The ruling New Patriotic Party must relook the way and manner it is handling the criminal prosecution involving Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah and the State.
According to a private legal practitioner, Maurice Ampaw, the party risks going into opposition because it has failed to ensure that charges brought against the preacher are dropped.
Ampaw warns that followers of Owusu Bempah at home and abroad will use the ballot as a protest against how their spiritual leader is being (mis) treated.
“Akufo-Addo has power of pardon, (Godfred) Dame has the power of nolle prosequoi but you refuse to intervene because in the way police are treating the issue, you are likely to lose a lot of Owusu Bempah supporters.
“How is it that Agradaa and Owusu Bempah have an issue and the latter is being heckled but the former is freely walking about. When elections come, you think Owusu Bempah supporters across the world and back home will support your cause?” he stated in an interview on Accra-based Okay FM last Friday.
Ampaw in the same interview prophesied that the main opposition National Democratic Congress, NDC, will remain in power for 24 years should they win the 2024 General Elections.
“If NDC comes to power, they will goven for 24 years, the hunger that will afflict you (NPP members) in this country will be no joke,” he advanced.
Asked whether he was pained that the NPP had abandoned him in his time of need- when he was accused if being a gay- he said he was being truthful especially with the way and manner in which the NDC was tackling the government of Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
“When he (Akufo-Addo) started his second term, it is not up to a year but Mahama and his people are not giving him breathing space and they are gradually losing power. It is being eroded gradually and I am warning them.
“Because the NDC has decided that eight years is enough, it is their turn, so they are going to make the government unpopular by putting pressure and making all kinds of threats … all the government is doing is sitting down and talking rule of law,” he added.
Isaac Owusu Bempah who is the General Overseer of Glorious Word Power Ministry International and two others were re-arrested last Wednesday shortly after they were discharged by the Circuit court.
The prosecution, led by Chief Inspector Dennis Terkpetey had prayed the court to discharge them of earlier charges, following the development of fresh charges in the case involving Bempah’s storming of the house of another preacher Nana Agradaa.
Aside the Circuit Court case, Owusu Bempah and three others are also facing charges of causing unlawful damage in a different court, a development his lawyers are unhappy about.
Background
Reverend Isaac Owusu Bempah was arrested on September 12, 2021, with four accomplices by the Ghana Police Service.
He was arrested for allegedly storming the home of converted fetish priestess Nana Agradaa.
He was charged with offensive conduct conducive to breach of peace, threat of death, and assault of public officers.
He was later granted a GH¢200,000 bail on health grounds on September 15, 2021, with two sureties.
He was standing trial at the Accra Circuit Court 1 until police amended the charge sheet and separated the cases.