Gov't Snubs Chief Imam

The office of the National Chief Imam is bitter about the obvious official faux pas which resulted in the National Chief Imam, Sheikh Usman Nuhu Sharabutu, not being invited to the pouring of Ghana’s first oil at the Jubilee Fields near Cape Three Points in the Western Region.

The Public Relations Officer of the Chief Imam, Alhaji Addai Musa Abubakar expressed disappointment that the spiritual father of Muslims in Ghana was not asked to attend the historical event.

President John Atta Mills on Wednesday December 15 turned the valve to pump the first oil from the Jubilee Fields for the commencement of commercial production of Ghana’s light sweet crude oil.

Speaking on “Asempa FM’s Ekosii Sen” programme, Alhaji Abubakar said the office of the Chief Imam was eager to witness the historical event and therefore anticipated an official invite from government which never came.

“It is sad that the Chief Imam who is the leader of all Muslims in Ghana was not invited to this historic event. The Chief Imam is an elderly man, over 90 years and would have loved to witness this historical event…People have since been calling to ask why Chief Imam was not there, we even had a call all the way from Abuja that they did not see the Chief Imam so we want the whole nation to know that it was not intentional the Chief Imam was not present because he tries as much as possible to honor every invitation even if it is from a small child; but he was not invited,” he noted.

Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Energy, Edward Bawa, has confirmed that the Chief Imam was not officially invited for the ceremony, pointing out that the invitation followed a certain criteria.

“It is true that we did not officially invite the national Chief Imam and the reason for that is we looked at certain criteria when we were inviting people, one of the things we checked is that we tried as much as possible to reduce movements from other regions to the Western Region,” he said.

He noted that the National Chief Imam was represented by the Regional Imam in the Western Region who offered the closing prayer and a Pastor from the Western Region to also represent the Christian group.

Mr. Bawa however apologized for the unfortunate incident, saying “we recognize the role of the Chief Imam but we only did not want people moving from one point to the other”.