Some concerned elders and members of the Christian Divine Church (CDC) have pledged to safeguard the church’s unity and protect the legacy of its founder, Prophet John Taylor, amidst a deepening leadership crisis.
At a press briefing led by Elder Ekow Dadzie, Regional Secretary for the Western Region, the Elders highlighted disturbing developments, including court disputes, failed reconciliation efforts, and alleged external interference aimed at destabilizing the church.
Elder Dadzie described the situation as one of the darkest moments in the church’s history, accusing some pastors of prioritizing personal gain over the church’s collective mission.
Years of Disputes and Failed Reconciliation Efforts
For over four years, the CDC has been embroiled in a leadership battle marked by legal wrangling and deep divisions among senior pastors.
Elder Dadzie detailed efforts to resolve the crisis, including meetings with senior pastors in Takoradi, Kumasi, and Accra to promote unity.
While some leaders initially pledged support for peace, disagreements over key issues, including leadership elections and governance, have thwarted progress.
A major setback occurred on October 29, 2024, when a scheduled reconciliation meeting in Takoradi was cancelled at the last minute due to what Elder Dadzie referred to as “unseen hands” influencing key figures.
“We have made every effort to foster unity, but it appears some pastors are being controlled by external forces determined to sow division,” he said.
Disputed Elections Deepen Divisions
The church’s constitutionally mandated leadership elections, stemming from a court ruling, have become a focal point of the crisis. Disputes among lawyers representing different factions led to the postponement of a November 2024 election.
However, a splinter group conducted unauthorized elections on December 14, 2024, in defiance of court orders. Elder Dadzie denounced the act, stating, “These actions undermine our traditions and constitutional processes.”
Violence and Intimidation at Headquarters
Tensions escalated on December 29, 2024, when armed individuals reportedly disrupted services at the church’s headquarters in Tarkwa. Elder Dadzie accused the Tarkwa Police of enabling the disturbance, alleging bias and unprofessional conduct.
“The police have failed to protect the chairman and his family despite clear threats to their safety,” he said, adding that members are prepared to defend the church if authorities fail to act.
Leadership Reaffirmed
Amid the turmoil, the church’s General Council convened on December 21, 2024, to elect new leaders. Elder Dadzie affirmed that Regional Pastor Francis Fosu Manu of the Kaneshie Branch is now the Chairman-Elect, with Regional Pastor Samuel Awuah of the Dunkwa Branch as Deputy Chairman-Elect and District Pastor Emmanuel Arthur of the Obuasi Branch as General Secretary-Elect.
“These elections were conducted in line with the church’s constitution and traditions. The newly elected leaders are the legitimate representatives of the Christian Divine Church,” he emphasized.
Call for Unity
Elder Dadzie concluded with a call for unity, urging members to resist external influences and work towards rebuilding the church’s reputation and mission.
“The Christian Divine Church belongs to God and His people. We must protect it from manipulation and stand firm in our faith,” he said.
Manprobi Elder Slams Media for False Reports on Eastern Divine Church
The Presiding Elder of the Manprobi Branch of the Eastern Divine Church, Mr. Raymond Kwakye, also criticized media outlets for spreading false information about the church.
He warned that legal action would be taken against any organization found guilty of misrepresentation.
Mr. Kwakye emphasized the importance of balanced reporting, referencing recent claims that the church chairman and other leaders had been arrested. He clarified that no arrests were made despite an attempt by police and hired thugs to disrupt a church service.
“The chairman and pastors are safe at the headquarters. Any reports suggesting otherwise are false and malicious,” he stated.
Mr. Kwakye urged media practitioners to investigate stories thoroughly before publication to avoid damaging the reputation of institutions and individuals.
“We expect responsible reporting from the media. Misrepresentation not only tarnishes reputations but also undermines public trust. The Eastern Divine Church will not hesitate to take legal steps to protect its integrity,” he added.
The comments come as both churches grapple with internal disputes, with leaders calling for calm and unity among their members.
Below is the full statement
PRESS CONFERENCE BY SOME ELDERS & MEMBERS OF CHRISTIAN DIVINE CHURCH ADDRESSED BY EKOW DADZIE ON 30TH DECEMBER, 2024
Good afternoon, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Media, greetings to all members of Christian Divine Church in Ghana and abroad and in line with our tradition, I say, Praise the Lord.
