As Cholera sweeps across Ghana, somehow having taken on epidemic proportions despite the fact we live in a twenty first century world; one often wonders what needs to happen for us to change our attitudes and perceptions.

But then you read something like the following Daily Graphic report and then you realise we would probably be stuck in theses our ancient mindsets of religion and superstition for a long time to come, and that mindset would continue to be detrimental to development and enlightenment so long as we apply it in the manner we do down here.

Residents of Anomabo, a fishing community in the Central Region, have revealed that two of their gods require that they defecate at the beaches. The reason, ostensibly, is that the gods use the faecal matter to produce fish for them.

These two gods who love faeces so much, are known as Ekitsaba and Obosanti. If the residents fail to comply, they revealed, these deities would get angry and they either get very low yield after fishing; or even in extreme cases they kill.

A fisherman in the area, who the graphic spoke to, even narrated a story about a Zoomlion official who attempted cleaning the beach. Apparently they warned him, he did not heed to their warnings, and he turned up dead a while later.

He even apparently admitted before his death that the god transformed into a human and attacked him, and the fisherman in question says this in all seriousness, meaning he honestly believes all this stuff.

So the people in the area continue to defecate on the beach, even though a toilet has been erected just within sight of the beach.

It’s amazing how people can rationalise away all kinds of wrong in the name of religion, but this seems to be stretching it to an incredulous level. Why would any god be interested in the faeces of his subjects; and who would anyone want to eat fish produced out of faeces?

It’s an unbelievable situation which sadly, is a microcosm of Ghanaian society. Cholera rages across the country claiming lives, an open beach which could be a massive tourist attraction is being desecrated with faeces whilst commercial activity occurs simultaneously; but it’s all okay because some deity requires it, and non compliance would lead to death.

Sometimes I wonder how we manage to call ourselves a sovereign nation, because we certainly do not act like one.