Founder and Leader of Glorious Word Power Ministry, Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah
• A neighbour of Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah says the pastor has turned his church into a militant movement
• Rhodaline Imoro Ayana says the activities of Reverend Owusu Bempah’s church and its members equate to those of a militant group
• The former CPP Vice Chairperson was speaking on the recent arrest of Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah
A former Vice Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party, Rhodaline Imoro Ayana has compared the church of founder and leader of Glorious Word Power Ministry International, Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah to a militant movement.
Madam Imoro who is a former Vice-Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party, speaking about the recent arrest of Rev. Owusu Bempah on GhOne TV, said she lives close to the pastor and is privy to what she described as his militant activities. According to her, these supposed activities are sometimes supported by the state security.
“Owusu Bempah is a big man. He lives by me, not too far from my house and I do see him. Owusu Bempah moves with a pickup full of soldiers and I keep asking myself how come? He is not the president. He goes and they are always behind. You can ask the people who live around me, it is something that we know. I mean apart from the dispatch rider who sends other pastors home. We have made church people feel big, I don’t know what they contribute because if they are doing their work, even the corruption and all these other ills in society would’ve been minimised. But instead, we have so many church leaders with so much power and yet we are not a very safe country,” she said.
She also questioned the rationale behind the touting of guns by some church leaders and their members which she said is characteristic of Rev. Owusu Bempah and his followers. Madam Imoro described the church as a militant church and called on the police to, as part of their investigations, search his house and church premises for weapons.
“I asked myself what he and his gang were doing with guns. This whole idea of church members, people who are supposed to be peace-loving, holding guns, weapons and threatening people is very worrying.
“If you read a little about what happened in Rwanda where a priest took part in the massacre or aided in the massacring of people, you tend to get worried and I am worried. This morning I would wish that the police service would search Owusu Bempah’s house and search his church for any cache of weapons. Because you see, the kind of attitude when you look at the videos that are coming out and you see the audacity with which his members talk, you don’t know what is happening. It’s a kind of militant church, that’s the way I see it and we cannot allow such churches to exist in this country,” she stated.
While commending the Inspector General of Police for the swift arrest and handling of Rev. Owusu Bempah’s case, the former CPP Executive bemoaned the power given to church leaders in the country and called for actions that “would put them in their right places”.
“These days they meddle too much in politics and it’s dangerous for us because they are people who command congregations, a large number of people and they can easily indoctrinate them in certain ways that may not be positive. So we have to be careful. Owusu Bempah, wherever he has found himself, he deserves it and I think that we should go the full haul, and make sure that whatever is due him, he gets it,” she said.
Background
The Founder and Leader of Glorious Word and Power Ministry International, Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah was arrested together with three of his junior pastors on Sunday, September 12, 2021.
The arrest of Owusu Bempah came after a series of confrontations between him and repented fetish priestess, Nana Agradaa now known as Evangelist Patricia Oduro Koranteng.
A day after some junior pastors of Reverend Owusu Bempah were seen in a viral video brandishing guns and threatening to deal with Agradaa, the pastor and a group of men trooped to her residence to confront her.
Agradaa however failed to face up to Owusu Bempah but chose to stand on the balcony of her building leaving the pastor and his troop stranded at her gate.
Following the incident and the brandishing of weapons that characterized the storming of Agradaa’s residence, the Ghana Police Service picked up the Reverend Owusu Bempah and his junior pastors and put them before a court on Monday.
His plea for bail was rejected by the court which handed him a one-week remand. He was however granted bail on Wednesday, September 15, 2021