The Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission of Ghana has taken issue with the categorisation of Ahmadi Muslims separately from Islam in the 2021 Population and Housing Census.
The mission fears the categorisation of Ahmadi Muslims separately will create confusion among Muslims.
Addressing the media, the leadership of the mission said that upon previous engagements with the Statistical Service on the matter, an assurance was given that the issue would be rectified.
“We thought that was demeaning and a breach of trust, so we felt that it shouldn’t be so, especially when we had met with them and agreed to correct this anomaly,” third Deputy Head of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission of Ghana, Alhaji Ahmed Suleman Anderson, said.
“Because all other Muslims have been put together, and you have separated only Ahmadis, it becomes problematic, he added.
Mr. Anderson stressed that “Ahmadis are Muslims anyway, so as Muslims we don’t need to be separate from all other Muslims except where the whole form states that there are different sects.”
The mission is thus calling on the Statistical Service to immediately make the necessary corrections to prevent the exercise from being hampered.
In 2010, research by the Pew Research Centre indicated that 16 percent of Ghanaian Muslims identified as Ahmadiyyas.
Eighteen percent of Ghanaians are said to be Muslims, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census.
The 2021 census started on Monday, June 28, 2021, and will run till July 11, 2021.
