Samson Kwame Oppong also Sampson Opon or Opong (c. 1884 – c.1960 or 1965) was a controversial Akan Christian preacher-prophet on the Gold Coast in the 1920s. His missionary zeal, unconventional and fiery ministry helped entrench Methodism in the Ashanti and Brong-Ahafo Regions of Ghana, through a large-scale spiritual awakening and revival. Though his knowledge of Christian theology was minimal, he is known to have employed threats and other coercive techniques to proselytise in the Ghanaian towns and villages he worked in.
Early life Born Kwame Oppong in a slave family, he was owned by a wealthy man named Kofi Dom in Akuntanim, a Bono village near Berekum and the Ivorian border, about 64km (40 miles) west of Sunyani, the capital of the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana. Very little is known of the exact circumstances of his birth. Oppong recalled that he was about 12 years old when the Asantehene, Prempeh I was exiled by the British to the Seychelles. In an interview with his biographer, Hans Werner Debrunner, a Swiss German historian, Samson Oppong traced his ancestry to the Upper Volta, known today as Burkina Faso. Oppong's father, Yaw Kyerema was a Grunshie slave who had been a captive of Samory Touré, a nineteenth-century fearsome adventurist and warrior who founded a kingdom from modern day Guinea to Burkina Faso. Oppong father was eventually sold to Kofi Dom at Akuntanim in the Bong-Ahafo Region and held an important position in his master's household. Thus, Samson Oppong traced and identified his direct lineage to the Bono people, whose southern neighbours were the Asantes. Kyerema had two wives, an Ashanti woman and a slave of Northern extraction. In his childhood, Oppong was influenced by the brother of his Ashanti step-mother, a fetish priest and a traditional healer or shaman who adhered to the native Akan religion. In time, Oppong came to acquire the knowledge of herbal medicine through sorcery which had a spiritual basis in Akan religious thought for protection from foes, wealth acquisition, display of power, harming opponents and withstanding unrequited love. The natives in the villages viewed Oppong as a sorcerer who dabbled in magic potions and malevolent charms.
Samson Oppong noted in the Twi language,“When I grew older, I became a healer (oduruyefo) and a magician (osumanni). In the course of time, I gained the following medicines or amulets (aduru, suman):
Amanfo: An amulet that protects whoever wears it from bullets and knives. Anyone wanting to fire at the wearer of such an amulet would find the gun exploding in his hand. The knife of an attacker would break in his hand
Nsuapem: When the enemy sees anyone wearing such an amulet he would stand as though rooted to the ground by the magical power Wuramumu: This amulet is shaped like a little pair of bellows. If one uses them and calls the name of one’s enemy, his stomach will distend and he will suffer terrible pain. Penyan: This amulet will help one find buyers for one’s goods. Basaa: If one throws this amulet into the air it will stay there and everyone will see that one is powerful and not to be trifled with Ohye: If one puts this medicine into the soup of a woman who scorns one’s love, she must die. Afuto-sapu-gyina-makpe: A powerful magic [that] will kill twelve enemies at one blow”
Conversion experience The Anglo-Ashanti Wars between the British and Ashanti empires, along with the subsequent colonisation of the region by Britain, resulted in the abolishment of domestic slavery in Asante sometime between 1896 and 1901. This enabled Samson Oppong to travel to the Ivory Coast, as a free person. There, he worked as labourer with a group involved in railroad construction and supplying wood for the running of locomotives. By dint of hard work, he rose to become the gang leader or foreman. Tasked with collecting weekly wages and distributing various sums to his co-workers, he misappropriated and bolted with the group's salaries to a faraway village where he was accused of having affairs with a policeman's wife as well as many other women. He also spent the looted cash on alcohol. The cop's wife eventually tipped the police and he was subsequently arrested in 1913 and jailed for his crimes. He met an elderly Fante Christian in jail called Moses who “prayerfully commended him to God’s keeping”, a behaviour Oppong disliked. Oppong resisted conversion and baptism while in prison. On the night Moses was released from prison, Oppong asked Moses for money to which he responded, “I have no money but that which I have I shall give you. I commend you into God’s keeping.” Already famished, this response infuriated Samson Oppong and when he calmed down, he prayed “God of Moses, have pity on me.” He had a dream in which two Europeans came to his cell and the older of the two hacksawed off his chains. Oppong recalled that he heard a voice saying, “I am the God of Moses. Burn your magic things and beat the gong for me [proclaim my Word].” At dawn the following morning, the prison guards chained and took him and other prisoners to weed the bungalow compounds of the European civil servants. Shortly thereafter, the French District Commissioner informed him that he had been granted a conditional release pending court appearance and was required to stay for a week at the District Commissioner's home.
