"Miracle that never was!..Church member grabbed", is the screamer on the front page of the Daily Graphic. The accompanying story says a large number of people besieged Okanta, a village near Nsawam on the Accra-Kumasi road on Tuesday following reports that a young man was in the process of resurrecting a woman, who had died and been buried about 10 days earlier.
But the paper says his alleged vision could not come to fruition and now, the pretender, Alexander Nsiah, alias Kwasi Amankwaa, a member of the local Church of Pentecost, in the grips of the police. The Graphic quotes the police as saying that suspect is to be charged for exhumation of a body without lawful authority. According to the police, by law, it is only a Coroner who can order the exhumation of a body, the process of which should take place in the presence of a pathologist, the police and relatives of the deceased. The paper says
that police report has it that Amankwaa on Monday, started behaving abnormally and told some friends that he could resurrect Regina Agyeman, who had died at the Nsawam Government Hospital on March 17, and buried on March 27. The police account says Amankwaa, in the company of four accomplices sought the consent of Regina's mother, her sister, who is a nurse at the hospital and her uncle, to exhume the body and resurrect the deceased. Amankwaa who is said to have been possessed, told the residents of Okanta that God had instructed him to exhume the body of Regina and bring her back to life. While Amankwaa was performing the rituals to revive Regina, the chief of the town, Nana Asare Bampoe, reported to the Nsawam Police that someone had exhumed the body of his niece. According to the police, some of the residents believed the claim by Amankwaa because when he exhumed the body, there was no sign of decomposition. But the police stated that medical experts, however, say that a well-preserved body can be in the grave for a year without signs of decomposition.
In another story, the Graphic reports that junior nurses in the Greater Accra Region have agreed to resume work today. This is in response to the agreement reached between the leadership of the Ghana Registered Nurses' Association (GRNA) and the Ministers of Health and Employment and Social Welfare in Accra on
Tuesday. The paper reports the nurses as having accepted the communique issued at the end of the negotiations, calling on junior nurses to resume work immediately. The communique also stated that "it has been confirmed that all health workers/professionals wo do overtime, would be paid allowances for extra duty hours actually done". The Graphic says the effective date of implementation, according to the communique, will be January 1, this year. Under the agreement, payment will be based on submission of duty rosters authorised by heads of departments and institutions, and attendance books. The communique said the government had also committed itself to effect payment within a month from the submission of completed data.
