Read Full Statement Below:
RE: THE STATE CONTRIBUTED TO THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE NATIONAL MOSQUE-NATIONAL CATHEDRAL CEO
Our attention has been drawn to a statement as headlined above, made by the Chief Executive Officer of the National Cathedral, Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah suggesting that the Government of Ghana spent state resources in the construction of the National Mosque, located at Kanda in Accra.
HE made this spurious statement on the GTV Talking Point program aired in the evening of Sunday the 12th June 2022.
We, the Coalition of Muslim Organizations, Ghana (COMOG), on behalf of all Muslim organizations in Ghana wish to state unequivocally, and without any fear or favor that, not a single pesewa from the state by any political regime was contributed to the construction of the Kanda National Mosque.
The CEO of the National Cathedral made this statement in an attempt to justify the sum of over GHc25 million of state resources as seed money for the construction of the most controversial project in Ghana today, the National Cathedral.
As a Muslim organization with the mandate to protect the image and sanctity of Islam and the reputation of the Ummah in Ghana, we can’t tolerate such a deliberate falsehood by a high-profile appointee of Dr. Opoku-Mensah’s stature when indeed, the facts do not support his claim. Contrary to his statement, we Muslims have rather been shortchanged in the matter of our Accra Central Mosque which was pulled down by the state, only for Government to compensate us with a bare land for that loss. Our magnanimity towards the state and our commitment to peaceful coexistence must not be misconstrued by some people to be a weakness.
We therefore, by this statement wish to call on Dr. Paul Opoku-Mensah to come out and retract that deliberate falsehood and apologize to the entire Muslim Ummah in Ghana. We also demand that, this rejoinder be read in the next edition of GTV Talking Point program, to correct the falsehood.
……………………
Hajj Abdel-Manan Abdel-Rahman
(COMOG President)
0244470505