The Ghanaian Minaret

Kumasi- Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu says he has forfeited the receipt of GHS28 million (280 billion old Ghana cedis) as lease payment for the 1.9 acres of land on which the Kumasi Central Mosque is located.

The Asantehene made the announcement to the ecstasy of the Muslim congregation present at the commissioning of the reconstructed Kumasi Central Mosque.

“I was there when the Ashanti Regional Chief Imam came to me and said the lease, they had for the mosque land had expired but the amount requested of GHS28 million was too high.

“So, I told him, the land belongs to me, so you don’t have to pay as I have scrapped the payment,” he said.

The gesture cames after earlier reports that suggested that the Muslim community had struggled to raise GHS 120,000 to settle 56-year-old lease arrears on the mosque land.

It took the intervention of the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia to settle the arrears and pave the way for the reconstruction of the mosque.

The Asantehene said helping Muslims to find a convenient place of worship has been dear to him, as has been the case with his predecessors.

He narrated that Sir Agyeman Prempeh, a past Asantehene and an uncle to Otumfuo in the year 1954 saw Muslims pray on the floor by the roadside near a little mosque at Roman hills which was then the Zango community.

He said, his predecessor then called the Zango chief and the Imam to allocate a plot of land for the construction of a mosque, which later become the site for the Asawase Market.

In consultation with city planners, the mosque was relocated to its current place where the reconstructed mosque is situated.

He said the religion of Islam in the Ashanti region goes way back to Otumfuo Osei Kwame who collaborated with Muslim scribes to preserve the history of the kingdom in the Arabic language.

“Islam did not start in my reign. It is here because of my ancestors” he said.

The Otumfuo said the gesture of reconstructing the mosque by Dr Bawumia was a gesture to Muslims and the Asante Kingdom as a whole.

He, therefore, tasked the committee of the mosque and the Muslim community to adopt a good maintenance culture for the monument.

Dr Bawumia for his part urged the people of the Ashanti region to commit to making Ghana a haven for tolerance and peaceful coexistence among various ethnic and religious groups.