The President, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has commended the decision of the various Islamic sects in Ghana to unite under one corporate body known as the National Muslim Conference (NMC)
“The decision is a welcoming development that will go a long way to guarantee the peaceful co-existence of all Muslims in Ghana and improve relations between Muslims and the State,” the President said.
Addressing a delegation of the various Muslim sects in Ghana, led by the Chief Imam, Shiekh Osmanu Nuhu Sharubutu, at the Jubilee House in Accra yesterday President Akufo-Addo said the development is one that is worth emulating by other religious groupings in the country.
Present at the meet at the Jubilee House were Muslim leaders and clerics such as Maulvi Mohammed Bin Sali, the Ameer (Head) and Missionary in charge of Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, and member of the National Muslim Conference.
The other were Saeed Alhaji Oman Ibrahim, representing the Sunni community in Ghana as the national Imam, Saeed Dr Amin Osei Bonsu, chairman of the Ghana Muslim Mission and Shiekh Abdul Wadud Ciessey, representing the Tijjaniya movement in Ghana as their national Imam.
“It is extremely important what has happened here at the [Jubilee House] today. The country is being told that all the key Muslim sects, Tijjaniya, Sunnī, Shīʿa, Ahmadiyya, have all come together under one organization to represent the Muslim community, to be its mouthpiece and to be its representative and to deal with the State and the government at all levels in this corporate form,” President Akufo-Addo said.
“This is very happy news and I am very happy about what has happened here today. In the Christian community, there are three different organizations, there is the Catholic Conference, there is the Christian Council and there is the Charismatic and Pentecostal Council. They have not come under one grouping yet but you have, so, we have to congratulate you on being able to do that,” the President added.
The National Muslim Conference according to Alhaji Inusah Mohammed, the General Secretary of the NMC, was incorporated on December 20 last year and it is a self-governing institutional mechanism with three main structures.
The structures are the governing body, the management board and the secretariat to be headed by Alhaji Inusah Mohammed as the General Secretary.
He said the body was established by a deed signed by the National Chief Imam, the National Imams of all the Muslim groups in Ghana, including chiefs as well as the chairman of the Muslim caucus in Parliament.
In response to a request by the delegation for the state to officially recognise the NMC and to offer her all the necessary courtesies extended to such non-governmental organisations, President Akufo-Addo said he “cannot see any impediment to the state according that recognition.”
BY YAW KYEI
