Dag Heward-Mills has retracted and apologized for his recent sermon that criticized the unprofessional conduct of certain professionals, which sparked backlash.
According to the founder and Presiding Bishop of the United Denomination Originating from the Lighthouse Group of Churches, his intention was not to denigrate any individual or professional, but rather to attack the ills of the society.
“My intention as a preacher was not to smear any particular professional or individual but to teach the word of God. To the extent that any relationship has been drawn to any case pending in or out of court or to any individual or individuals, I consider it unfortunate and unintended, and I hereby disassociate myself from it, retract it and render my sincere apologies to anyone who may be affected by it,” the renowned man of God said in a statement dated Tuesday, August 8.
Last week, Bishop Heward-Mills was captured in a video in which he chastised the unacceptable conduct of some lawyers and other professionals.
“The law is powerful but it is in whose hands it falls. If the practice of law falls into the hands of fraudsters and criminals, then the practice of law which is a noble profession changes,” he lamented.
He cited a scenario of some young people approaching a lawyer with a terrible case without any reasonable evidence, but for the love of money, instead of advising the would-be clients to do the right thing, the lawyer accepted to handle the cases in a bid to extort money from vulnerable people.
“If you are a lawyer and you are a ruthless criminal, people will come to you with cases that nobody would even touch.
“Like maybe you can have some young men will come to you and say we’ve been cheated at our workplace. We worked for so long and we were treated badly. They didn’t pay our SSNIT, they didn’t pay our pension. They didn’t look after us. When we went abroad, we worked so hard and when we came back, we were maltreated. Look at my age, I’m 45 years old, I have nothing.
“And you have ruthless lawyers who have no scruples; they will do anything for money. A lawyer who has morals will ask you; when you worked you were not paid, can you bring the evidence or some documents? You don’t have any documents, just a pack of lies and you say these people this is how they are. They don’t want media they don’t want this thing; we’ll sue them and they will come and sit down and settle. They are called ambulance lawyers,” the bishop said amid loud cheers in a video that surfaced online.
He went further to tell a tale involving a man who was on the verge of dying and demanded the presence of his lawyer and his accountant. When they both arrived, he asked that the lawyer stand on his right side while the accountant stand on the left side. The man then said “I want to die in the middle of two thieves” before breathing his last breath.
Although Bishop Heward-Mills did not attribute his statements to anyone, they fueled suspicions that he might be alluding to the court case between his church, and some former pastors who have gone to court seeking some relief, claiming to have been cheated and treated unfairly.