We welcome you all and thank you for honoring our invitation to cover and participate in this short press briefing, specially directed towards our members who desire to know the real facts as they pertain to the recent worrying developments in our dear church, Christian Divine Church.
We are a group made up of church elders, leaders and members of Christian Divine Church drawn from across the country and beyond. As we have always stated, we are aligned towards only one objective, and that is the Legacy of the founder, the great Prophet/Apostle John Taylor, and that legacy is the great church he left to generations after generations. It is this legacy we seek and shall protect come what may.
As members of the church, we may well be aware of the disturbing issues of leadership which has plagued us within the last four years and taken us to court on a number of occasions.
We won’t bore you with too much history but we would like to give a brief background of the recent happenings and most shamefully, the despicable development yesterday at the headquarters of the church, involving some Pastors and elders in the church.
It has become clear now that some Pastors and Elders are bent on breaking up the church and they have constantly resorted to divisive means to do that. These pastors and group of persons are being controlled remotely by unseen hands who are bent on remaining power brokers in the church because of their fleeting earthly resources.
When we realized that these divisive tendencies were not healthy for the growth of a church, we decided to engage some of the senior pastors of the church to attempt a peaceful settlement process with the Chairman and Leader of the Pastoral Council, Apostle Ebenezer Boahen.
The first Senior Pastor we visited was Regional Pastor Japhet Ehwi at New Takoradi Branch who also received us well and agreed with us that there was the need to foster unity among the Pastors to end all the troubling developments.
Our next engagement was with Regional Pastor James Fordjour in Kumasi the Ashanti Region. We met him with some of his church Elders and pleaded with him to join hands with other Senior Pastors to bring all Pastors together to end all the court cases.
From there, we moved to meet Rev. Francis Fosu Manu in Accra who also welcomed our initiative and pledged his support to join hands with his other Regional Pastors to find a smooth way out of this debacle that was hanging around the neck of the church.
Interestingly, these senior pastors could not work on this initiative because they were also sharply divided at the top and could not bring themselves to find a common ground for a peaceful resolution of the problem and the court cases continued unabated.
Even just recently Ladies and Gentlemen, we tried other means of ensuring that the Pastors come together as one to bring an end to the feud but it seems that the controlling force of these Pastors is bigger than their inner will to bring about peace. Unfortunately, some of our dear Pastors have been caught into the web of deception; they cannot retreat from the path of destruction.
One of the highly respected elders of the church, Presiding Elder Emmanuel Mensah of Tanokrom branch led a team to organize a settlement discussion with all Area Heads and scheduled the meeting on 29th October, 2024 at Takoradi. This meeting was organized with Regional Pastor James Fordjour, Regional Pastor Japhet Ehwi, Regional Pastor Essel Cudjoe, Regional Pastor Francis Fosu Manu, Elder Emmanuel Mensah and Lawyer Kweku Kyere. These names I have just mentioned had a conference call meeting and agreed to the meeting and promised to speak to all other Area Heads to honor the meeting. Elder Emmanuel Mensah followed up closely with calls after the meeting to confirm the attendance of the Area Heads to the meeting. A venue was booked with all preparations set for the meeting at Takoradi. No sooner had Elder Emmanuel Mensah concluded the arrangements for the meeting than a call was received from Regional Pastor James Fordjour on 28th October, 2024, that the Area Heads have decided not to attend the settlement meeting again. The sad aspect of this situation was that Regional Pastor Essel Cudjoe had already set off from his branch at Koforidua and reached Mankessim on his way to Takoradi only to be informed that the meeting had been canceled by the Area Heads without his knowledge. We are still at a loss what made the Area Heads change their minds at the eleventh hour. Your guess is as good as mine. The controlling hand was perhaps at work here again.
So, for those of us who think that attempts have not been made to settle these matters amicably, you know the truth now. You can call any of the Pastors we have named here and confirm the facts for yourself. Sometimes we know that our Pastors are tired of the raging issues and in their innermost hearts, they wish that these matters come to an end but like I said before, the unseen hands using their resources to take advantage of the Pastors are not willing to let peace prevail in the church.
Why has no one ever wondered where these Pastors who are complaining of low salaries get funds to pay for expensive legal fees and hotel bills when they travel to Tarkwa and Tema for their meetings?
