Pastors ‘Injunct’ Divine Healers Overseer, Others

The Chairman of the Pastoral Council of the Divine Healers Church, Daniel Attakpah as well as five pastors of the church have filed a motion for interlocutory injunction against the General Overseer, Isaac Kwabena Adade and four other executives of the church for breaching terms of a consent judgement.

The motion is seeking to restrain the respondents and their assigns or any other person from convening an emergency meeting to approve and adopt some “unlawful” amendments to the church’s 1999 constitution.

The amendments, the applicants aver, seek to keep the General Overseer and other executives in power in spite of the expiration of their terms, in breach of the terms of a consent judgement agreed by the two parties.

Previous Suit

The suit had averred that the General Overseer has failed to vacate his position and the other defendants have failed to organise a fresh election, in blatant disregard for the constitution of the church.

The plaintiffs argued that the General Overseer and his cohorts have exhausted their two-term tenures and he is above the 65 years age limit set by the church’s constitution but have remained in the same positions since 2016 based solely on what they describe as a prophecy by the General Overseer.

Before the court could go into the merits of the case, a party took the case to the Ghana Pentecostal and Charismatic Council (GPCC), and the matter was resolved out of court and agreement between the parties was adopted as a consent judgement of the court.

Consent Judgement

Per their terms of the consent judgement, the General Overseer would continue to serve in that capacity until February 2025 prior to which an election would be organised in October 2024 to elect a new General Overseer and other members of the National Executive Board.

It states that after the election of new General Overseer in October 2024, the incumbent Overseer shall closely liaise with him to ensure a smooth transition, among others.

Injunction

But the plaintiffs have filed a new suit and followed it with a motion seeking to restrain the defenders from circumventing and undermining the consent judgement of the court dated June 6, 2023, and render it nugatory.

The motion avers that the defendants have made the lives of the plaintiffs miserable in the church in various ways right from the very day the consent judgement was entered, and the defendants resorted to referring to the plaintiffs variously as “the devils” or “the former plaintiffs”, instead of their designations in the church.

It disclosed that apparently the defendants did not enter into the amicable settlement with any conviction but were only seeking time to devise means of indirectly thwarting or frustrating the plaintiffs in their pursuit of justice and adherence to the constitution of the church.

The motion states that the defendants have abandoned the consent judgement and are rather busily manipulating to change the constitution of the church to prolong their stay beyond February 2025 as per the binding judgement of the court.

It avers that the defendants had already violated some of the terms of the consent judgement where some members of the church have been issued victimisation transfer letters.

The affidavit in support of the motion states that the defendants have finalised their agenda to frustrate the consent judgement and render it nugatory “by stampeding the Church with an Emergency Church Congress to approve amendments to the Constitution of the Church.”

It says the “Defendants have ridiculously made self-serving changes to the age limit to the effect that the retirement age must be 70 years; and those already aged 70 and above to serve three additional years before retiring.”

It adds that the document has never been made available to the entire membership of the church for transparent study, yet the defendants have submitted a copy of the said document to the Office of the General Pentecostal and Charismatic Council as a document “Prepared by the Church”.

Again, the applicants aver that if the constitution is amended then the respondents would stay in office for three more years and there would be no election in October this year as well as a subsequent handing over, as there would be no vacancy declared.

They are therefore seeking an order of the court to stop the respondents from convening any meeting purporting to amend the constitution of the church in breach of the consent judgement.

They are also seeking an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from publishing or causing to be published to the membership of the church any document purporting to be an amendment or changes to the Constitution of the Divine Healers Church, pending the determination of the suit.

Again, they want an order directing the defendants to immediately dissolve any committee or committees purportedly formed pursuant to the consent judgement and as purportedly provided for in the said judgement to play any “roadmap” role “for the current General Overseer and his National Executive Board (NEB)” except the committee provided for in the consent judgement.