Obinim goes to court today

Bishop Daniel Obinim is expected to be hauled to court today, Thursday, 25 August in connection with the GHS11.6million fraud allegation for which he has been arrested and detained.

The founder of the International God’s Way Church spent a second night in cells on Wednesday after his arrest on Tuesday. Apart from the fraud allegation against him, Bishop Obinim is also facing physical and verbal assault charges for flogging two teen lovers in church.

Meanwhile, the entire congregation of the church has said they will vote against the governing National Democratic Congress (NDC) in December’s general elections for orchestrating the humiliation of its founder and “God’s servant”.

After the preacher spent Tuesday night in the cells of the Nima Police Station, hundreds of his church members and fans massed up at the station to demand his release. After some frantic effort, the police were able to whisk the controversial man of God away to the police headquarters but the supporters besieged the CID Headquarters to demand that the bishop be released.

However, following the inability of the controversial clergyman to secure bail on Wednesday, the Youth Ministry of the church, in a statement signed by its president Solomon Adeyia, made a fresh demand for the “immediate release” of Bishop Obinim, failing which the estimated 50,000-strong congregation would “embark on a nationwide demonstration against the government”.

The statement also reiterated the pastor’s innocence of the allegations against him. “We are emphatically stating that our Bishop is innocent of the money-doubling fraud [allegation] lavelled against him by an unknown complainant. Our Bishop has not received any amount of money…from anybody for doubling. Our Bishop is known for propagating the word of God and is not in any money doubling business.”

In the Youth Ministry’s view, the whole development is a red herring to deflect attention from the release of the Montie Three – Alistair Nelson, Godwin Ako Gunn, and Salifu Maase, aka Mugabe – who were sentenced to a four-month jail term by the Supreme Court on July 27 for scandalising the court and bringing it to public ridicule, but were granted presidential remission after serving only a month of their term.

The congregation added: “We want to [lift] the veil shrouding the matter, by empirically stating that what is going on is a well-planned concocted case by the NDC and the government to shift attention of the general public from the shameful release of the Montie Three who were jailed for threatening the lives of judges,” adding that they found the entire matter “disgraceful” and an attempt by the government to “score cheap political points and cover by lying and humiliating an ordained man of God in police custody”.

The Youth Ministry promised: “The entire congregation of about 50,000 …shall vote against the government for tarnishing the image of God’s servant and International God’s Way Church.”