The head of Assemblies of God Ghana, Rev. Dr. Stephen Y. Wengam, has shared how a last-minute change in President John Mahama’s travel plans kept him off the helicopter that crashed on Wednesday, killing several high-ranking military and government officials.
Speaking to his congregation, Rev. Wengam said many people had been thanking the church for “saving the president’s life,” but he insisted that no extraordinary act was involved beyond prayer and divine intervention.
According to him, the sequence of events began the week before the tragedy, when the President’s Secretary, Dr. Callistus Mahama, informed him that Mr. Mahama would not attend a scheduled church programme because he had been invited to Côte d’Ivoire as a special guest for the country’s Independence Day celebration. The Vice President and First Lady, Lordina Mahama, were to represent him instead.
Uncomfortable with the change, Rev. Wengam contacted Reverend Bawa, asking him to assemble a prayer team to intercede. “I told him I didn’t accept it,” he recounted.
Matters came to a head on Monday when the First Lady called, insisting that the president must attend the programme as planned and postpone his foreign trip. “It was a battle on the phone,” Rev. Wengam said, recalling how Mrs. Mahama urged him not to accept the president’s intended absence.
During their conversation, the president himself tried to reach the pastor, explaining his reasons for wanting to travel. While Rev. Wengam agreed to the explanation, he later received another message from the First Lady confirming that they would attend the church event on Wednesday, with the trip moved to Thursday instead.
That decision, he reflected, meant the president was not travelling on the day of the fatal crash. “If he had come today, he would have travelled yesterday,” Rev. Wengam said, noting the narrow escape.
He closed his remarks by urging pastors to maintain a deep and consistent prayer life, saying prophetic sensitivity often comes from spending extended time in prayer, not just in the days before preaching.
