I’m not afraid to die – IGP

The Inspector General of Police Dr George Akuffo Dampare has said he is not scared of death.

The only thing he says he is afraid of is birth and not death.

Answering questions on the directive against the publication of doom prophecies while appearing before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of Parliament on Thursday, January 19, he said “Why should it be such that you found something, God has revealed something to you and you want to share it with me, you have to make it showmanship and tell the whole country that I am about to die, which of course I am not afraid of.

“The only thing I am afraid of is birth because if you don’t want to die you shouldn’t allow yourself to be birthed, so once I have been born, I am going to die.

“As for death, the only thing I can do is to become a friend of it so that it can treat me with some leniency.

“So, the point is that you go and make such an announcement to the whole world, and I have a wife, I have children, I have a parent who is alive and I have family members. So every day when I live in my house and I always get up around 3AM, but today, I slept up to 5 AM, my wife will be thinking that I am dead. This is something she is going to live with for the rest of her life. Why is it that God himself did not tell us when we are going to die, it means a lot.”

He further justified the directive regarding the communication of negative prophecies.

He insisted that nobody has the right to cause fear and panic through prophecies.

Dr Dampare told the PAC that “Even then, if you have a prophecy about somebody dying, you have a way to communicate it in our typical Ghanaian environment even in proverbs for the person to decipher but you don’t put fear and panic in the person, the person’s immediate family, and the person’s extended family and the whole country.

“Honourable Chair, you were elected to be Members of Parliament by our votes therefore, you have been empowered by the Constitution and other laws to make certain pronouncements, which is acceptable. But those who are prophets, who elected them over my life to just get out there and make pronouncements about me when I am not a member of your family, I am not your church member and probably the person might not even believe in God.

“We [Police] are deep-seated Christians that we don’t joke with Godliness but we will also not allow anybody to use God to create a mess and confusion because God is not a God of confusion and God is not a God of disorderliness.”

The Police cautioned Prophets over the way and manner they communicate prophecies.

“As the year 2022 draws to a close, we wish to once again entreat the general public, especially faith-based groups to ensure continuous compliance with the law as it relates to the communication of prophecies,” the police said in a statement on Tuesday, December 27, 2022.

“Let us continue to remember that whereas we have the right to practice our faith in religion, freedom of worship and speech, this right must not be exercised in violation of the rights of others and the public interest,” it added.

The warning that was first given 2021 forced some prophets to adopt different styles in communicating prophecies.