{"id":464220,"date":"2018-02-14T09:21:57","date_gmt":"2018-02-14T09:21:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ghana-mma.com\/2018\/02\/14\/churches-banned-from-aliu-mahama-stadium\/"},"modified":"2018-02-14T09:21:57","modified_gmt":"2018-02-14T09:21:57","slug":"churches-banned-from-aliu-mahama-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/02\/14\/churches-banned-from-aliu-mahama-stadium\/","title":{"rendered":"Churches banned from Aliu Mahama stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div id=\"medsection1\">\n<!-- End of html generated by this->header() --><\/p>\n<p class=\"floatLeft\">Sports News of Wednesday, 14 February 2018<\/p>\n<p class=\"floatRight\"><strong>Source: <\/strong>Starrfmonline.com <\/p>\n<p>2018-02-14<\/p>\n<div class=\"article-left\">\n<p class=\"article-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/70242416.295.jpg\" alt=\"Bawumia Tamale Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium 13\" title=\"Bawumia Tamale Aliu Mahama Sports Stadium 13\" width=\"295\" height=\"155\" \/><span class=\"image_caption\"><span>Churches have been banned from holding religious service at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"noPrint\">\n<div id=\"537626303\" style=\"width:300;height:250;margin:0;padding:0\">\n<p>\t\t  <noscript><iframe loading=\"lazy\" id=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" name=\"b2ad7fa7fd\" src=\"http:\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/afr?auid=537626303&amp;cb=151125813973067\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"300\" height=\"250\"><a href=\"\/\/ghanaweb-d.openx.net\/w\/1.0\/rc?cs=b2ad7fa7fd&amp;cb=151125813973067\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t  <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ghanamma.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/1518600117_704_ai\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/iframe><\/noscript><\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"clear:right\">At least four churches have been banned from holding religious service at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale.<\/p>\n<p>Stadium authorities have refused to renew their license to operate from the national sports facility.<\/p>\n<p>The affected churches are Grace Gospel Church, Holy Hill Worldwide, Converted Christian Ministry and Prophetic Fire Ministry. They have over 700 congregants in total. They were given a 10-day ultimatum to evict.<\/p>\n<p>Even before the eviction note was issued, authorities had disconnected power to the spaces occupied by the churches, Starr News\u2019 Northern regional correspondent Eliasu Tanko reported.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, business activities, political gatherings, social events, entertainment parties and funeral funfair have not been affected.<\/p>\n<p>Starr News understands institutions such as the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, SADA, Ghana Hajj Board among others had their licenses to operate from the facility renewed.<\/p>\n<p>The acting Northern Regional Director of the National Sports Authority, Salamatu Alhassan allegedly sanctioned the crackdown. She has declined several requests from the media for comment.<\/p>\n<p>Starr News understands madam Alhassan allegedly ignored the interventions by the Regional Security Council Chairman, Salifu Saeed and Mayor of Tamale, Musah Superior, boasting of her political connections.<\/p>\n<p><b> Religious sabotage <\/b> <\/p>\n<p>The churches have responded strongly to the ban, calling it a religious sabotage and said churches are being targeted simply because the stadium has been renamed after a Muslim.<\/p>\n<p>Senior Pastor of the Holy Hill Worldwide church, Prophet Godwin Sarfo told Starr News he was still shocked by the decision to eject them from the facility because records show they had been honoring their obligations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat really shook us to the spine. We wondered why such decision could be taken against the church\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n<p>He described the ban as a \u201cdirect attack\u201d on Christianity worldwide and said many Christian faith organisations including the Local Council of Churches and Ghana Pentecostal Council have all expressed their unhappiness.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn Tamale, majority of people that watch my program on NTV are Muslims, both Muslims and Christians have lived together peacefully. The Northern Region is a volatile ground, we don\u2019t want any religious conflict; we don\u2019t want any conflict of Muslim-Christian clashing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf the churches are being sidelined or sacked from the Tamale Sports Stadium, leaving other NGOs and governmental agencies, it is direct attack on the churches. So whoever is behind this must come again and think well,\u201d he warned.<\/p>\n<p><!-- uploaded by: 58 updated by: -1 --><\/p>\n<p><!-- Start of html generated by this->footer() -->\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a style=\"display:none\" rel=\"follow\" href=\"http:\/\/megatheme.ir\/\" title=\"\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633\">\u0642\u0627\u0644\u0628 \u0648\u0631\u062f\u067e\u0631\u0633<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sports News of Wednesday, 14 February 2018 Source: Starrfmonline.com 2018-02-14 Churches have been banned from holding religious service at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale At least four churches have been banned from holding religious service at the Aliu Mahama Stadium in Tamale. Stadium authorities have refused to renew their license to operate from the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":445724,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464220\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2018\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}