Why has no one asked Regional Pastor Francis Baidoo of Huni Valley Branch, who is paying for the over 6 different court cases he has been pursuing for the past 3 years?
Why has no one asked Pastor Joe Ato Adzie of Tema Branch, who paid for the 2-day Pastors meeting he illegally hosted at the Tema branch last week when he recently complained bitterly about their financial condition?
We know who is behind all of this evil deeds and at the right time, the God of vengeance will strike.
In one of the cases that was taken to court, titled, Emmanuel Arthur vs. Christian Divine Church the high court at Tarkwa through a consent judgment formed an Interim Administrative Committee (IAC) to manage the affairs of the church until the final execution of the judgment which will usher in a new set of leadership. The IAC is made up of three persons namely the current chairman, Apostle Ebenezer Boahen, the current Deputy Chairman, Rev. Augustus Akyena Agyeman and Rev. John Brown. The court through its judgment tasked the IAC to do the following;
- Form the General and Executive Councils of the church
- Conduct leadership elections for the Chairman, Deputy Chairman, General Secretary
- Organize retirement services for the Chairman, the Deputy Chairman and the Principal Secretary
Ladies and Gentlemen, these group of Pastors and persons began to frustrate any step the IAC took towards executing the judgment of the High Court with court suits and counter letters led by Regional Pastor Andrews Antwi at Winneba branch and Regional Pastor Francis Baidoo. In fact, for Regional Francis Baidoo, he even went as far as an attempt to injunct the celebration of the Church’s 65th Anniversary through a court action. These are the kind of Pastors we are dealing with as a church. Very unfortunate.
Fast forward, the General and Executive Councils were eventually formed together with some functional committees to oversee the elections, retirement and induction of a new leadership.
A letter was issued from the administration of the church calling for the elections sometime in October, 2024.
One Elder at Tarkwa No. 2 Branch wrote to the Police that they were organizing a demonstration against the Chairman at the headquarters around the same time the elections had been organized so the Ghana Police at Tarkwa hurriedly filed a suit at Tarkwa District Court to stop the elections in order to foster peace between the parties.
After the Court proceedings at the District Court, a roadmap was laid down in line with the church’s constitution to peacefully organize the leadership elections in collaboration with the Ghana Police which all agreed to by all interested persons.
Not long after the District Court laid out the roadmap, Regional Pastor Andrews Antwi who has been carrying himself as the Pastor’s Secretary unilaterally wrote letters of invitation to the Pastors for the elections in violation of the ruling of the District Court. Upon consultation with my lawyer and some elders of the church, I filed a suit at the Sekondi High Court and applied for an injunction against the illegal actions of Regional Pastor Antwi and others.
When the case came up for hearing in court, the parties agreed to settle the matter and filed terms of settlement which was signed by all parties and their legal representations. Important among the terms were that; all the three lawyers were going to sign unto a letter inviting Pastors for the elections and that the Traditions, practices and constitution of the church was going to be used. I have a copy of the terms of settlement here and I can share with you all here.
In line with the terms in the settlement, an invitation letter signed by all the three lawyers of the three sets of parties was issued for elections on 30th November, 2024. When the lawyers arrived at the headquarters on the 29th November, 2024 to facilitate the conduct of the elections, they encountered some three areas of disagreement amongst themselves which were the following; that
- Whether a Pastor without a wife could be a candidate for elections as a Chairman of the church;
- Whether or not a pastor who has crossed the retirement age of 65 should be allowed to vote; and lastly.
- Whether or not there should be vetting in line with the practice of the church.
Two out of the three lawyers were of the view that in line with the practices and traditions of the church, a candidate who is a potential chairman of the church must have a wife at the time of the contest and that Pastors who have passed the retirement age of 65 should not be allowed to vote and that in line with the traditions and practices of the church, the candidates must be vetted before they are voted for.
Due to the disagreements amongst the lawyers on these issues, the elections for 30th November, 2024 was cancelled for the Lawyers to further discuss the issues, agree on the issues and return with a new date inviting Pastors again for the elections in line with the church’s constitution.
To our shock, Lawyer Samuel Kwasi Agbottah, who is the lawyer for Regional Pastors Baidoo and Antwi without the consent and concurrence of the other Lawyers and their clients wrote a letter to invite the Pastors for the elections on 14th December, 2024, clearly against the terms of settlement. So, I want to ask again at this point that, where in the world do we have private lawyers writing letters to a corporate bodies like Christian Divine Church to invite its officers to elect leaders for the body; where in this world.
