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| Panic At Witches Confab |
10/11/2007 |
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The Paramount Chief of Juasoman in the Ashanti region, Nana Owusu Acheaw Prempeh and his stool elders have called on all people of faith across the country to, as a matter of urgency, join them in foiling the reported global congress of witches in the town.He said even though he and his elders were not aware of any such satanic conference in the kingdom, he had already instructed his local priests not to sit aloof, and appealed to the larger Ghanaian society to also join hands with them, following the panic and hysteria the reports had created in the town.
The call for ‘Macedonian help’ was conveyed through DAILY GUIDE by Professor Ken Agyeman Attafuah, Abusuapanyin of the Oyoko Royal Family of Juaso, and a prominent citizen of the town. DAILY GUIDE was reliably informed that as part of a chain of other programmes put in place to fortify the area against any spiritual intrusion and ostensibly match the witches boot-for-foot, the Ebenezer Evangelical Centre of Kumasi was organizing a massive crusade there this Sunday.
“Our position on the issue is that we are ordinary mortals without a third eye into the activities or machinations of the metaphysical world, so we do not know whether witches are going to hold an international confab on our land or not. However, in the event that such a confab is possible, we will be shirking our responsibility as leaders of Juasoman and its adjoining communities if we failed to pursue such reasonable and lawful measures as would help avert the calamities claimed by the alleged organizers of the confab to await Ghanaians,” he stated.
According to the Abusuapanyin, as a first step, elders and people of the area last Wednesday performed what he called ‘appropriate customary rites’ to seek the intervention of the Almighty God and ancestors of the land in preventing any form of calamity from befalling the nation. He urged other faiths to join hands with them. “Accordingly, Juasohene and his elders hereby call on all leaders of faith, Christians and Muslims, in the country to join with them in praying fervently to God (Allah) to banish from Juaso and from Ghanaian soil the alleged impending demonic calamities. “In this crusade against the demonic world, we invite all God-fearing and God-believing persons to seek the intervention of the Almighty,” he said.
The former Executive Secretary of the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC) disclosed that the sustained publications of what he referred to as ‘the so-called witches confab’ had sent chilling signals to a number of residents of the town, adding that the situation had prompted appropriate reaction from the traditional leadership. “We would otherwise not have dignified the stories with a comment but for two key reasons. First is the mass panic and hysteria which the sustained publications have created across the country, which is very crippling, and for which we feel compelled to act in a manner that assures the generality of Ghanaians that with God on our side the promise of doom and gloom will not materialize.“Secondly, Juaso is a town of considerable historic, cultural and educational importance in the Ashanti region, and its integrity and good image has to be defended, preserved and promoted,” he said, concluding that the selection of the town is a sheer coincidence.”
Later in an interview, the professor, who is also a criminologist and private legal practitioner, said historically, Juaso was one of the six principal Oyoko Clans that laid the spiritual foundation of the Ashanti Kingdom. He disclosed that it was in the town that Osei Tutu I was crowned King of Asanteman.On the educational front, he noted that the Juaso Government School was the first to be established in the region. It would be recalled that the town had been in the news in the past couple of weeks, following a document intercepted by the media, on a proposed global witches conference there.
According to the document, the organizers hoped to make the Ghana conference a memorable one and had therefore requested blood through heavy loss of lives on the nation’s roads. They again promised to infect hundreds of thousands of people, spiritually though, with incurable diseases, including HIV/AIDS, TB and barrenness. The news generated a huge public outcry and condemnation, with several church leaders promising to fight it out with the organizers. The elders of the town, for their part performed rites in Rivers Nommma, Dabiar and Afransu to make the place inhospitable to the witches. Juaso, which is the capital of Asante Akyim South District Assembly, according to observers, had been an accident-prone area for several years.
D-G
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