Dear webmaster

I wish to respond to your comment about me in your recent article concerning the leader of the Musama church.

I notice with dismay your latest report on the controversies in the Musama Church. You have obviously been led to believe that everything you are reporting is fact, and official, so you are even able to pour scorn on documents issuing from, for instance, the General Secretary of the Church, preferring instead reports (oral or otherwise) from a factional element within the church, with which you appear to side. What happened to objective reporting?

My particular concern in this letter is with your strange comments concerning me. The comments were contained in your article of 21-02-2003 where I was said to have 'done a lot more disservice to the Akaboha' by allowing my personal ego to have the better of me, and to have disrupted the recent meeting of the Executive Comittee of the Church. Your remarks about me fit no where in the development of the article, adds nothing to its quality, and appears to have been forced into it as some cynical attempt by you or someone to ‘have a dig’ at me for no justifiable reason. All serious readers would struggle to find a place in the article for that section concerning me.

May I correct a few things. Firstly, I was not flown in to sort out anything. I came so I could attend the I’Odomey Conference, as a Diocesan Minister of the church. You allege that I (and another person) was responsible for the abrupt end to the Executive Committee meeting. Nothing could be further from the truth. I made two submissions at the meeting; the first was to dispute an account given by the Church father of a meeting two days previously (where you allege I had caused a commotion). The second was to challenge his claim that he could, and had announced the removal of the Akaboha. I showed that the Mozano township had no mandate to remove the Akaboha, who is not the chief of Mozano only, but symbolically King of the whole of Musama Church worldwide. (It is a bit like if the people of Kumasi claim to have removed the Asantehene, without regard to what the rest of the Asante State think or want.)

I also argued that it was improper for two ministers, P. K. Boamah of Kumasi, and Ohene Ansah of Mozano, to write a resolution of no confidence, ostensibly on behalf of the Pastoral Council of over eight hundred ministers, without any consultation whatsoever with the membership. Similarly, it was wrong and inadmissible for nineteen elders to thumbprint or sign a resolution in the name of nearly two thousand Elders and Stewards without consultation with the membership. I further pointed out that there were properly executed resolutions from at least two dioceses, and some Districts and Circuits, as well as some Bands and Societies of the Church pledging confidence in and support for the Akaboha; these were more representative, and had to be weighed against those three spurious resolutions. I moved for the annulment of the ritual performed by the Church father the previous day, meant to signify the removal of the Akaboha, on the grounds that he had no mandate to do so. The ritual itself is rather contrived and meaningless, and not recognized by any convention, tradition, or custom of the Church, I pointed out. Further, the act is unconstitutional. I reminded him and the meeting that the title ‘Church Father’ was just an honorary one, not recognised by the Church Constitution, and ironically conferred on him by the same Akaboha he was trying to remove. This position did not exist in the church before. The Church Father is not the General Overseer of the Church, as he claimed, and as you have tended to apply to him; even though he had lied under oath by swearing to the effect that he was the ‘General Overseer’ of the Church. The Akaboha is the General Overseer. I rejected his arrogating to himself the power to appoint a next Akaboha. The motion was seconded. A motion was also made for the rejection of the three resolutions, for the reasons I had adduced. This was seconded. A third motion was made, and seconded, for the dissolution of the Interim Oversight Committee, as it had failed to do its job satisfactorily. At this juncture, the Chairman of the Committee, H. Q. Jehu-Appiah, tendered his resignation and stormed out of the meeting. Rev. J. K. Mensah of Tema, a member of the committee, also supported the dissolution of the committee, and offered to resign from it. All that was needed was for votes to be taken as would be done in most organizations. What reason would I have for disrupting the meeting, given the way it was proceeding? Who would have an investment in the meeting not proceeding to civilized conclusion?

It may interest you to know that I (and Mord, whom you accuse to have acted with me) remained seated while the scuffle was going on, and were indeed among the last to leave the conference hall. You may be surprised to know that Mord did not have opportunity to say one word throughout the duration of the meeting. There were at least fifty other people present, and many more watching from the outside. Why anyone would report so differently to you, and why you chose to adopt and carry it in your article the way you did, mystifies me.

.