“This life no balance” is a popular chat line in Nigerian street lingo.
It is often deployed in personal circumstances when somebody feels disadvantaged by events in the business of life, especially when others who have done worse things or have not built any moral capital, are favoured.
That, unfortunately, is how life works where there are laws.
Take, for instance, the absurdity that the highest punishment for breaking and entering a neighbour’s dwelling is a life prison term in some common law jurisdictions, while politicians who embezzle billions of taxpayer money are sometimes let off the hook by the law. The same law. Same judges.
Agradaa in oliver twist
The law is the law. Those were Auntie Araba’s words.
The law is an ass–an idiot.
Those were the words of Mr. Bumble in Oliver Twist.
Last week, Ghanaians were served a frightening combo of both versions of the law when an Accra circuit court sentenced Rev. Dr. Evangelist Patricia Asiedua Asiamah, popularly known as Nana Agradaa, to 15 years in prison for charlatanic advertisement and defrauding by false pretences.
Her lawyers have criticized the ruling as unfair, regretting that she was handed the heavy sentence not because of what she did, but because of who she is.
Well, who you are is also part of the law. We are not quite equal before the law.
Who is Rev. Dr. Evangelist Agradaa? When her husband, Prophet Asiamah, lauds her as woman Trump and woman power, he unwittingly offers an unmistakable explanation of the mysterious character that is Agradaa.
Beneath her social media excesses and profane-laced effusions, Agradaa’s life–from her early days in Accra when she shared a kiosk with her partner–to the resourceful woman who buys a church and pastors a large congregation, is a tapestry of conundrums, hot energy, industry, and enterprise.
In between these ambitious events, Nana Agradaa also practised a spiritual craft as a fetish priestess who owned a television station, deserted her fetish gods and transformed into a charismatic evangelistic pastor overnight.
This will make a fine Kumawood script. Nana Ama McBrown as Agradaa. Van Vicker as Prophet Asiamah. Big Akwes as Agradaa assistant. Lil Win as Jesus.
Transactional God
This is who Agradaa is. The law is also interested in who Agradaa is not.
In the criminal justice system, the rich get richer and the poor get prison.
This is the title of a 1979 book written by philosophy professor Jeffrey Reiman.
After Agradaa’s sentencing, public commentary in Ghana has focussed on the prosperity gospel and the charlatanic antics of some of our preachers.
Ghanaians who are affected by the heavy jail sentence of Agradaa continue to ask why the law has not faulted flamboyant prosperity preachers who have literally commoditized the gospel, selling stickers, anointed water, oils, and charging millions to preach the gospel.
Critical minds have also asked whether the heavy hand of the law would have touched any of the respected men and women of God who usually grace national events to pray.
People have joked that if Agradaa spoke good English and had mastered her homiletics (art of preaching) and hermeneutics (interpretation) and the apologetics (arguments), she may not have been sued by her enlightened congregation.
If Mama Pat and her husband knew how to deploy biblical scholarship to examine the pretext, the protext, and the context of the text of any popular Bible text, she would have been counted among our prized and valued vicars.
“Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap.” This popular scripture in Luke 6:38 has been pilloried for producing rich pastors and impoverishing millions of church patrons.
From the pulpits of very articulate pastors, Malachi 3:10 has literally been weaponized to confound and titillate the charity instincts of charismatic christians, who are spiritually coerced into a transactional relationship with a God who will not bless you until you pay him money.
Your life will be tight if you do not tithe. Your first salary in the year is your first fruit, and it belongs to God. Or you perish.
Papas, daddys and pulpiteers
Rev. Dr. Agradaa is not familiar with these scriptures. She is not familiar with any scripture at all, and does not have an accurate recollection of the sequences of popular events and miracles in the Bible.
The last time she attempted to narrate the story of Jesus walking on the sea, she assured her congregants that Jesus spoke the words eli, eli, lama sabackthani.
Her congregation greeted the faux pas with thunderous applause. A typical Agradaa sermon is replete with invectives and profanity, and is punctuated by combination dances with her husband.
We have always known about her excesses but we have conveniently dismissed her as a buffoon and an outlier who serves as a foil to the genuine and anointed preachers who delight us with fantastic sermons. After we have enjoyed quality preaching and paid huge tithes and offerings to our Papas and Prophets who speak fine English and deliver excellent biblical exegesis, we relax with Agradaa and other funny social media ‘pulpiteers’ for comic relief.
It all looked harmless until last week when the fetish priestess-turned-pastor was jailed for taking her craft too far.
It is instructive to note that, for all her faults, Rev. Dr. Agradaa never pretended to hear from God or projected her pulpit as a healing altar.
She has never said ‘If I be a woman of God’.
She speaks into open cameras and brags that she and her husband are ‘criminas’. Yet, the real criminals are the decent-looking apostles who stand behind huge pulpits and court the affection of the political class. The real charlatans are the men of faith who dish out fake prophecies about who will win the next election.
The real charlatans live bigger than Agradaa. Catch them, too, I pray.
Tissue Of The Issues
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Ottawa, Canada
