Election'08 Exposes False Prophets

Following the declaration of the presidential polling results by the Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Afari Gyan, the legion of prophets who predicted one-touch victories for either Nana Akufo Addo (NPP) or Professor John Atta-Mills (NOC) have dived for cover.

Some Ghanaians want them to explain what went wrong with their heavenly-inspired predictions, or apologise for deceiving them.

Also in the hot soup are the myriad of spiritualists of all genre; astrologers, astro-physicists, professional and amateur star-gazers, voodoo practitioners, diviners and necromancers who took turns to prophesy one-touch outcomes of the presidential poll.

The biblical Witch of Endor who evoked the spirit of Samuel and prophesied the death of Saul and his sons, wouId be envious of Ghana's wealth of prophets and fortune-tellers if she were alive today. Tragically, however, Ghana can only boast of quantity not quality.

The Spectator hosted a good number of the so-called prophets and seers in past months and published a few interviews. At least one came with claims to a litany of prophecies he had made from the time he served a prison term in 1967. Another came with a prophecy from South Africa, several hundreds of miles south of Ghana with a one-touch victory prediction for one of the parties, as if South Africa was the hometown of the Holy Spirit.

What about a famous highlife musician who claims he predicted football results to pin-point accuracy in the past, and even predicted the stadium disaster?

Yet another came to this paper and said before he could make any presidential poll prophecy, the editor should publish that he was a famous prophet who could forecast all premier league results long before they were played. When asked to forecast a match between Kotoko and Olympics which was to be played the next day, he agreed but went into hiding soon afterwards.

Such were the pre-election emergence of stargazing and overflowing prophecies until certain concerned pastors like Evangelist Lawrence Tetteh entered the fray and urged all pastors to stop the unwarranted, if not unrequited prophecies.

Now that the Electoral Commissioner has ruled out any one-touch ambition any of the presidential aspirants might have been entertaining, the so-called prophets have promptly sunk underground. However, there is the possibility that a few might resurrect and make a daring comeback before polling time within 21 days. After all, most Ghanaians are pitifully gullible and will swallow any prophecy hook, line and sinker.

A number of people the Spectator has interviewed on the role of prophets in Ghana politics, after the official declaration of results generally agreed that everybody was tired of prophecies.

One had this to say: ''Those so-called prophets only come to confuse or demoralise us. They should shut up! The word of God is for salvation not politics. They should apologise for lying to us.”

An old man of about 70 who claims he is a highly superstitious person and believed a particular prophecy says he has now learnt his lesson. "Those so-called prophets should be banned from making any further utterances about the election. They have deceived us and I think Ghanaians deserve an apology. A false prophecy can give someone shock or stroke. We must be careful about entertaining such utterances from now."