The claims Anagkazo

What is Anagkazo, the Ghana campus shown in the VRT documentary on Go Church?

Anagkazo is the Bible and ministry training centre Bishop Dag Heward-Mills founded in 1996 to train men and women for ministry, and VRT’s own narrator says future pastors are trained there. In 2022 Ghana’s National Youth Authority held the nation’s International Youth Day on the campus, with the United Nations Population Fund taking part.

By See For Yourself24 October 20262 min read

What the documentary said

the massive Lighthouse training campus surrounded by greenery. Here in Anagkazo, future pastors are formed.

vinden we midden in het groen de enorme opleidingscampus van Lighthouse. Hier in Anagkazo worden toekomstige pastors gevormd.

VRT narrator, over the approach and the gate shot (31:27-31:33)31:23 in the broadcast

9-hole golf course, crocodiles

Ik weet niet hoeveel plaatsen in Accra fraaier zijn dan die plek. Er is een golfterrein met negen holes, er zijn krokodillen. Er is... Het is prachtig.

Lawrence Odonkor, former bishop (vrt_audit correction 2; VRT_MAP B12)31:51 in the broadcast

“a country within a country, like the Vatican”; “Tell me this isn’t about money”; “and this is supposed to be a non-profit”

Ik denk dat Dag Heward-Mills in wezen het model van de Katholieke Kerk volgt. Hij probeert een land in een land te bouwen. … Zeg me dat dit niet over geld gaat. En dit zou een non-profitinstelling zijn.

Lawrence Odonkor, former bishop32:06 in the broadcast

A country within a country, like Vatican City in Italy. That is what Anagkazo is here in Ghana, according to our bishops.

Een land in een land zoals Vaticaanstad in Italië. Dat is Anagkazo hier in Ghana volgens onze bisschoppen.

VRT narrator, over the drone shot32:34 in the broadcast

Watch VRT at this point · VRT NWS Pano31:23 (opens the recording on YouTube at 31:23)

Go Church’s full written reply to VRT, in Dutch and English.

What the film left out

VRT approaches by car under a flat grey sky, then holds on a concrete arch, a spiked fence and a turreted gatehouse. The picture says fortress. The narrator’s words over it say the campus is where future pastors are trained. Then the drone rises and the film calls the complex “gigantisch”. The “country within a country” verdict belongs to Lawrence Odonkor, whom a Madagascar court convicted in April 2023 of fraudulent breach of trust, dissipation and embezzlement in a case brought by the church’s Madagascar branch. Two appeals were dismissed. VRT told viewers none of this.

The Anagkazo Bible and Ministry Training Centre was founded in 1996 “to see young men and women trained and equipped for the work of the ministry, according to Ephesians 4:11-12”. Its Mampong campus in the Akuapem hills opened in October 2015, and its students come from the West Indies, Fiji, many African countries and Asia, according to the ministry’s 2016 film. A 2021 release put it at about 800 full-time residents and said its founder wants it to remain a school for pastors.

From 10 to 12 August 2022, Ghana’s National Youth Authority and Ministry of Youth and Sports held the national International Youth Day at the Anagkazo campus, under the patronage of President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo. UNFPA Ghana reported the event from the campus. VRT showed a gate; Ghana’s government held its national youth day behind it.

The campus also houses a museum of missionaries and ministers of the past. Visitors’ videos show life-size figures of John and Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, Francis Asbury, and William and Catherine Booth, and panels on the Basel missionaries who came to Ghana, among them the doctor Christian Heinze, who died about five weeks after arriving.

Aerial view of the Anagkazo campus in the green Akuapem hills, with red-roofed halls, lawns and an auditorium — The Anagkazo campus at Mampong, in the Akuapem hills. via AB Newswire, 10 Jul 2025

The record: his own words, across the years

2018

Ghana, GTWC 2018 conference, the week the Anagkazo museum opened

Announcing the museum, he honours the missionaries who came to Ghana knowing many would die, and says the church today preaches money instead.

the wisdom of men did not give rise to the church that we have in Ghana today nobody would advise his child to come to Africa it was called The Dark Continent by the way apart from that everybody who came here got malaria and died within a few weeks we are going to be launching the museum a little uh beautiful Museum during this week … and you will see the people who came to Ghana to die they standing there … that’s the wisdom the church has lost today today all that we preach is money get money how to give and get money prosper and all this

Watch · Ghana, 201846:12 to 47:40 (opens the recording on YouTube at 46:12)

The towers of the Anagkazo campus lit up at night — Anagkazo at night. Seedeblay, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The grey Anagkazo gatehouse under an overcast sky — The kind of shot VRT showed: the gatehouse under a grey sky. Seedeblay, 2020, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

The verdict

VRT filmed a Bible school and called it a country within a country. Ghana’s own government chose the same campus to host its national youth day.

Questions people ask

Is there a golf course and crocodiles at Anagkazo?

The claim comes from Lawrence Odonkor, a former bishop with a Madagascar conviction for breach of trust and embezzlement. Neither appears on screen, and VRT’s own drone footage shows no golf course.

Who owns Anagkazo and who benefits from it?

VRT never says who owns it, who funded it or who benefits. Its own narrator says it is where future pastors are trained.

Where is Anagkazo?

The main campus is at Mampong, in the Akuapem hills of Ghana, the address the Anagkazo Bible and Ministry Training Centre gives on its official site.