NANA KWABENA Bennie, a 25-year-old fetish priest of the Apomasu shrine at Sefwi Apemtamadi in the Western Region, who hit the headlines last year after claiming to have been mysteriously turned into a woman by the gods and alleging that he gave birth to a baby girl, has been arrested for deceiving the public and would soon face charges of child theft among others.

The “male mother” who outdoored the mysterious baby girl in Sefwi Aboduam on Thursday 19th August 2010, named her Abena Apomasu after a special gathering where he had introduced himself to the people and family members, stressing that he delivered naturally through ‘the vagina’.

Hundreds of people from all walks of life including some tourists from South Africa who heard the incredible story, gathered in front of the community centre, waited patiently for the arrival of Nana Bennie and his baby girl and the naming ceremony that day.

But there is a new twist to the story, with the police arresting Nana Kwabena Bennie. Currently, the fetish priest and his biological mother, Adwoa Ataa, who nursed the girl, are in police custody, pending further investigations.

The baby, however, had been handed over to her biological mother, Ama Agyeiwaa, a native of Sefwi Bonzan.

Briefing Daily Guide yesterday, Divisional Police Commander for Sefwi Wiawso, ACP Charles Oduro Botchway said the complainant in the case is Adwoa Agyeiwaa, a 34-year-old petty trader, who is the biological mother of the 11-month-old baby girl.

Nana Kwabena Bennie, the fetish priest, came to Sefwi-Bonzan and upon seeing Adwoa Agyeiwaa with a pregnancy, told her that what was in her womb was a python and not a baby and could cause great danger to her life during delivery.

Troubled by the fetish priest’s pronouncement, Ama Agyeiwaa went to consult him to perform rituals on her and keep her on surveillance till she delivered.

When Ama Agyeiwaa was in labour, the fetish priest instructed that she should not look at the mysterious python from her womb because if she did, she would continually give birth to similar pythons.

The Divisional Police Commander said the fetish priest wrapped and carried the purported python in a cloth and accompanied by Kwame Eluo, the husband of Ama Agyeiwaa, he went to a nearby bush to perform certain rituals after which he would bury the python.

While they were in the bush, the fetish priest ordered Kwame Eluo to wait at a certain spot while he went alone to perform the necessary rituals to avert a situation whereby the couple could give birth to another python the next time.

Later, the couple heard that the fetish priest, Nana Kwabena Bennie had held a naming ceremony, claiming he (Okomfo Nana Kwabena Bennie) had through the gods, mysteriously given birth to a baby girl.

Being suspicious, Ama Agyeiwaa went to the medical doctor who had taken her through the ante-natal process before she landed at Okomfo Bennie’s shrine.

The medical doctor told her in no uncertain terms that what the fetish priest told her was a blatant lie because all the ante-natal diagnoses he (the doctor) had conducted showed that what was in her womb was a real foetus, and for that matter a baby, and not a python.

This made the couple storm Sefwi Apentemadi, the village of the fetish priest, to claim their baby, whom they learnt was being looked after by Adwoa Ataa, the 40-year-old mother of the fetish priest, after an initial complaint to the Sefwi Wiawso police.

The police therefore arrested the fetish priest and his mother and took them to Sefwi Wiawso; and upon interrogation, Nana Kwabena Bennie admitted that the 11-month-old girl belonged to Ama Agyeiwaa.

The baby, Abena Apomasu, named after the river god of the fetish priest, has been returned to the real mother Adwoa Agyeiwaa, who now looks happy. It would be recalled that last year, Nana Kwabena Bennie, the fetish priest, exclusively spoke to Daily Guide, stressing that he was the fifth of 12 children of his mother and father Kofi Nyame, both natives of Sefwi Wiawso.

He alleged that when he was 13 years old, the river god at Aboduam known as ‘Apomasu’, possessed him so he became a fetish priest and had to serve the god.

According to Nana Kwabena Bennie, whose voice sounded feminine, the river god warned him not to have sex with any woman since it (the god) had married him.

However, when he was 20 years, according to him, he disobeyed the river god, got married to a woman whom he declined to name and had sexual intercourse with her.

He said during the period of the sexual relationship, he had frequent pains in his penis and visited the hospital on several occasions for treatment but to no avail.

The fetish priest narrated that he was sleeping one night when he suddenly felt a sharp pain in his waist and realized with shock that his penis had disappeared and in its place he had a vagina.

“When I felt the pain, I tried to touch my penis with my hands but I realized that it had turned into a vagina”, he had whispered as Daily Guide and the crowd of people milled around him.

He said he had sexual intercourse with another man, Kwesi Nkoah, who was a student at the Sefwi area, but when the pregnancy was announced to Nkoah, he rejected it and refused to accept responsibility.

The fetish priest told Daily Guide that he went through the usual nine months of carrying a pregnancy and gave birth to the baby at home. A certain Maame Ama Nyata corroborated Bennie’s story when contacted and said she acted as a traditional birth attendant during the delivery.