By Laudia Sawer
Tema, Dec. 05, GNA – Dr Benjamin Anyagre Aziginaateeg, the Executive Director of the Afrikan Continental Union Consult (ACUC), Ghana Chapter, has cautioned Ghanaians not to break the country’s religious harmony at the back of promoting rights in schools.
Dr Aziginaateeg said extremism posed a genuine danger to national stability, adding that religious differences, if weaponised, could become sharp and divisive, capable of fracturing a peaceful state.
Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), he stated that mission schools had operated harmoniously for generations, questioning the sudden wave of unhealthy public banter and whether there was a hidden hand seeking to sow confusion in Ghana’s religiously stable society.
He said such religious misunderstandings were avenues for jihadist and extremist groups which often began with sparks, testing vulnerabilities in soft targets.
“Schools are usually among the first institutions attacked or infiltrated, as Nigeria’s painful experience shows. One could imagine a scenario where confusion is created around Christian schools to provoke retaliation from Muslim schools, slowly spreading tension into communities. This is how instability begins,” he said.
Dr Aziginaateeg emphasised that Ghana must be vigilant, and any attempt to fracture the country’s enviable religious harmony must be resisted with the full weight of the state.
He cautioned politicians to be measured and circumspect in their utterances, as it was currently a potential national security concern.
He stated that Ghana’s orderliness was rooted in its constitutional framework as a secular state, which was why mission schools admit all qualified students irrespective of their faith, adding that this constitutional circularity fostered coexistence and harmony.
“It is no accident that the National Chief Imam can visit a church, and an archbishop can visit a mosque. These gestures reflect Ghana’s exceptional religious cordiality. And who says a child who studies in a school affiliated with another faith will automatically convert? Such assumptions are exaggerated.
“For decades, students have attended these schools without fear, hesitation, or protest,” he stressed.
The ACUC Executive Secretary noted that the very genesis of many mission schools in Ghana laid in doctrinal faith and service, adding that these schools were founded on the desire to instill denominational morals and nurture a generation of selfless leaders for the future.
He added that faith-based institutions also saw education as a contribution to national development and, naturally, as a way of attracting followers; therefore, the Christian and Muslim communities alike established schools for these reasons.
He noted that yet, over the decades, these schools have been administered far beyond the boundaries of belief, as students and parents have always been fully aware of the religious character of these institutions, but they continued to send their wards regardless of their own faith backgrounds.
“Religious separatism has not been a feature of Ghana’s educational environment. Students learn in the same classrooms, share the same dining halls, live in the same dormitories, and engage one another in harmony, with no separatist mindset,” he said.
He further noted that most importantly, these schools did not forcefully indoctrinate students, unlike certain troubling practices observed in some African states where schools were used as targets for ideological conversion.
“The focus in Ghanaian mission schools remains academic excellence, character formation, and knowledge acquisition, not religious coercion,” he stated.
He stated that subjects such as Religious and Moral Education or Biblical/Islamic Knowledge should continue to be taught with depth and balance, enabling students to understand diverse religious backgrounds and embrace plurality with maturity, as this broad-mindedness was essential for national cohesion.
He said rather than allowing unnecessary tensions to grow, Ghana should focus on rethinking and reengineering its educational curriculum for national development, ensuring a stronger emphasis on engineering, science, creativity, and technical skills needed for economic transformation.
GNA
Edited by Christabel Addo