Pastor’s name pops up as the one who contracted ‘town boys’ to cut down Okomfo Anokye cola tree

Some details have started emerging about the circumstances under which the over 300-year-old historic cola tree (bese), said to have been planted by the famous Okomfo Anokye fetish priest at Feyiase near Kumasi, was cut down last Tuesday.

According to Graphic Online, a certain pastor, contracted some “town boys” to cut it down.

The pastor, according to some town folks described the tree as fetish, and therefore wanted it cut down.

He did not understand why a recent re-construction of the Atonsu-Esreso-Bosomtwe dual carriageway, did not even affect the tree and that the authorities decided to divert the road and by-passed the tree, protected it and left it untouched.

Pastor

The pastor, therefore, reportedly offered a GH¢5000 inducement to some town boys for them to undertake the operation of cutting down the tree under the cover of darkness. 

 Some residents said they heard the so-called “Man of God” ordered the cutting down of the tree based on his religious beliefs and described it as fetish.

“It was told the Pastor gave the boys GH¢5,000 to cut the tree down”, Kusi Berko, a native of Feyiase ‘said’.

“In fact that is the news going round our community”, another 72-year-old Agya Marfo also told Graphic Online.

Snippets of information gathered  from Feyiase on Thursday night [Nov 9, 2023] indicated that the police were closing in on some suspects linked to the illegal cutting down of the historic tree.

Road construction

Residents had assumed the tree was going to be pulled down in order not to interfere with a recent re-construction of the road into a dual carriageway, but the contractor left the tree untouched in the median of the Atonsu-Esreso-Lake Bosomtwe Road.

The contractor – Kofi Job Construction Company Limited, shielded the tree because of the traditional and tourism potentials and built a dwarf concrete wall around it.

The traditional authorities are said to have later complained that the tree was not visible enough with the dwarf concrete wall around it and so they removed the dwarf wall to make it more visible for tourism purposes.