From the shrine to the church: Agradaa’s audacious fraud schemes

Nana Agradaa, now known as Evangelist Mama Pat, may have surely gotten many people off-guard the second time around, but for many critics, this should not have been much of a surprise. The former fetish priestess, who now claims to have repented and accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and personal saviour, and for which reason she is now known as ‘Evangelist,’ broke a lot of hearts and questioned many minds when the news of her new-but-old scheme from the past weekend made news headlines. In her former life, Nana Agradaa become notoriously popular for being successful at scamming a lot of people who went to her under the pretext that she would double whatever monies they took to her. The scheme, casually known as ‘sika gari,’ became her widely-known modus operandi – a technique she executed so well, and very sneakily, when it all blew out in the faces of her victims, it surely was too late. After crying foul and calling her out across several media platforms, asking for her arrest – which happened, and her prosecution, the former priestess re-appeared with a newer, stronger but clandestine mind-trick on everyone: she had turned a new leaf. According to her, she was forfeiting all her gods and things that made her ‘unclean’, and now embracing the faith of Christians. Nana Agradaa ditches her deities, embraces Jesus Christ for rescuing her A story in late April 2021 said that like Saul’s encounter with God on his way to Damascus, where he had a change of name to Paul, Nana Agradaa had announced she was no longer going to worship her deities anymore. She indicated, through a press briefing, that she has decided to proclaim the goodness of Jesus Christ as she had encountered God’s mercies. She explained that her decision was in fulfillment of a promise she made to Christ when she was in the grip of the law. “I threw a challenge to God to rescue me from the accusations levelled against me because I had no hopes,” she said. “I told God He’s the Supreme Being, if I’m not incarcerated after stepping foot in court that day, I’ll hail Him. After I threw that challenge to God, I stepped out from the cell,” she said. And to further solidify this news, Nana Agradaa declared that she was going to burn down all her deities and focus her new energies on God. She told the press that she would do this in the presence of other pastors. “God willing on Thursday at 9 o’clock, powerful men of God will follow me to my shrine and bring out all my gods and pray over it to the glory of God,” she declared. News reports thereafter showed her actually carry out this promise, as is seen in the video below where all her deities were burnt down. Not entirely or completely convinced that this new tale of hers was anything to trust, many people decided to take a back seat and observe how things would unravel with her. And not very long after that, her new life started taking some really quick steps. What Owusu Bempah said when he prophesied about Agradaa's conversion in 2020 But the conversion of Nana Agradaa was not something that had just happened out of a vacuum because in 2020, the Leader of Glorious Word and Power Ministry, Rev. Isaac Owusu Bempah, made a somewhat prophecy about such a day. During one of his Sunday church services where the former fetish priestess was in attendance, he called on Christians in the country not to condemn her since God could also use her in spreading the Gospel. Before this, Nana Agradaa had offered an amount of GH¢10,000 as thanksgiving offering to God for his protection over her life and that of her family. “I can tell you for a fact, this woman (Nana Agradaa) has a good heart… do not judge her for you will be judged. Nobody knows what the Lord will do through this woman. You might be a Christian who speaks in tongues but God can use this woman instead before His second coming. I am glad she came here today to give thanks to the Lord,” he said. Nana Agradaa makes first appearance in church after repentance Living the life of this prophecy, Nana Agradaa took the first bold step after her conversion and was seen in church. It is worth mentioning that the former priestesses is married to a certain Pastor Eric Oduro Koranteng. Clad in white apparel with a touch of gold and a pair of dark sunglasses, Nana Agradaa was captured in full excitement at her first church service after her repentance. Captured in a viral video shared on social media, the Evangelist Mama Pat was seen busy filming herself and every other activity during the church service. "Thank God for today’s service," she wrote as caption to her 22-second-clip. Nana Agradaa flaunts her packed church auditorium Now a born-again preacher, she started her own church and in no time, her numbers grew quite impressively. In a May 11, 2021, story by GhanaWeb, it reported on how the former priestess had displayed the progress of her newly-formed church by sharing pictures of her congregation on social media. She had also been spotted in viral clips delivering members from their bondages and also prophesying to them at her church, Heavenway Champion International Ministry, located at Weija in Accra. All seemed to have been going alright with her so far until news started flickering in during the past weekend about some fictitious things that happened at her church. Agradaa at it again as scores cry foul over new money doubling scam at her church Scores of people who went to the Heavenway Champion International Church on Friday, October 7, 2022, were online crying foul about what they described as a scam by the repented woman. In several short video clips that went viral, they narrated how they had been deceived and scammed. Checks by GhanaWeb showed that the people were at the church in their numbers on the day because the repented priestess had earlier advertised through her television channel that she was going to give out monies to people. In the said video, which GhanaWeb eventually sighted online, she was heard advertising that she would double monies that are brought to her church on the day. “This month is spiritual transformation month and that is why Heavenway Champion is donating 3 billion in the church. Come this Friday for the all night. If you want money for a job, if you need rent money, startup money, you need money to take care of your health, so, if you miss this Friday all night, then you are really going to miss out,” she said in Twi. Again, the understanding was that Nana Agradaa was a new person and had turned away from her hitherto fictitious ways of engaging in money double schemes but this was something that was proving otherwise. Unsuspectingly, these people mobbed her church with great expectations but rather got sorely disappointed when the alarm blew on what the real intentions of her earlier advertisement for a ‘sika gari’-kind of service was all about. When the dust settled, it became abundantly clear that the one-time fetish priestess who was known for beating the minds of people who desired free money, had done her thing again. This time, while the technique was similar, the only difference was that she had moved it from the shrine setting, to the House of God – the church. A big case study for many to look at, and with conversations already surrounding where next she might take this, many will be monitoring what happens after her arrest by the Ghana Police Service. Watch the latest episode of The Lowdown below: AE/WA