Between Religious Sensitivity and National Security: Religion, Politics, Freedom of Expression and Christian–Muslim Relations in Contemporary Ghana

Introduction
Ghana has long been recognised for its religious diversity and peaceful coexistence among Christians, Muslims and followers of African traditional religions. Churches and mosques operate alongside one another, religious leaders participate in national events and political leaders regularly engage different faith communities. This tradition of religious tolerance has contributed significantly to Ghana's democratic stability, social cohesion and national identity.

Recent events, however, demonstrate that this harmony cannot be taken for granted. The controversy involving Pastor Daniel Junior Yaw Adjei, also known as Apostle Daniel Adjei and Imam Masud Abdullah has brought renewed attention to the delicate relationship between religious sensitivity, freedom of expression, public order, national security and the rule of law.

The controversy followed the circulation of separate videos involving the two religious figures. Pastor Adjei was arrested after a video allegedly showing him making derogatory and offensive comments about Prophet Mohammed circulated on social media. Imam Abdullah was also arrested following a video of a sermon at Ntensere in the Atwima Nwabiagya North District of the Ashanti Region in which he allegedly advocated violence against individuals who insulted or spoke against Prophet Mohammed. The Ghana Police Service said the two cases were being investigated and that the suspects would be processed in accordance with due process.

The situation became even more disturbing when a video emerged showing the pastor being assaulted while apparently restrained in police custody. The police subsequently arrested 63-year-old Sibamay Zakaria, who was captured in the video allegedly assaulting the suspect. Importantly, available reports do not establish that Imam Abdullah was responsible for the assault. The Pilgrims Affairs Office of Ghana has also clarified that Zakaria has no official connection with the Ghana Hajj Board or the office.

This distinction matters. In an already sensitive religious environment, inaccurate reporting or the attribution of an individual's conduct to an entire religious community can deepen suspicion, provoke retaliation and undermine social cohesion.

Freedom of expression, religious freedom and public order

Articles 21 and 26 of the 1992 Constitution of the Republic of Ghana form part of the constitutional framework protecting fundamental human rights and freedoms. Article 21 protects liberties including freedom of speech and expression, freedom of thought, conscience and belief, freedom to practise a religion and freedom of movement. Article 26 protects cultural rights while prohibiting customary practices that dehumanise or injure the physical or mental well-being of a person.

These protections apply equally to Christians and Muslims. A Christian has the right to profess and practise Christianity, just as a Muslim has the right to profess and practise Islam. Religious freedom therefore requires the state to protect citizens from discrimination and intimidation because of their faith.

At the same time, constitutional freedom of expression is not an unrestricted licence to threaten, incite violence or encourage people to harm others. The challenge for a democratic state is therefore to protect controversial or unpopular expression while intervening when speech crosses the line into conduct capable of producing violence, intimidation or serious public disorder.

Religious offence cannot become a justification for vigilantism or violence.

From religious controversy to national security

The national security dimension emerges when inflammatory speech moves beyond disagreement and begins to create conditions for communal mobilisation, intimidation, violence or radicalisation. A provocative sermon may begin as speech, but when it encourages followers to attack people perceived as enemies of the faith, its potential consequences extend beyond the speaker and the immediate congregation.

This is why the response of state institutions is important. The recent arrests demonstrate that the authorities regard the alleged statements not merely as theological disagreements but as matters potentially affecting public order and safety. The involvement of the National Signals Bureau with the Police in the investigation of the imam's video further illustrates the emerging security dimension of religiously inflammatory content circulated through social media.

Yet the security response must itself remain anchored in constitutionalism. National security cannot become a justification for arbitrary arrests, discrimination or collective punishment. The law must be applied to individuals on the basis of evidence and conduct, not to religious communities because of the actions of particular members.

The Interior Ministry's intervention

Following the video showing the assault of the pastor while in police custody, the Ministry condemned the incident and directed the Inspector-General of Police to investigate how civilians gained access to a person who was under police protection. It also stressed that no allegation of wrongdoing, however serious, provides a justification for assaulting a suspect in custody.

This position is significant for two reasons. First, it reinforces the principle that the state must protect every person in custody, regardless of the allegations against that person. Secondly, the Ministry's response separates two issues that must not be conflated: alleged religious incitement on the one hand and unlawful physical retaliation on the other.

The government can condemn inflammatory religious statements while simultaneously condemning violence against the person accused of making them. Indeed, both positions are necessary for the rule of law.

The Interior Ministry also highlighted the danger posed by statements on both sides of the religious dispute, particularly calls for violence against people considered to have offended religious sensibilities. It unequivocally rejected violence against Christians, Muslims or any other persons on religious grounds. This is an important message for Ghana's security architecture: the state must protect religious communities without allowing religious sentiment to replace the criminal justice system.

