Some 732 traditional religious practitioners including fetish priests and priestesses, witch doctors, sorcerers, soothsayers and seers have called on the government of Ghana to help facilitate and coordinate a proposed trip to India and Dahomey in the Republic of Benin to perform special rituals for the country, NEWS-ONE has gathered.
�In all we are 732 drawn from various shrines across the country and we intend spending a month outside but we may reduce it to three weeks to cut cost because we understand Ghana is broke.
�But what we are going to do is very important and since our constitution respects for freedom of worship, we believe the government would listen to us because we also pay tax just like the Christians who would be enjoying the $600,000 sponsorship from government,� Nana Kwaku Bonsam, convener of the group, spoke to NEWS-ONE in a telephone interview from his New York base.
The dreaded but controversial fetish priest said he and his colleagues would consider it as discrimination, based on religious beliefs, if the government of Ghana failed to help them to facilitate the trip.
�We all serve one Supreme God. The Christians call him Jehovah God and get to him through Jesus Christ, the Moslems call him Allah and believe that Holy Prophet Mohammed is his Prophet; we also call him the Supreme Being and pray to him through our idols.
We are all Ghanaians and enjoy same privileges and rights so if the pastors are saying the Spirit of God has left their churches in Ghana so they want government�s support to travel to Israel to pray, and government is happily facilitating and coordinating, then we see no reason why government would turn us down when we all respect one constitution that allows for the freedom of religion,� Bonsam noted.
When asked why the choice of India and Dahomey, Nana Kwaku Bonsam said the question should be directed to the pastors to tell why they wanted to spend $600,000 to go to Israel at a time the children of their church members could not go to school because teachers were on strike over poor salary and allowance.
MORE SOON.
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