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The Executive Secretary of the Ghana Free Zones Board, Kwadwo Twum Boafo, has taken to task four clergymen alleged to have partaken in attempts to mediate problems within the leadership of the New Patriotic Party.


He says the roles of pastors Asante Antwi, Charles Palmer Buckle, Mensa Otabil and Emmanuel Martey in the purely political, no religion-related matter clearly define who they are, especially so when they make excuses to avoid national religious programmes because they do not wish the ruling party well.

But he says it does not surprise him, except that they must make public admission of their political colouration rather than hide under the cloak of religion to perpetuate their political agenda.

Twum Boafo was contributing to discussions on Radio Gold’s Alhaji and Alhaji on Saturday, and pointed out that the “NPP and their assigns in the clergy should simply admit what we all know.”

The Most Rev. Gabriel Charles Palmer Buckle, the Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Accra; Pastor Mensa Otabil, Founder and General Overseer of the International Central Gospel Church; former President of the Methodist Church, Rev. Asante Antwi; as well as the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, the Rt. Rev. Professor Emmanuel Martey, are reported to have attended a meeting last week called by former President J.A. Kufuor, at his Airport residence to resolve the leadership challenges in NPP.

The meeting was said to be inconclusive after Rev. Martey in particular reportedly blamed the problems of the NPP on its flag bearer, Nana Akufo-Addo, who subsequently walked out.

Rev. Asante Antwi, has since denied being part of that meeting but Twum Boafo said until his cover as a founding member of the NPP was blown, Rev. Asante Antwi had long masqueraded as an impartial clergyman to lambast the NDC.

He said as for Pastor Otabil, the least said about him the better, having on several occasions insulted the NDC, and when a recording of his condemnation of people who preach violence is played for everyone to hear, he turns round to deny having made any such condemnation.

According to Twum Boafo, while Palmer Buckle chose to conveniently forget the national constitution and led a team to preach power-sharing with the late President Mills when he was in power, Reverend Martey stands in the pulpit to insult the sitting president of Ghana. Besides, while he has always been complaining about power outages, all he had for a solution when challenged was that he would pray for three months to fix the challenge

“You think prayer switches on electricity?” Twum Boafo quipped.

Kwadwo Twum Boafo, who admitted he had constantly questioned the impartiality of certain members of the clergy when it comes to politics in this country, said it is for the same disturbing reason that he wrote a letter to the Presbyterian Church in 2012 to announce his resignation over some of the leaders’ covert involvement in NPP activities.

“We in the NDC, we in the NDC are aware of who they are. I have been in this studio severally (and) questioned their impartiality. And indeed, we were told that the moderator of the Presbyterian Church was so irate with Nana Akufo-Addo’s conduct that he berated him until Akufo-Addo walked out of that meeting, walked out and he headed out to London to seek the face of God once again. And so nobody can tell me that those pastors are not partial. Nobody can tell me that those pastors are not people who are willing the NDC on to lose elections because of their own pecuniary interest. They have absolutely no impartiality when they enter the pulpit.”