The IGP’s engagement with religious leaders

Perhaps the most significant development has been the decision by Inspector-General of Police Christian Tetteh Yohuno and the Police Management Board to engage directly with religious leaders at the National Police Headquarters. The meeting, held amid rising concern over the controversy, brought Christian and Muslim leaders together with senior police officials to promote calm, religious tolerance and cooperation.

The engagement represents an important shift from a purely enforcement-based response to one that combines policing with conflict prevention. The IGP reportedly emphasised that arrests alone cannot guarantee lasting peace and called on Christian and Muslim leaders to use their platforms to promote unity, restraint and respect for the law. He also warned against religious bigotry and inflammatory material on social media.

This approach is particularly important because religious leaders possess influence that security agencies do not. A police warning may deter some individuals, but a pastor or imam urging followers to reject retaliation can help change the emotional atmosphere within an entire community.

The engagement therefore reflects an understanding that religious leaders are not merely subjects of regulation or surveillance. They are critical partners in early warning, conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Their influence can either reduce tensions or magnify them.

The responsibility of religious leaders

Religious leaders have a special responsibility during moments of tension. They should make clear to their followers that defending one's faith does not require defending violence. A Christian can condemn an insult to Christianity without attacking Muslims. A Muslim can condemn an insult to Islam without calling for violence against Christians.

The IGP's engagement with religious leaders is therefore valuable not simply as a crisis-management exercise but as an opportunity to establish a continuing partnership between the Police Service and faith communities. Religious leaders can help identify emerging tensions, discourage retaliatory behaviour and counter misinformation before it develops into communal conflict.

This is particularly relevant to Ghana's younger population, for whom social media is an increasingly important source of religious and political information. Religious leaders should recognise that sermons, livestreams, TikTok videos, Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages can reach audiences far beyond their immediate congregations.

Lessons from the Wesley Girls controversy

Ghana has experienced similar tensions before. The 2021 controversy surrounding Wesley Girls' High School in Cape Coast demonstrated how questions about religious practice can quickly become national issues.

The dispute arose after concerns that a Muslim student had been prevented from observing the Ramadan fast at the Methodist-founded school. The Ghana Education Service subsequently directed schools to allow Muslim students who wished to fast to do so, while the Methodist Church defended the school's existing policy. The controversy drew in Muslim organisations, the Methodist Church, politicians, education authorities and religious leaders.

The National Peace Council called for restraint and dialogue. The episode demonstrated how an institutional disagreement can rapidly acquire a broader Christian-Muslim character. Once an issue is framed as “Christians versus Muslims” rather than as a specific legal, institutional or administrative question, the risk of communal tension increases. The lesson for national security is clear: conflict prevention must begin before disagreements become crises.

Religion, politics and national cohesion

Religion is deeply intertwined with Ghanaian public life. Political leaders attend churches and mosques, participate in religious celebrations and regularly consult religious leaders. Religious organisations, meanwhile, contribute to education, healthcare, social welfare, peacebuilding and civic education.

This relationship is generally beneficial, but it also creates opportunities for political actors to exploit religious identity. Ghana's democratic stability depends partly on citizens believing that the state belongs equally to all religious communities.

Political leaders must therefore resist the temptation to turn religious differences into electoral instruments. A political environment in which one community feels permanently favoured and another permanently excluded can create grievances that undermine national cohesion. The same responsibility applies to media organisations and social-media users. Allegations should be distinguished from established facts and individual misconduct should never automatically be presented as the conduct of an entire religious community.

Social media as a security frontier
The present controversy demonstrates how quickly social media can transform a local incident into a national security concern. A sermon delivered to a small congregation can be recorded and viewed thousands of times within hours. A provocative statement can be removed from its original context, edited and circulated as evidence that an entire religious community is under attack.

This creates a new challenge for the security services. Effective national security must increasingly include digital monitoring, rapid verification of information and engagement with communities. But such measures must also respect constitutional rights and avoid creating a climate in which legitimate religious expression is automatically treated as suspicious.

Citizens also have responsibilities. Before sharing inflammatory material, users should consider whether it is authentic, whether it has been taken out of context and whether its circulation could place others at risk.

The state must apply the law fairly to all

The central principle must be equality before the law. If a Christian leader makes statements that amount to unlawful incitement, the law should apply. If a Muslim leader does the same, the law should equally apply. Similarly, violence against a Christian or Muslim should be treated as a criminal matter regardless of the religious identity of the victim or perpetrator. As the Minister for the Interior, Hon. Muntaka Mohammed-Mubarak, consistently emphasises: “Let us treat crime as crime.”

