Court throws out case against Ho church

A Ho High Court has thrown out a suit filed by a breakaway faction of the church of the Lord Brotherhood over the title to a piece of land and property at Sogakope.

Trustees of the Church of the Lord Brotherhood International had gone to court seeking among other reliefs, a declaration that the said land and church building on it are being unlawfully occupied by the parent church.

It additionally asked for an order, directing the defendants – Pastor Margaret Amoah, the Sogakope Minister, and Primate S. K. Adofo, Leader of the church of the Lord Brotherhood, to release documents on the land and building and recovery of possession, damages for trespassing and perpetual injunction, restraining them from entering the property.

The Court presided over by Justice Patrick Baayeh, after examination of the evidence before the court held that the plaintiffs could not lay a claim to the land and church building.

He noted that members of the Church of the Lord Brotherhood International had on their own volition seceded from the Church of the Lord Brotherhood and “cannot claim any property acquired by the church before the cessation”.

“I hold therefore that the Sogakope church building and all other properties contained therein are the bonafide property of the Church of the Lord Brotherhood.

The defendants therefore have every right to do whatever they want to do with it. They do not need the consent of the plaintiff to refurbish or even demolish and rebuild it.”

The court consequently awarded cost of GH¢10,000 to the defendants. The Church of the Lord Brotherhood International, headed by Apostle William Mensah Fiadonu, split from the parent church over doctrinal differences in respect of wearing of shoes in the church and segregation against women. Women in their menstrual period could not enter the main temple.

Apostle Fiadonu, who was one of the 18 diocesan heads that unanimously agreed to end the segregation and to allow members to wear shoes later refused to go with the reforms.

The doctrinal reform decision had been taken during a three-day retreat – May 25-27, 1998.

Apostle Fiadonu went ahead to organize a diocesan annual conference at Aflao on August 6-7, 1999, where resolutions on formal separation from the mother church were adopted.

This plaintiff had before the latest ruling, twice suffered court defeats in legal suits brought against the Sogakope branch of the church of the Lord Brotherhood, first at the Dabala District Court and then at the Ho High Court.