cultures because of the myths surrounding the religion. There is no better way to do it than through technology,” he stated.

Gboloho Nyame Bekyere, a septuagenarian spiritualist on the Kasoa-Bawjiase road, whose giant concrete signpost bearing a snake wrapped around a mermaid, shared the same sentiment with Nana Bonsam.

The acclaimed specialist in madness, marriage and any spiritual attack said: “If you are hidden somewhere without being seen, this signpost is the best means of announcing your presence.”

Asked about whether the billboard is licensed, Gboloho Nyame with a high-pitched laughter and a loud tone said: “We don’t do anything illegal here. I am not a con man and won’t do anything that will break laws and send me behind the walls of Nsawam.”

A Social Anthropologist Lecturer at the Ghana Institute of Journalism, Mr Frimpong Manso, observed that spiritual healers have taken over billboards across the country because of social change, fuelled by the increasing influence of the traditional and new media.

He continued: “Another reason could be that the spiritual leaders have come to realise that some of the so-called men of God derive their powers from them and then go out there to publicise themselves. So why don’t we tell the world about our prowess?”

He said while the larger society saw the phenomen as strange, there was nothing wrong or strange about the situation as “they are operating within a social context.

“They also study society and what society wants is what they provide,” Mr Frimpong said.