It is only in Ghana that an elected leader can outsource his responsibility of providing the citizenry with clear, proactive and inspirational leadership to God and be unapologetic about it, says a Deputy Communications Director of the opposition New Patriotic Party (NPP). Mr Samuel Awuku says the president’s frequent reference to God and Christianity was a clever but dishonest attempt to dupe the people – exploiting the incurably religiousness of the average Ghanaian for his parochial political benefits. Speaking on MultiTV’s political talk show,Minority Caucus Wednesday, Mr Awuku said President Mills’ sermons that God was the president of this country was a ruse designed to divert the attention of the people from the incompetence that the government had become noted for. President Mills last year met separately with Christian leaders and leaders of the Muslim community where he insisted that while politicians dealt with the physical aspects of the nation’s needs, religious leaders were responsible for satisfying the spiritual needs of the country and “I have no apologies to make to anybody if I say that as far as I’m concerned, the spiritual is more powerful than the physical.” At a national prayer service, the president said: “As a nation, we should know that it is God who is the president of this nation and indeed I owe nobody no apology for giving Him His due.” The NPP’s Deputy Communication Director however believes the president’s pretentious godliness cannot be a substitute for efficient and effective leadership. “Professor Mills is hiding behind religion to cover up his inefficiencies in government. There is a country in this world where you have His Excellency Jesus Christ as the president of the country or His Excellency the Holy Spirit as the president of the country or His Excellency God the Father as the president of the country. Even in Israel, God ruled Israel through kings that is why you have King David, you have King Saul, King Solomon, and all that. Did you ever hear King God? Come on! We can’t continue to be living in this hypocritical world,” he insisted. A private legal practitioner, Mr Kwasi Acheampong, who was also on the show, admonished Ghanaians to remember that while believing in God is important, relying on God for solutions to the practical challenges confronting the nation can only be wishful thinking. He quoted Genesis 1: 24 which reads: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth,” adding that God endowed us with the capacity to solve our problems. So frequently referring to God and assuming a populist God-fearing posture as if that in itself would bring improvement in the lives of the people was dysfunctional. “And therefore if a country will not use the brains that God has given to them, you can pray the whole night, you will sleep without food. [Look] at the mess in Africa, do you think that God is not around? He has given us accountable lives so if we are not going to use the endowment that He has given to us and club ourselves in tribes [that is our problem]”. Mr Acheampong concluded thus: “Ghana needs a government that will create wealth. Ghana doesn’t need a government that claims it can share what doesn’t exist.” And Sammy Awuku came back with his own quote, Qur’an 13:11, “Verily, verily, Allah will never change the condition of a group of people unless they change it themselves. ‘Mills must make an effort for God to help us.’” Story by Malik Abass Daabu/Myjoyonline.com/Ghana