The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church, Ghana, Rev. Dr. Stephen Yenusom Wengam, has shared how Ghana’s President, John Dramani Mahama, narrowly avoided boarding the military helicopter that crashed on Wednesday, August 6, 2025.
The helicopter Z-9 was carrying five government officials and three military personnel who all perished after it crashed around Adansi Akrofuom, near Obuasi in the Ashanti region.
Rev. Wengam, during a church service on Thursday, August 7, 2025, after the incident, said many have attributed the President’s absence from the flight to divine intervention, urging the congregants on the need for them to be prophetic.
“People have been calling and posting on social media and saying Assemblies of God, thank you for saving our president’s life. It’s not about the clapping. Listen carefully. That’s why the speaker said, you must be prophetic. You don’t need to be a prophet,” he stated.
He recounted that the sequence of events began the previous week when he received a call from the President’s Secretary, Dr. Callistus Mahama.
“When last week, I received a call from the President’s Secretary [Dr Callistus Mahama] that he will not be able to come today, and that he had been invited to la Côte D’ Ivoire to be the special guest of honour for their independence [Day celebration] and that His Excellency had asked the Vice President and his wife [Lordina Mahama] to come in his place. I said, thank you, Dr Callistus.”
But he said he felt uneasy about the President’s change of plans. He, however, did not disclose whether President Mahama would have travelled to Obuasi on the same military helicopter that later crashed in the Ashanti Region before heading to Côte d’Ivoire.
Rev. Wengam says he committed the President’s refusal to attend the event to prayer, when he found it difficult to accept the change of plans.
“Then I call Reverend Bawa and said, ‘Reverend Bawa, the President said he can’t make it, and I don’t accept it. Go mobilise the prayer team and pray and reverse it. Rev Bawa is my witness. Where is he? I told him. I said, I don’t accept it.’”
“Then Monday, when we arrived, I was a bit late. I was just coming, and the First Lady called me very angry. She said, ‘Pastor, President says that he’s going to Côte d’Ivoire, but no, we are coming for this program. We have planned for this program long ago. No way.’ It was a battle on the phone. Battle on the phone. She said, ‘Don’t accept it’.”
The General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God Church said the President himself tried reaching him on phone while he was on call with the First Lady.
“I was talking with her when the President was calling. I said, Mama, ‘President is calling. It’s okay. I’m going off. I don’t agree’. So the President explained. I said, ‘Your Excellency, I understand, your will be done’.”
Later that day, the First Lady followed up with a message that would change everything.
“Then when I was leading prayer, I saw Mama calling again. I couldn’t receive the call. Then she sent a text and said, ‘We are coming on Wednesday’, so the President can travel on Thursday. So that was how it was averted.”
He concluded with a challenge to pastors about the importance of prayer and spiritual vigilance.
“So when the speaker says, we must be prophetic, every pastor — and this comes by being very prayerful, spending time hours before the daily, not that you pray on Monday, you don’t pray Wednesday, when you’re going to preach on Saturday, then you start fasting off.”
