Rt. Rev. Dr. Agidi (left) and his Togolese counterpart Rev Avinou
The23rd joint General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian (E.P.) Church, Ghana and the Eglise Evangelique Presbyterienne du Togo (EEPT) opened in Kpalime in Togo on Monday with a renewed call on African leaders to act swiftly to adopt a common cross-border protocol to facilitate the free movement of people, across the continent.
Apart from enhancing intra-continental trade and various services, such a move will help to strengthen the bond of kinship and culture among the people of the continent to benefit future generations.
“The Europeans who divided us with borders do not have borders in their continent today and so they move from one country to the other without any restriction,” said Rt. Rev. Dr. Seth Agidi, Moderator of the General Assembly of the E.P. Church, Ghana.
He said that many decades after the departure of the colonialist, many Africans still divided themselves along Anglophone and Francophone lines, even if they spoke the same language, lived in communities close to each other and shared the same rivers as their sources of water.
Rev. Dr.Agidi described as sad how people from Ghana and Togo, for instance, who were crossing the border to visit their brothers and sister were often subjected to unnecessary lengthy and frustrating immigration procedures.
Rev. Dr. Agidi, who is also the chairman of the Christina Council of Ghana, said that the time had come for African states to use their frontiers which separated them for many years as points of re-unification for a more fruitful emancipation of the continent.
The sister churches also expressed concern about the rising trend of harmful alien lifestyles and pledged to spearhead the crusade to save the cultural identity and heritage of the African to protect the youth from drifting into a wilderness of no moral values.
Pursuant to that, Rev. Paul Avinou, Moderator of the EEPT re-affirmed the general assembly’s stance to fiercely resist any move to give recognition to homosexuality “in our society”.
“Even animals can tear a male and a female apart, so the church will never bow to pressures from even our European partners to accept such a thing in our society,” he added
Rev.Avinou said that even though Ghana and Togo were separated by a mere border, the church remained united and would stand by the word of God at all times.
The President of the Africa Communion of Reformed Churches, Rev Dr. Uma A. Onwunta, called on African leaders to take steps to reduce the dependence of Africa on aid from the Western world “for them to stop giving us awkward conditions for aid”.
He stated that the unique and cultural identity of the African came from God and must, therefore, be protected and projected to the glory of God.
The three-day assembly had the theme: ‘You shall be witnesses of the unity of the church if you are filled with the Holy Ghost.
The Prefect of the Kloto District of Togo, Assan Bertim who was a special guest at the opening ceremony said that the unity of the church was vital for harmony within nations.
FROM ALBERTO MARIO NORETTI, KPALIME, TOGO
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