Mr Akwasi Osei-Adjei, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, on Sunday said Africa has failed in its programmes because it failed to involve God in its affairs.

"There have been a lot of bilateral and multilateral relations, protocols and conventions and many other initiatives that African governments have engaged themselves in but yet still the continent has not made any progress. This is because we have not sought God's intervention in our affairs. We have done many things we could to change Africa, but I am not sure how we have involved God in those things," he said.

The Deputy Foreign Minister was speaking at this year's Africa Day Church Service in Accra, as part of activities marking the 40th Africa Union Day, which fell on Sunday.

The annual service initiated six years ago by Brother Immanuel Enoch Agbozo, Leader of the Enoch Mission was to acknowledge and honour God and to call upon Him to redeem, heal, and bless Africa's efforts. Mr Osei-Adjei said God's intelligence was limitless, adding that, if African governments sought the face of God, the continent would overcome its problems.

He called on Africans to "free themselves from the mental slavery of the past" and to develop a sense of patriotism and love for the continent to achieve a united front for peace, stability and development. Me Osei-Adjei criticised pastors who prayed for Africans to leave their countries for greener pastures instead of staying to develop the continent.

He said the establishment of an African Parliament would go a long way to solve most of the problems of the continent by providing a platform to "jaw-jaw instead of war-war". Preaching on the theme, "Is God relevant in the affairs of Africa," Brother Agbozo, who is also the Leader of the Evangelical Society of Ghana, blamed the continent's problems on the inability of the academia in finding answers to the "dilemma of independent Africa struggling in captivity, making meaningless the shouts of independence and sovereignty".

"The Dons of Academia Africa seem equally bewildered and confused as their political and economic counterparts," adding, "the brain drain is an eloquent testimony of the confusion," he said. African governments must realize that the interplay of history, religion, culture, philosophy and ideology have brought nothing but pain to the continent.