Tuesday 4 September 2018

Dodge and duck: Manasseh's azure non-executive Otabil-ian sermon

If social media wants, asks for or demands your voice/opinion, the people on that street / in that nation are baying for blood, ask Otabil or Manasseh.

Otabil has over the past few months been pummelled as much as has been Manasseh, social media has given them a tough time – no doubt. 

In the end, even if they were not personally moved to respond to cries for reactions, close allies may have told them to speak – even if for the sake of being heard. And both have since spoken aggregate two is to one.

Otabil has spoken in an official ‘non-executive’ statement (capital) and in an official ‘God is good’ sermon (sovereign), both should have been a consolidated response till an avowed Otabil ally decided he also needed to speak up.

Manasseh like Otabil has suffered the same fate each time that they have pandered to calls for a reaction in the wake of the banking crisis – more often than not, the response has been ‘they should not have spoken at all.’

Photo owner: Bright Ackwerh
Yeah, for the same social media that whined and twitched that the two men speak, the contents of their respective responses were unacceptable.

What then does it say of this medium, that people come on here with their views on what they expect you to say – people here come with preconceived judgments and expectations. More often than not, going with the popular chant for ‘blood to flow’.

More disturbingly yet, basing their call on a certain social media precedent as if all situations could be aligned in parallels because they involve a particular set of people. 

So in the case of Otabil for all his prosperity sermons and common sense preaching and jab at failure, the ‘non-executive’ question is: how could he superintend over a bank as chairman and allow it sink.

And for the Otabil-ian disciple Azure Awuni, how it is that his potently savage axe of public prosecution – against anti-corruption and malfeasance – had overnight developed so much rustiness it could barely push over a day-old seedling.

More clearly than the Italian football team’s Azure, Manasseh had shown via his response that he had over the period of quiet been ‘working’ with the news team covering the bank crisis but also he had been mastering the art of ‘dodging and ducking.’

Even Otabil knows, the crisis has tainted his personality and position for all its worth. And more so, to the extent that taxpayers money had been involved. If just paying off will restore his loss, Otabil would pay.

But as the back and forth continues, Ministry of Finance, Bank of Ghana, analysts and columnists continue to sink in their perspectives, I stand with the position of Yoni Kulendi as espoused on News File two weeks ago.

The authorities should resist the temptation of being stampeded into taking a certain line of action. My bank – Unibank – is currently in a consolidated soup. Me, like a few others, know our deposits are safe, others are responding to panic buttons within their being, fair.

The banking crisis is a sour episode for our financial system which for long now has suffered lack of active participation especially by the informal sector. With mobile banking peaking, the banking sector is set to suffer more losses undoubtedly.

And so as Otabil exhorted his followers with a tripartite response to criticisms about his role in the capital crash, unless Manasseh was not around or did not listen to the particular sermon, he needn’t have written a long missive in a beloved folder. 

Nine words were all the boy from Bongo needed to string together. ‘God is good, God is good, God is good.’ Then for the sake of being nice and in the footsteps of Rev. Otabil, could add at the end a tenth, ‘Shalom!’

Ok, bye!


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