The Founder and President of the International Leadership Foundation (ILF), Prof. Delanyo Adadevoh, has challenged Africans to take responsibility for their own development because God does not support irresponsibility.
The professor who doubles as the Global Vice-President for Campus Crusade for Christ made the call when he addressed participants on the second day of the National Development Conference (NADEC’23) at the Pentecost Convention Centre (PCC), Gomoa Fetteh, under the theme “Moral Vision and National Development.”
In an address that centred on the subthemes of integrity, freedom and justice, interdependence, maximisation and excellence, Prof. Adadevoh said being responsible for one’s self and development required a high level of integrity.
He pointed out that the private life of a person of integrity is always consistent with their public life. He iterated that a nation with low integrity cannot develop.
“Without integrity, every effort is like filling a huge barrel with holes with water; the more you fill it, the more it spills out,” he added.
He observed that corruption has become so endemic in Africa that it sometimes looks impossible to uproot.
“You know corruption is systemic when those who need to fight it are also corrupt,” he stated.
He indicated that one way corruption had been made attractive was by missing the context and philosophy in the folk tales of the Ananse stories.
He, therefore, proposed that the context of “Ananse stories” should be reset to lead the citizenry into integrity and not emulate the corrupt ways of Ananse.
Prof. Adadevoh also called on the Ghanaians to take up the responsibility of ensuring that they experience true freedom by becoming sincere advocates of justice for the people.
He further opined that when freedom is granted by another, then it could be taken back by the one who granted it, but when one fights for their own freedom, they become truly free.
“We should move into the space of victory; it is about time we took our freedom and fought for justice for others,” he encouraged.
He also charged Ghanaians to consider value addition in order to maximise whatever God has given and endowed the nation.
Referencing Matthew 25:15, he noted that whoever God gives a resource, He also grants abilities to manage same. Thus, he indicated that no one should think Africans, and for that matter, Ghanaians are incapable of managing their resources.
‘The reason we haven’t done better is because our country is exporting huge timber logs and importing toothpicks! You cannot develop in this way,” he lamented.
He said underlining the first request of ‘give us our daily bread’ in the Lord’s prayer is what one has, further stressing the significance for Ghanaians to focus on value addition to the natural resources at their disposal.
He said the greatest havoc on Africa is that the West robbed her of all that was hers and imposed theirs on Africa.
“Your ‘Abolo’ [bread] is based on maize that you have, but the ‘Yevu bolo’ [Whiteman’s bread] is from wheat that you don’t have. And we have developed a taste for what we don’t have. This is how we lost our ground,” he said.
He observed further that as long as the dependency syndrome prevailed in the minds of Ghanaians, the nation would continue to be beggars, which would continue to affect the nation’s development agenda.
He stated that ‘daily bread’ is a measure of our existence and growth. ‘If you win the battle in the space of “daily bread,” you can develop. But I can tell you categorically that we are losing it,” he stated, adding that ‘God requires what is in your hand before He multiples it. If we don’t change and use what God gave to us for our daily bread then we are joking’.
PENTECOST NEWS.