thinks the church should be the voice of the people – we have always been the voice of the voiceless. When it comes to advocacy on some political issues, whenever there’s crisis or any form of adversity, everybody looks up to the council. When politicians are misbehaving they expect that the voices of their pastors will be heard. We work with UNHCR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in refugee relief. When Liberia had its civil war, most of the people came to Ghana. We’ve had refugees from Somalia. When Nigeria has a crisis a lot of people move into Ghana. The council provides food, shelter and counseling.

Nigeria and Ghana are both English speaking. Ghana is surrounded by French speaking countries. On the left, on the right, on top of us, all French. You need to cross through French countries to get to Nigeria. When Nigerians have a crisis it’s easier for them to come to Ghana because they can easily be understood, they feel integrated into our society. Probably about a million Nigerians have moved into Ghana because of Boko Haram. A lot of businesses have relocated to Ghana. Six banks in Nigeria have relocated. They come with their staff, with all their people. All these things put a lot of pressure on the resources of the

council. A major challenge is funding. We are over-stretched in the things we do. Those are becoming the major issues in terms of money and vehicles to do most of our work because we travel the length and breadth of our country in most of the projects we do.

Political Engagement

In preparation for elections [on December 7, 2016], we are doing election public education through public forums. We did one in Accra (the capital city) and are trying to do 19 more across the country to educate the public on what they need to know and understand about elections, their choice of the right people and the things they need to look out for. In Africa it’s easy for politicians to pay their way through, bribe people, pay them money just to get them to vote. We are trying to educate the public to understand that it’s not just about the money you take now or collect from people but what it means to understand that your future is in your vote, the need to vote wisely so that we get the right people to lead us. These are things we do and it requires a lot of resources to be able to do that. In some instances, we invite political leaders to the council

executive meetings when we are not too clear about what is going on or when we seek clarification or more answers or explanation of issues. Depending on what the situation is we confront the government on certain issues. We invited the head of the police service, the electoral commissioner and several ministers of state to meetings, and when we do they do show up. We sit with them to explain to us what is going on, we share our views with them and we provide our position as a council. Sometimes we issue communiqués in the newspaper, issue press releases and do press conferences. We are always looking out for those key things that would draw attention to what the country needs to look at. It draws the attention of the public to those critical issues that the government appears to be overlooking. We also share in the presidential breakfast where they sometimes invite a group of ministers to the presidency. We have breakfast with them, they share with us what their concerns are and we pray with them. We provide council where necessary. Because Ghana is 71 percent Christian, it implies that a lot of

politicians are coming from our churches. We’re encouraging all the denominations to bring all the politicians in their congregations to a meeting, help them to understand that they are not in politics only because of their political party but they must recognize themselves as Christians first, what it means to live as a Christian politician.

The church is becoming much more involved in trying to bring these people together, let them know that as heads of the churches we are behind them in what they do but they need to represent Christ wherever they are. That is a positive sign, unlike in the past where we saw politics as dirty. We didn’t want to be involved and so we left them to do their own thing. I would think that now we need to get involved.

The Church of Pentecost has had one such meeting. My understanding is that it was very successful. They brought all of the politicians within that denomination together, held a full day meeting with them to dialogue on key issues and we asked all the other denominations to do the same.

Other Christian Groups

[In addition to the council] there are the Catholic Church; the Council of Pentecostal and Charismatic Churches, which brings together the Pentecostal and Charismatic churches; and the Independent Charismatic Churches. There are a few other, smaller groups. The Christian Council is the largest of all those councils because we have all the evangelical churches with us. The council has a partnership with the Catholics. For instance,

once every year we hold a joint meeting with the Catholic Bishops Conference. It’s a two-day meeting where we meet to discuss Christian work in Ghana, where we need to collaborate. We discuss issues about the country and what role the church ought to play. After those meetings we hold an ecumenical service between the Catholics and the Christian Council. The Catholics hosted this year. Next year the Christian Council will be hosting and we’ve been doing that for years. We have another relationship with the Charismatic and Pentecostal Council. We had a similar thing [to the ecumenical service with the Catholics] just about a month ago. We are gradually trying to bring all the others together. They all feel comfortable working with the Christian Council.

BAPTIST LEADS ECUMENICAL ORGANIZATION IN NIGERIA

Samson Olasupo Ayokunle, president of the Nigerian Baptist Convention, was elected president of the Christian Association of Nigeria,

the umbrella body for all Christians in Nigeria. In July, he spoke of the role of the group in the West African country.

We have a population of about 80 million Christians in Nigeria.

We had, from 1936, the Christian Council of Nigeria. Before that there was no association that brought Christians together. The Christian Council of Nigeria was a bloc of 15 mainline and evangelical denominations such as Anglican, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, etc., that came together.

OCTOBER/DECEMBER 2016

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