Pastor Kills Himself

Pastor Nicholas Opoku-Agyeman

RESIDENTS OF Agric Nzema, situated on the outskirts of Kumasi in the Ashanti Region, were yesterday evening handed the chilling news of a prominent local pastor committing suicide.

Pastor Nicholas Opoku-Agyeman, 62, Head Pastor of Calvary Baptist Church, Agric Nzema branch, ended his life by shooting himself in the chest with a pistol.

The horrendous incident took place in the pastor’s room at the church’s Mission House around 4 pm when the Man of God was alone.

The tragic incident, which instantly drew a sizeable crowd to the scene, brings to three, the number of suicide cases within a week.

Two suicide incidents had been recorded earlier – one in Bekwai, also in the Ashanti Region where a nine-year-old boy hanged himself, and the other at Ridge in Accra.

What might have influenced the head pastor to end his life in this brutal manner was not immediately known.

The deceased, who was reportedly not well, had taken drugs in the morning to get healed but the real ailment and the type of medicine he took was not disclosed to the press.

Pastor Opoku-Agyeman was said to have even presided over last Sunday’s church service, so his death came as a big surprise to many of the church members.

“Pastor was in good health and looked cheerful; in fact he did not look like someone who was troubled and would shoot himself dead the following day,” a woman said amid sobs.

When DAILY GUIDE visited the mission house around 6:30pm it was a scene of melancholy, as people from diverse backgrounds were seen shedding uncontrollable tears.

The mortal remains of the dead pastor had been wrapped up in a cloth and conveyed to the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital morgue for autopsy.

Briefing DAILY GUIDE about the genesis of the sad issue, Nicholas Opoku-Agyeman Jnr, son of the deceased, said his father reported ill on Sunday and even visited the hospital to seek medical attention.

He said whilst going to school on Monday morning, his father looked like someone who was on his way to recovery.

“I greeted him and had some few words with him before leaving the house in the morning.”

When he returned from school in the afternoon, Nicholas said, he met his father quietly meditating in his room and even “shook hands with him and asked about his health, to which he responded positively”.

The pastor’s son said he was in his room studying when he heard a gun shot so he quickly rushed to the father’s room only to meet his ailing daddy lying in a pool of blood.

“My daddy had shot himself in the chest area with the gun lying on top of him,” he lamented, noting that he rushed to hold his father’s hand but it was too late as he had already given up the ghost.

From I.F. Joe Awuah Jnr & Morgan Owusu, Kumasi