“Two bullets flew through my shoulder” – Duncan-Williams narrates his arrest during the revolution era
Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams, General Overseer of Action Chapel International, has shared a chilling testimony from the era of Ghana’s June 4th Revolution, revealing that he and some prayer partners were arrested and detained by soldiers who mistook them for enemies of the revolution.
Speaking to his congregation during a recent church service, the respected clergyman recalled how he narrowly escaped a fatal shooting while praying with friends at the Aburi Gardens during the volatile revolutionary period led by the late Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings.
“While we were there praying, I started feeling agitation in my spirit. I didn’t understand it until suddenly, I heard gunshots. Two bullets came through my shoulders and landed on the ground,” Duncan-Williams recounted.
The man of God said he and his companions, including a friend named Robert Kofi, were swiftly surrounded by soldiers who shouted, “Hands down! Lay on the floor! Enemies of the revolution!” The group was arrested and detained at the Aburi Police Station for days under strict military orders.
“There were no mobile phones then. Nobody knew where we were. The soldiers never came back,” he added. According to him, even the Queen Mother of Aburi, who had known him, had passed away at the time, leaving no one in authority to intervene.
Reflecting on the spiritual dimensions of their ordeal, Duncan-Williams told the congregation that he believed their arrest was not just a physical event but a “demonic arrest.”
“I told Robert, this is not just the military. This is spiritual. Unless we deal with it spiritually, we will not be released,” he declared. In response, the group engaged in four hours of intense intercession.
Following their fervent prayers, a breakthrough came unexpectedly. A military lieutenant—whose name Duncan-Williams could not recall—stopped by the station while heading up the mountain. Upon learning of the pastor’s detention, the officer ordered their immediate release.
“The police told him, ‘There’s a man here called Duncan-Williams and others; soldiers brought them and ordered us not to release them,’” he recalled. “But the lieutenant said, ‘Please release them, and if the soldiers return, tell them I discharged them. They should call me.’ That’s how we were freed.”
Duncan-Williams used the testimony to encourage believers to be spiritually alert and to trust in divine intervention over mere physical strength.
“There are people whose destinies have been locked up—not by men, but spiritually. We must stop relying solely on physical capabilities and start operating by divine authority,” he admonished.
The June 4th Revolution, which began in 1979 and was spearheaded by then Flight Lieutenant Jerry John Rawlings, was a pivotal era in Ghana’s political history. It marked the rise of military populism, purges of corrupt leadership, and eventually led to the formation of the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC), which laid the foundation for today’s National Democratic Congress (NDC).
Duncan-Williams’s remarkable account adds a personal dimension to the history of that turbulent time, shedding light on how spirituality, fate, and political unrest intertwined in the lives of ordinary—and extraordinary—Ghanaians.
