Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Abena Osei-Asare drew attention at the committee’s May 21, 2026 sitting after she declined a request for special handling of the Quran, insisting that all religious books at the committee’s sitting are treated equally as instruments of official proceedings.
The moment arose when Islamic Girls Senior High School headmistress, Safia Salifu, appearing before the committee, raised concerns about how the Quran was being handled. Salifu requested that the Holy Book be stored separately, kept away from other documents, and handed to witnesses only by a Muslim, in keeping with Islamic tradition requiring ritual cleanliness before touching it.
“I have a plea, honourable chair. Please can you put Honourable Miss Bao in charge of our Quran because we don’t put anything on Quran and it is being mixed up with some other documents,” Salifu said.
She went further: “We have to get a separate box to keep the Quran in … and probably get a Muslim to distribute it because we perform ablution before touching it. I see that it has been mixed with some other documents.”
Osei-Asare, however, was unmoved, explaining that the committee makes no distinction between the Bible and the Quran in the course of its work.
“We place all the Bibles and Qurans on the table. When you come and pick it, they are treated as instruments of work and used as such,” she said.
Her position revealed clearly that PAC operates on the principle of equal treatment, and religious texts, whatever their significance to their respective faiths, serve a specific procedural function in that space.
“We place all the Bibles and Qurans on the table. When you come and pick one, they are treated as instruments of work and used as such.”
— SIKAOFFICIAL🦍 (@SIKAOFFICIAL1) May 21, 2026
— Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee, Hon. Abena Osei-Asare, responding to a request by the Headmistress of Islamic Girls’ Senior… pic.twitter.com/Lo2FalWzzO
The exchange, captured on video and widely circulated online, has generated significant debate among Ghanaians.
While a section of the public sympathised with the headmistress’s request as a sincere expression of religious practice, the majority of online reactions appear to back the chairperson’s stance, viewing it as an appropriate assertion of institutional neutrality during official state proceedings.
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