,While Armed Robbers Walk Free

Reporters detailed to cover a sordid development of harassment against the Musama Church on the part of the Central regional Police Commander, DCOP Rose Tinga Bio and the regional Minister Ato Arthur, sat through incredible bouts of horrifying details, where the duo were said to have combined to dispatch 365 Police personnel in this day and age of Police percentage reduction in ratio per the populace, to intimidate approximately 500 evidently peaceful inhabitants of the Mozano township for one terrifying week.

A video clip of PALM SUNDAY which partially rolled off wholesale terrorizing of peaceful worshippers at the township got the reporters on edge, as audible shouts from poor congregants desiring to break free from Police visitations of anguish and pain screamed from the screen.

Interestingly, one lady who stood tall in the sea of senseless Police hell was captured on screen questioning the personnel, if indeed what they were doing sat well with common sense. THE SUN can swear that had it not been for the fact that she wielded captivating beauty, and evidently swept the Police off their feet with sheer bouts of feminine clout and eloquent yet squeaky-clean Queen’s English she would have been at the receiving end of vicious Police truncheons.

The horde of reporters sat in shocking disbelief as the Church’s Public Relations Officer of the Church Rev. Alexius Houbamoulda Jehu-Appiah shot forward to the microphone, and described how the tin-god in the supposed democrat of NPP stock Minister Ato Arthur, challenged him to dare open his mouth in return for arrest and detention. Interestingly even JJ Rawlings who led the brutal AFRC regime in June 1979 and actually institutionalized such dreaded happenings has turned a democrat. Rev. Jehu-Appiah succeeded in dropping the jaws of the reporters, when he failed to understand why a regional Minister and the head of security in the region, ushered into office by the state to ensure peace and to protect life and property, would so align with a fallen faction of the Church to continuously intimidate the Musama Church.

The occasion had been a press conference organized by the Concerned Members of the Church led by a 5-member panel, which sought to court the assistance of the media to blow open the horrifying levels of intimidation being perpetrated by the Police boss and the Minister almost on monthly basis against the good people of the Musama Church.

Speaker after speaker explained the extent to which the Church has gone to get both parties understand the Church’s position, but then even when the fallen faction sat in front of DCOP Rose Tinga to warn of a catastrophe approaching, the Police boss sat pitifully unconcerned when all over the world the onus has been on the Police to go after potential wrong-doers. “This time when the would-be perpetrators shot forward to reveal their sordid intentions right underneath her eyes, the Police capo left them off the hook”, one panel member said sadly.

The Concerned group informed that in the next couple of days they would be petitioning the Inspector General of Police and the Chief Justice Mrs. Georgina Wood, whom they consider to be a father and a mother respectively, and therefore level-headed enough to listen to their plight because, they figure that judging by goings-on under the regimes of Minister Arthur and DCOP Tinga Bio, it was possible lights may not necessarily have to go out for the whole of the Mozano township to come under attack Police-style on the flimsiest of excuses.

Elder Frank Acquah of the Suhum branch of the Church who read out a 10-minute four-page statement, has on behalf of the group called on government to institute a probe into the constant harassment by the two state officials who have, according to some other sources, given them a political colour when indeed they are not particularly affiliated to any political party, but only dutiful Christians.

He intimated that the doors of the Musama Church has always been opened to politicians who wanted to pass through the Community to launch their campaigns just as was experienced in the late 1950s by ex-President Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Vice-president Alhaji Aliu Mahama, Jake Otanka Obetsebi-Lamptey and lately, ex-vice president Prof. JEA Mills.

Elder Acquah laid bare the facts of the rumpus in the Church which he said dates back to 2002, when a lowly social newspaper reported that the now defrocked Akaboah III, Mirithaiah Jonah Jehu-Appiah had drugged and raped a JSS girl.

Flanked by his team of Mrs. Rebecca Teye of the Agomeda branch, Rev. J. K. Begyina head of the Greater Accra Diocese, Seth Mintah of the Tema branch and Samuel Arkhurst of the Nungua assembly, he told of how the defrocked Akaboha consistently kicked against the Church Executives investigating the matter, and calling the bluff of the newspaper.

In line with Church rules therefore, he was asked to step aside while a 3-man Committee went into the matter. According to the findings of the Committee which Elder Acquah did not want to sink his teeth into so deeply so as not to disgrace the defrocked Akaboha, he revealed that the fallen leader was defrocked by the Church father Rev. Jeresim Jehu-Appiah, the only surviving son of the founding father of the Musama Church, Prophet Jemismiham Jehu-Appiah.

He stated further that ever since then even the law courts have had the occasion to hand down raw deals to Musama Church, which has done everything possible to ensure that morality is not only just an abstract word, but a practical thing that must be seen to be practised by the leadership as a form of example.

Winding up, the Concerned Members posed a four-point questionnaire for the public to brood over, in which they asked if it was now the in-thing for state authorities to take entrenched positions in a conflict situation. Yet again they asked if indeed the Police in the Central region could produce JUST ONE piece of evidence of breach of security at Mozano, where the Church is headquartered.

The Group also wants to know just when Parliament made it obligatory for a Church to seek clearance from Regional Ministers and Police Commanders, before selecting a new leader to replace a defrocked one. They also want answers to the justification the Police have for deploying 365 personnel to police a peaceful township of just 500 inhabitants, and also who exactly paid for the week-long policing from May 31st to June 8th 2008.

Finally the Concerned Group wanted to know why DCOP Rose Tinga Bio refused to apprehend potential criminals when they disclosed their intention to commit crime before her.

In a shocking finding THE SUN has discovered that both state officials have been in the news for one reason or the other. Minister Ato Arthur has been at the receiving end of sharp political arrows even from NPP stalwart, Kennedy Kwame Ackompraku Agyapong for several acts of buffoonery in the region, and the DCOP has also been said to have been rejected by at least three regions namely Ashanti, Greater Accra and the Northern regions, until carefree Central opened its arms to her.

And in the Central region THE SUN looks baffled beyond reason as to why DCOP Tinga Bio who recently won a nationwide applause for her men intercepting doses of cocaine, must be embroiled in the visitation of immeasurable levels of harassment on a Church community, just because its fallen leader has been defrocked by a morally-upright Church executive and in his stead a new Akaboha IV, MoknaJeeba Fiifi Jehu-Appiah has been installed.