The walls surrounding Ghana's National Cathedral are aged plywood. The spire is a yellow construction crane and has not been working for years. It echoes with frequent singing – the singing of a frog choir moving every time the half-finished foundation of the cathedral is filled with rainwater.
Former Ghanaian President Nana Akufo Addo spent about $58 million in public funds on the $400 million cathedral project. The new finance minister said in March that Ghana's economy is in “severe pain.”
The cathedral was designed by celebrity architect David Appjay. But beyond the blueprint, there's very little to show for money.
“They just dug a hole – a big hole,” said Chinedu, a student and Pentecostal Christian, last month.
He appeared in the proper Bible, pinched under his arm, from the morning service of Pure Fire Miracles Ministry to street humming screaming churchmen, ice cream benders and children. His brother John, who had bought the anointed oil, went up. “God will never be happy,” he said.
Crossing Ghana's coastal capital, Accra, citizens are jokingly stating that the hole is the largest and most expensive in the world. The precious land surrounded by museums, bank headquarters and Ghana's most Ritz hotels have been cleared from government buildings for the church. The land is currently not visited, with the exception of vegetation and bird life thick, except for scrap metal thieves and swimmers staging social media stunts during the rainy season.
After Mr Akufo-Addo said that its construction was to fulfill the personal pledge he made to God, the unequipped cathedral became a symbol of economic mismanagement and political battlefields.
Now that Akufo-Addo has left the office, the project appears to be destined forever.
Currently, the Cathedral is a major target for the new government's anti-corruption initiative called Operation Recovery All Loot. Last month, the government announced it would no longer fund the project, disbanding the person responsible for managing it.
Africa has the world's largest Christian population. Ghana, where faith is particularly important to young people, has seen a recent boom in church buildings.
However, the National Cathedral project never attracted the support that Akufo-Addo had anticipated. Instead, construction stagnated at the foundation as Ghana fell into the worst economic crisis of a generation.
For many Ghanaians these days, the cathedral appeared to be the last thing the country needs, particularly the estimated cost of $400 million.
The project began with many fanfares. In 2019, at a fundraising dinner in Washington, Akufoadd, smiling, cut it into a large grey square sweet. With its 5,000-seat auditorium and a concave roof that references the curves of the Asante Royal Stool, it was intended to be more than just a cathedral. It was a national monument similar to Washington National Cathedral and Westminster Cathedral in London. There will be places where strict ceremonies such as presidential funerals and royal weddings are held.
Akufo-Addo, born into a Presbyterian family but becoming an Anglican Church as a young man, said the group gathered in Washington would be united for Ghanaian Christians, which make up more than 70% of the population. It would also be an offer of gratitude to God for saving the country from the epidemics, civil wars and hunger that plagued his neighbors, he said.
However, he later revealed a third reason for its construction.
“I vowed to God that if I became president in the 2016 presidential election, after two failed attempts, I would build a cathedral in God's glory,” he said.
The statement turned out to be a gift to Mr. Akufo-Addo, who argued that public money should not be allowed to be used as part of a personal bargain the president made with God.
Paul Opokmensa, executive director of the agency that oversees the project, said demonizing the cathedral would soon become a “political strategy.”
In March 2024, one member of Congress, Samuel Okdozet Abrakwa, marched to the construction site and cut a red ribbon at the gate to enjoy the president after commissioning what was still a huge hole.
“We are demanding that the contract must be terminated immediately to avoid further economic losses to the state,” he said.
If you used the cathedral to target the president, if it was a political strategy, it worked. John Mahama, a former president who promised to create jobs and correct the economy, stopped his dramatic comeback in the December election. He made Okhtzet Abrakwa his Foreign Minister.
The charges of corruption often became central to Ghanaian elections, and the large amounts involved in the National Cathedral project convinced many Ghanaians that their staff were skimming over the top. The official ombudsman said procurement rules were violated and forensic audits were recommended.
However, in an interview with Big Hall in early April, Opokumensa said he had nothing to hide and that he handed over all of his accounts to investigators.
He explained that the cathedral is not really a church, but a major monument that needed state money to start, and will ultimately become a profitable magnet for visitors.
“That's a fundamental misconception of the vision,” he said.
Akufo-Addo also seemed confused about the controversy. “I think it's hard to see that there's such a problem with that,” he said in an interview in April in a home office lined with books surrounded by lush gardens. He meditated out loud about whether people believed it to be “too much respect for my leadership.”
Now that the country's leadership has changed, few Ghanaians will admit to supporting the cathedral. Those who say Akufo-Addo and others are not taxpayers, but they should make a bill.
“It should be funded through donations,” she said, as architect Esi Darko left a church in an Accra neighborhood known as Christian Village last afternoon. “It should not be imposed on everyone, as not everyone is a Christian.”
Ghana has also seen an increase in the number of around 5 million Muslims, over 35 million countries, and recently atheists.
“Don't believe in God?” Read the Central Accra sign. “you are not alone.”
Even prominent Christians are exacerbated with this project. He arrived at the church on a recent Sunday, where famous pastor Lawrence Tette and his sister lady Gifty Tetteh, a barrister in Ghana, England, dived into Tette's office for an interview.
He first accepted the cathedral project, he said. He believed that it would bring Christians of various denominations, like the national mosque built by Ghanaian Muslims in 2021 by Turkey.
“We are a developing country,” he said. “As much as good as having a building, we don't want a situation where our buildings will eat to the small things our citizens have to live in.”
Tette said that when the president explained that he could not serve the Cathedral's promise, God understood. “God is not a difficult taskmaster,” she said. Perhaps she suggested that the former president could instead build a small prayer room for him.
Francis Kokutse contributed the report.
