The General overseer of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC), Pastor Mensah Otabil has admonished Ghanaians to take a more serious approach to national life as a way of solving the many challenges confronting the country.

He said general comments, attitudes and behaviours of people which ordinarily should make Ghanaians angry and condemn with a solemn vow that such behaviors would not repeated sadly become fashionable  and "all we do is to joke about it."

Pastor Otabil was speaking at the 2014 Springboard Road Show programme, an initiative of Albert & Comfort Ocran of Legacy and Legacy fame.

The theme for this year's show is: "Repositioning."

Pastor Otabil is angry at what appears to be the extreme exhibition of a laissez-faire culture of Ghanaians and says it is time to reposition our minds and our mentality.

Citing a comment of a DCE, the ICGC overseer said Ghanaians must not tolerate such an attitude.

A DCE for Ahafo Ano South Gabriel Barima unconventionally walked on dignitaries at an official function when somebody from the crowd made a 'tweaa' comment. He was reprimanded by government for his conduct but  his comment for which he was reprimanded has become fashionable to all Ghanaians. 

"Comments like this should make us angry," Otabil observed.

"Can't we for once be serious and face life more seriously?" he questioned, and proposed, if possible, an institution of the "month of seriousness" where there will be no laughing, no joking but serious work to solve some of the most debilitating challenges facing Ghanaians, Africans.

He said Ghanaians are conducting themselves as "if it is the most normal environment to live in," but no "we are overwhelmed by serious challenges."

He said the whole country has been engulfed with filth, toxic waste dumped indiscriminately in Agbogbloshie and parts of the country and yet all Ghanaians do is to laugh and joke about everything.

The Ghana we have now "is not the Ghana the people of 1957 envisaged."

"The Ghana of 1957 worked better than the Ghana of 2014... "[In 1957] We knew how to deal with sanitation; toxic waste was not dumped on us," he stated.

"Let's start talking about the issues we face and not trivialise them."

He challenged patrons and all Ghanaians to be "sad and burdened" and think about how to "contribute differently for myself and country."

"We must change the world..." "Africa must not become the burden of the world," he inspired.