Minister causes arrest of pastor over excessive noise during watch night service

The Ashanti Regional Minister, Simon Osei Mensah, has justified his decision to disrupt the watch night service of the House of Bethel Ministry and cause the arrest of the head pastor of the church, Reverend Kwame Takyi for excessive noise in the wee hours of Saturday morning.

The Minister in an interview with Citi News explained that bringing in the police to halt the situation was his last resort after the church, located at Anwomaso-High Tension, a suburb of Kumasi, ignored his previous warnings and appeared to have increased the noise levels in an apparent act of defiance.

He said: “several times [about the noise levels]. Yesterday [Friday], around midnight, they were making a lot of noise. I entered the church and I told them the level of the noise was too high.”

He said the congregants numbering about 30 could not understand the reason why he was complaining about the noise which was disrupting his sleep.

“The moment after I warned them and left, it [the noise] became even worse. Maybe I annoyed them so they rather increased the volume and I had no other option but to report them to the police,” Mr Osei Mensah stated.

Mr Osei Mensah reportedly stormed the church at about 12:30 am, with armed Police officers, and ordered members of the church to halt an ongoing Watch Night Service because of their excessive noise making.

The incident led to the arrest of Reverend Kwame Takyi, who was granted bail later on Saturday morning around 8:00 am, according to Citi News.

However, the Secretary of the House of Bethel Ministry, Stephen Osei is disputing the claims of the regional Minister claiming he (Mr Osei Mensah) has been aware of their programme which is held on last Friday of every month.

He explained: “At a point, the police felt the noise that was going on wasn’t something that could disrupt the place because it is a programme we do every last Friday of the month. He [the Regional Minister] has always been here with us and this time, we felt surprised this thing was going on.”

“Normally what we do is that, by 1:30 AM, we leave the microphone to the pastor to preach, and by then, we mute we everything in the room. People are not allowed to sing in the room,” he explained.