He stayed there for three days before escaping to Ghana to continue his herbal medical practice. He then went through cycles of imprisonment, admonitory experiences, dreams of being freed, actual release from prison, short acquaintances with Christians, return to traditional healing and then back to jail for a third time. Upon returning to the Gold Coast, Oppong found work as a labourer on cocoa farms in the Asante Akyem and Akyem Abuakwa areas. Oppong received catechism lessons at the Basel Mission station in Bompata, about 64km (40 mi) east of Kumasi in the Asante-Akyem district. Cocoa farming was a thriving and lucrative industry during this period. He went to Wankyi near Bompata, where he worked for a Christian woman. She was a congregant at the Basel mission church there and taught Oppong the Lord's Prayer through his catechesis classes. Within the Christmas period, Oppong heard the nativity story for the first time. On Christmas Day, he bribed his way to the fully packed Basel church. The parishioners viewed him as a magician and were suspicious of his presence. Oppong walked up to the priest and wrote his name down as a catechumen or new convert. Once again, he resisted conversion to Christianity because “he did not want to learn to read and write as a schoolboy.” Besides, the children in his village made fun of him for attending Christian classes. He wanted to return to magic healing which was a huge source of income for him. His interaction with the church was therefore non-continuous.
Oppong went to Osiem near Tafo and later to Nkoronso near Apedwa. There, he practised his trade as a sorcerer under the alias “Sebewie” (by magic he brings life). He occasionally attended the church at Nkoronso with a woman co-tenant. He fell out with the woman over her frequent mention of Jesus Christ in her prayers. He attempted to ‘spiritually kill’ this co-tenant with a magic potion but his attempts failed.
It is said that his conversion experience came in 1917 in Akyem-Abuakwa while “he was preparing a charm to kill somebody by magic.” He had been approached by a boy who promised to pay him a lot of money if he killed an uncle whose wealth the said boy would inherit. The young man wanted to also marry his uncle's wife. He went to the forest one Thursday to perform the sorcery rites to eliminate the man. According to Oppong, “I was looking down eagerly to see whether the magic was succeeding when suddenly I heard voices behind me: ‘stand up’, they said. Two men were standing there. I stood up and suddenly I found myself in a large town with many Europeans. They were all hurrying towards a large square, and so was I. there I saw all my magic amulets and medicines heaped up in a huge pile, together with all the sheep and chickens I had acquired unlawfully by my magic. A big glorious-looking man came towards me and said: “I am the God of Moses, who freed you from prison in the Ivory Coast. Why are you still living in sin? Go, I am sending you… Take up my cross and preach about it to all the world.” “I can’t speak English, I can’t read. How can I preach?” “I shall go with you.”
A divine command then directed him “to burn his magic apparatus and to proclaim God’s wrath on all “fetishism”. A search party of villagers went to the forest to look for him and found him lying on the ground in a comatose state. The villagers revived him but Oppong could neither walk nor talk. When he arrived at his house, he gathered all the item/material attributes he used for magic in the practice of the Akan religion and declared, “Today I have found one stronger than you. God has called me into his service. Now I am burning you.” He poured petrol on his objects and burnt them. He thus transitioned from ‘Sebewie’ as he was known to his adherents to Sebetutu or Osebetutu (one who takes away amulets in the Akan language).
He was baptised by the Rev. Ofosuhene of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, assumed the name Samson and subsequently donned his own ministerial garb of a long black robe with a huge cross in the middle and a red cross on either shoulder, with hair falling to his shoulders. He also wielded a gigantic bamboo crucifix and became loosely affiliated to the A. M. E. Zion Church. His vestments were sewn by a local tailor while his crucifix was made by a carpenter in his town. Initially, his missionary work was independent of the mission societies.
Evangelism Earlier 1910, the British Methodist missionary, the Rev. W. G. Waterworth was posed to Asante to reinvigorate the Christian mission there. By then, slightly more than thousand Christians who were mainly drawn from Fante settlers, merchants and civil servants, lived in Asante. Waterworth was unsuccessful in his missionary activities, which had stalled considerably. Besides, the Asantes were fiercely opposed to Christianity which they perceived as the ‘foreign religion of the victor,’ given that Asantes had lost three Anglo-Asante wars in 1874, 1896 and 1901.
In 1920, Samson Oppong, who was described as a “tall, strongly built Ashanti” went to the Methodist mission house dressed in a “long, black robe with a red cross on either shoulder and a larger red cross in the centre.” He held a large bamboo cross in one hand and carried a flat oval stone in the other which he linked to the Biblical verse, Revelation 2:17 NIV “Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who is victorious, I will give some of the hidden manna. I will also give that person a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to the one who receives it.”