From tolerance to mutual constitutional respect

Ghana's religious diversity should not merely be tolerated; it should be actively protected. The objective should be mutual constitutional respect: the recognition that people of different faiths possess equal dignity, rights and protection under the law.

The recent engagement between the IGP and religious leaders offers a constructive model. It acknowledges that policing alone cannot preserve interfaith harmony. Security institutions need the cooperation of the communities they serve, while religious leaders need a security environment in which their followers trust the law rather than resorting to self-help.

Ghana's religious communities can therefore become part of the country's early-warning and peacebuilding architecture. When pastors, imams and community leaders detect rising hostility, they should have trusted channels through which concerns can be communicated to the appropriate authorities.

A test of Ghana's democratic maturity

The Pastor–Imam controversy should not be viewed simply as a dispute between two individuals or two religious communities. It is a test of Ghana's democratic and security maturity. The country must reconcile several important values: freedom of expression, freedom of religion, religious sensitivity, public order, personal dignity, national security and the rule of law. These values do not necessarily have to conflict.

A Muslim should be able to affirm the truth of Islam without threatening Christians. A Christian should be able to proclaim Christianity without encouraging hostility towards Muslims. A critic should be able to question religious beliefs without inciting violence. The police should be able to arrest a suspect while ensuring that the suspect is treated with dignity and protected from assault.

The Interior Ministry's condemnation of the custody assault and the IGP's subsequent engagement with religious leaders point towards the kind of balanced response Ghana requires: firm enforcement of the law combined with dialogue, prevention and community partnership.

The present controversy will eventually disappear from social media and will be replaced by other national issues. The deeper challenge, however, will remain: Can Ghana preserve its tradition of Christian–Muslim coexistence while protecting freedom of expression, religious dignity and national security?

The answer will depend not only on Parliament, the judiciary and security agencies, but also on pastors, imams, politicians, journalists and ordinary citizens. Ghana's religious diversity is not a weakness; it is one of the country's defining strengths. The task is to ensure that differences in faith become opportunities for dialogue and mutual understanding rather than sources of intolerance, violence and political division.

Ultimately, Ghana's security will be strengthened not by silencing religious differences but by managing them peacefully. Freedom of expression must be exercised responsibly, religious beliefs must be treated with dignity, political actors must resist exploiting religious divisions and security agencies must protect citizens impartially.

The future of Christian-Muslim relations in Ghana will therefore depend on more than tolerance. It will require trust, constitutional rights, responsible religious leadership, professional Security and Intelligence institutions, effective conflict prevention and a shared commitment to peaceful coexistence. In that balance lies not only the protection of religious harmony but also the resilience of Ghana's democracy and national security.

References
Ghana. (1992). Constitution of the Republic of Ghana, 1992. Judicial Service of Ghana. https://judicial.gov.gh/index.php/the-constitution

Ministry of the Interior. (2026, August 13). Interior Ministry condemns assault in police custody. Government of Ghana. https://www.mint.gov.gh/interior-ministry-condemns-assault-in-police-custody/

Ministry of National Security. (2020). National security strategy: A secure and prosperous Ghana, with regional, continental and global reach and influence. Republic of Ghana. National Security Strategy (PDF)

Ghana. (2026). Security and Intelligence Agencies Act, 2026 (Act 1168). Assembly Press

National Peace Council. (2021, May). Press release: Statement of the National Peace Council regarding Wesley Girls’ Senior High School and a student prevented from fasting. National Peace Council statement

National Peace Council. (2026, March 12). Promoting non-violence and youth inclusion in Krachi West, Oti Region. National Peace Council report

National Peace Council. (2023, November 16). National Peace Council calls for an end to the “politics of religion”. National Peace Council statement

Adongo Apubeo, A. (2026, June 4). Preventing violent extremism: Peace Council intensifies civilian-security dialogues. Ghana News Agency. Ghana News Agency

Bonney, E. (2021, May 6). Wey Gey Hey Ramadan saga: Peace Council calls for cool heads. Graphic Online. Graphic Online

Tengzu, P. (2026, June 11). CRS, partners strengthen civilian-security collaboration to prevent violent extremism. Ghana News Agency. Ghana News Agency

Ghana News Agency. (2026, March 24). National Peace Council urges Ghanaians to embrace diversity. MyJoyOnline

Marfo, E. A. (2024, February 28). Ghana must not give up on fight against violent extremism. Ghana News Agency. Ghana News Agency

About the Authors
Patrick K. Yeboah |Analyst | HR Generalist | Systems Administrator

Ebenezer Godwyll-Addison | Crime & Intelligence Analyst | Crisis & Hostage Negotiator