Kwame Sampson Oppong, also
known as Sèbètutu; meaning (Destroyer of native charms or Personal deities) was
born in Brong-Ahafo, (now in Ghana) in a slave family originating in Gurunsi
(now in Burkina Faso). He was a Goldcoast Prophet/Preacher.
Kwame Sampson Oppong started his life as a laborer before
becoming a Traditional Priest as he got a ‘Spiritual call’. His business
activities and divine call as a traditional priest and a healer took him to
Ivory Coast.
He continued his laborer job in Ivory Coast until he became a
foreman. In 1913, he was unfortunately jailed in Ivory Coast for embezzlement.
Whiles in jail, he had an encounter with God through a dream
instructing him to burn his fetishes. He resisted this and other admonitory
experiences over several years before eventually accepting the call.
He later returned to the Gold Coast precisely Bompata in the
Ashanti territory in 1917, where he began preaching and calling for the
destruction of fetishes and abandonment of magic and witchcraft.
He later moved to Brong-Ahafo where he got a large following
including chiefs and other traditional leaders.
Kwame Oppong had a unique way of preaching, he often 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.”
Oppong wanted to work with the Basel missionaries but was
rejected by the Basel missionaries (Presbyterian Church) several times because
of his style of reading from a mystical stone suspecting his conversion until
1920 when he met a Wesleyan Methodist missionary, W. G. Waterworth, and
traveled with him, and from then on Oppong worked with the Methodist church.
He brought a great impact to the Methodist church and
baptized over 10,000 people and converted over 20,000 souls.
Oppong retired later and lived at his native village where he
carried out his evangelistic outreaches in neighboring villages. He later died
in 1965.
