The Mayor of Accra, Dr. Alfred Okoe Vanderpuiye, last week announced that the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), will from July this year, ban the use of classrooms in the capital for place of worship.
This is a call in the right direction, as many people have long waited for this day. Classrooms or schools, are places for the impartation of knowledge and not to be turned into churches, where students had to compete with pastors and worshipers for space.
Not only does the activities of the churches affect teaching and learning, as teaching materials that hitherto used to be kept in the classrooms are discarded, drawings etc.
Because there is no guarantee that it will be there when students return the next day or when they come back after the weekend.
Their activities also constitute nuisance to the people who live around the schools by way of noise.
They destroy furniture, because they have to move tables and chairs out of the classroom for the service to go on, often they leave the chairs and tables outside to the vagaries of the weather, when the church service is done. Moving the furniture in and out and then in again, causes wear and tear.
The AMA, must not only announce the ban as the Mayor did, but should go ahead and enforce it. The Authority must also investigate to find out, who authorizes or give them permission to use the classrooms, as they could not enter the classrooms without somebody allowing them.
We have a lot of bi-laws on our books, the enforcement is the problem, as sometimes those whose responsibility it is to enforce the law to the latter, are themselves compromised.
We applaud the Mayor for this move; it is our hope that Churches or Christians do not see this as a way of persecuting them, but rather seeing it as their way of contributing to the development of this country, by complying with the Authority, when the ban comes into effect in July.
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