The Head of the Afrikania Mission, Osofo Konfo Atsu Kove, has entreated Africans to break away from the influence of foreign religions.

According to him, Africans must begin to embrace the traditional ways of worship, which were the practice of their forefathers, long before the arrival of the Europeans with the Bible and Arabs with the Quran.

He was addressing a gathering of worshippers during the commemoration of National Thanksgiving and Prayer Day in Agbozume Klikor, in the Ketu South Municipality of the Volta Region, organised by the Afrikania Mission.

Osofo Kove emphasised that the Afrikania Mission would continue to propagate the need for Africans to embrace the way of worship of their forefathers, maintain the good practices, and do away with the bad ones.

“Afrikania Mission will not stand aloof and see any government attempt to elevate foreign religions ahead of African traditional religion. So, you must all help the leadership to achieve this,” he charged the worshippers.

He was elated about the current trend of the youth returning to the ways of their forebears to embrace their way of worship, customs, and traditions.

He acknowledged the solemn nature of Ghanaians, indicating that such actions would have resulted in conflicts in other jurisdictions across the world.

Osofo Kove expressed concern about attempts by successive governments to relegate African traditional religion to the background, failing to involve traditional worshippers in national events.

He argued why the government has embraced the Christian and Muslim religions, failing to recognise the African traditional religion and give it the needed recognition and respect.

“If we want to pray for Ghana, who are Ghanaians, who built Ghana, and which customs and traditions were Ghana built on? Ghana was not built on the Bible and the Quran. It was built on the customs and traditions of the African traditional religion.”

“The government only involved the leaders of the Muslim and Christian religions in the activities of the National Day for Thanksgiving and Prayer. Some leaders fumed about this development,” he said.

He also called for an end to the forceful indoctrination of the Christian and Muslim religions on the children of traditionalists in schools; “if possible, back it with a law.”

According to Osofo Kove, forcing children of traditionalists to participate in weekly worship of the Christian faith should not be encouraged, as it infringes on their right to religion.

"They organise worship on Wednesdays in the schools and tell children that their traditional believing fathers are devils and pagans. Did we give birth to Satan? In the African traditional religion, there is no concept of Satan. Every power belongs to the Supreme Creator.”

“We are pleading with the government to reconsider that initiative where our children are being forced to learn about a religion they do not believe in,” he appealed.

Osofo Kove also rebuked school authorities for punishing learners who are seen speaking vernacular and called for the acceptance of the use of local languages as a medium of communication in schools.

“When you go to China, they teach in China; when you go to Saudi Arabia, they teach in Arabic, and a similar thing is done in England and France. But in Africa, they have attempted to make our language look inferior and make schools punish our children for speaking their mother tongue,” he said.

He counselled traditional worshippers to continue to uphold their beliefs in the ways of their forefathers and resist any attempt of influence from propagators of foreign religions.