This action by Lawyer Samuel Kwasi Agbottah was ill intended, contemptuous and extremely against the ethics of his own profession as a lawyer and we are taking steps to report his unethical conduct to the General Legal Council for severe sanctions against him.
So, at the back of this illegal invitation to pastors, some group of Pastors heeded to the call and traveled to Tarkwa and conducted some kind of elections on 14th December, 2024, in the streets of the headquarters and declared winners and losers after the event.
Dear members, due to the breach of the terms of settlement, the church decided to proceed with the implementation of the consent judgment of the Tarkwa High Court and called a General Council meeting on 21st December, 2024. According to the constitution of the church, the General Council is the highest decision-making body of the church. At the meeting of the General Council on the 21st December, 2024, the Council resolved to hold the elections for the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and General Secretary on the same day in line with the Constitution, traditions and practices of the church.
All the right processes were followed to elect the Chairman, Deputy Chairman and the General Secretary of the church. So, the recognized and rightfully elected leaders are Regional Pastor Francis Fosu Manu of Kaneshie Branch as the Chairman-Elect, Regional Pastor Samuel Awuah of Dunkwa Branch as the Deputy Chairman-Elect and District Pastor Emmanuel Arthur of Obuasi Branch as the General Secretary-Elect.
Now ladies and gentlemen, I will take some few minutes to address you on the incident that took place at the headquarters yesterday. Yesterday the 29th day of December, 2024 can be described as a day of shame in the history of this church. Never before has the sacred temple of the church been desecrated to this level.
If you will all recall, we planned this press conference for last Friday, the 27th of December, 2024 but we decided to postpone it to today due to some disturbing information we were picking.
We received a distress call from the headquarters of the church, that the Western Central Regional Police Commander at Tarkwa and his men had been sent to go after the chairman of the church.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we want to state on record that the Ghana Police in Tarkwa has been compromised and cannot be trusted in all of its actions and why do I say so. The Police has provided security to the acts of these Pastors to perpetrate illegitimate acts against the church. The Police in Tarkwa, without checking with the right source at the headquarters will quickly move to the headquarters to protect these pastors to hold meetings, insult the Chairman and threaten his life.
Dear members, the church has officially petitioned the Tarkwa Police to provide security for the residence of the Chairman because of threats on his life and that of his family but they have simply ignored this because we believe they have been compromised only to support the illegal actions of these Pastors.
The Police at Tarkwa were unleashed yesterday to besiege the residence of the Chairman that they won’t allow him to attend service without giving any reasonable justification. The Police watched on as armed thugs who were wearing masks hired by these Pastors with the help of their sponsor went about intimidating church members who had come to worship.
The Police at Tarkwa acts only on the deceptive instructions of these pastors and have failed woefully to act as the professionals they are supposed to be. We call on the Inspector General of Police to caution the Tarkwa Police Commander because we won’t allow them any more space to facilitate the unlawful acts ongoing.
We want to tell ACP Bismark Agyapong that your so-called intelligence about the intended induction service was a false alarm sponsored by the paymaster of these Pastors. If only you will be fair in your dealings, you will hear all sides before taking any action. We have seen through your actions and you cannot be trusted.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we want to state on record, that if the Tarkwa Police won’t protect the headquarters of the church, we the members will take it upon ourselves and do that.
We know that they have planned again with the Tarkwa Police to break into the church headquarters this coming weekend with the help of armed thugs but we are ready for them. If you the Police in Tarkwa won’t provide security for us we will protect the church and lives at Asomdwee ourselves.
We want to say that enough of the remote controlling of our Pastors. We dare whoever is hiding behind these vulnerable Pastors and pushing them about to show your face if you are a man enough. ALL you can do is to throw your money at them to do your bidding and that doesn’t make you a man. A real man will not hide in the dark.
We salute the few Pastors who have not been tainted or lured by the monies of this hidden sponsor. You are the true men of God. You have shown in all these challenges that you understand your calling into Kingdom ministry and stayed loyal to the cause of the church.
God bless you.
Source: Isaac Kofi Dzokpo/newsghana.com.gh
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