Rift in Saviour Church of Ghana

300 Members Flee For Dear Life
Over 300 members of the Saviour Church of Ghana have been forced to flee their homes, for fear of their lives following alleged attacks by a faction of the church as a result of a split in the hierarchy.

The refugees, comprising 91 children and 221 adults led by Elias Asirifie, have fled from the Osiem branch of the church in the Eastern Region and other branches, to Gomoa Nyanyanor in the Central Region.

The Chronicle has learnt that the division had been raging for the past three years and the victims had been compelled to live at Nyanyano from their original homes since then.

They do not have any shelter besides the local mission house. The majority of them therefore sleep under trees adjoining the house. There is no potable water in the town, and they have only one water tank, which is filled once a week by when members of their church from other branches come for worship. Apart from this, they rely on water from ponds.

Many of the members who are farmers have no access to land and therefore have no reliable source of livelihood. As a result, their children have not been attending school.

On hearing of the plight of the refugees, the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), last weekend, donated relief items including rice, cooking oil, tents and blanket worth ?30 million to them.

Alhaji Suleimana Yerimea, Head of Relief and Reconstruction, said NADMO, initially, saw the problem as a religious conflict and not a disaster, adding that this explained why it took such a long time to intervene.

He said it was only two weeks ago that NADMO got news of the conditions they were living in and when its officials got there and saw their plight, especially the women and children, it was decided to help them on humanitarian grounds.

Alhaji Yerimea, however, warned them that the government could not continue to look after them indefinitely and therefore urged the two factions to find a solution to the problem as quickly as possible.

An elder of the church told The Chronicle that the problems of the church began in 1997 when the founder, Isaac Kojo Asirifie died, and a successor was to be chosen. Power struggle ensued between the son of the founder Elias Asirifie and his nephew Abraham Kweku Asirifie.

Whilst one faction believes that the father prophesied that his son should succeed him, the other faction believes that Abraham should succeed the founder because he moved around most with the founder and therefore knew more about the affairs of the church.

The church has been existing with two factions and have been experiencing sporadic eruption of violence in which houses and other properties destroyed allegedly by the faction loyal Abraham Asirifie, forcing Elias and his followers to flee.

According to Elias, several cases of the attacks launched against them had been reported to the police some of them were before the courts.

He said several petitions had been sent to the Interior Ministry and the IGP over the years but surprisingly there was no action until recently when the present IGP took up the matter and summoned him to the Police Headquarters for discussions.

He said he would be meeting him again this week for his views, on the IGP's suggestions for an amicable solution.

In response to a question on whether the two of them could come together and run the church and live in harmony he replied, "Because I am doing the work of God, I am willing to forgive him for all what he has done to me, provided he also recognises that what he did was wrong and regrets it."