Leaders must be spiritually empowered to serve the citizenry – Eminence Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson
His Eminence Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson has stated that leaders must be spiritually empowered and be prophetic in knowledge to adequately serve the people and must also come into terms of knowing and understanding the needs of the people under whose jurisdictions they operate.
According to him, people are born with dignity and pointed out that no human government or institutions confers dignity on another and explained further that government only protects and nurtures it.
“Leaders must have the dignity of personhood which are supreme social principles”, he said, adding that the free development of the human person is the central measure of social order.
His Eminence Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson was speaking at the 2022 annual Leadership Lecture Series organised by University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) on the topic “Tragic of the Common: Leadership for the Good”.
He said the dignity of leaders is the fundamental basis of all their rights saying persons are made for relationship in which they develop their humanity and dignity.
Quoting (Genesis 1:27), he said humans are created in the image of God of which humanity possesses the dignity of personhood since the scripture demonstrates brotherhood and sisterhood as the basis of the humanity.
Throwing more light on human dignity, he again quoted (Eph 1:5) that he said “no person has more intrinsic dignity than the other therefore no human activity of any kind may cause a deficit in basic human dignity of person such as impoverishment, enslavement of persons.
“Leadership from the Christian perspective is supernatural task, hence kings and rulers in the past were anointed since they were approximately to be divinity with their anointing”, he explained.
He said leaders in governance, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of mining companies, oil and gas industries and enterprises among others must have leadership qualities and values that must have a valid conception of humanity.
Turning the spotlight on the destruction of the environment, he challenged leaders to walk the talk on the degrading environment saying today’s climate change and ecological crisis have negatively affected countries around the world and made reference to gold exploitation in Ghana as rivers are polluted with hazardous chemicals.
“Bukavu region in the Democratic Republic of Congo and sierra Leone have massively depleted their tropical forest, air pollution in India and China are at alarming rate and the Kilimanjaro mountain is experiencing rapid melting of its icecap”, he said and urged world leaders to collectively put their policies and programmes together to help address the menace.
Source: Ben LARYEA/johnawuniktv@gmail.com
