What should have been an ordinary errand for a young taxi driver in 1997 turned into a nightmare that would swallow 25 years of his life. Today, that same man, Evangelist Richard Nyarko, stands on pulpits in the same prisons across Ghana, preaching forgiveness, transformation and the mysteries of survival. His life story reads like a movie, but every detail is painfully real.
Born in Somanya in the Eastern Region, Richard Nyarko’s beginnings were marked by hardship. His mother was deaf and mute, and unable to identify his father. With no financial support and no guidance, Nyarko dropped out of Sikaben L.A. Primary School at just Primary Four. “Life began the day I left school,” he recalled, “because the world pushed me into adulthood.”
Discouraged by relatives who told him he was a waste of educational investment, Nyarko drifted to the streets and eventually left Ghana entirely, alone, to continue to learn shoemaking in Togo. He spent six difficult years there before returning to Ghana. Surviving through belt-hawking in Accra, and later becoming a trotro mate, before earning a driver’s licence in 1995 at just 19.
He did not know that his life’s darkest chapter was waiting for him.
A Friendship That Destroyed His Life
A close friendship with a police officer he trusted like a father changed everything. The officer often assured Nyarko of protection, urging him to mention his name anytime he had issues with security personnel.
One day, the officer invited Nyarko on what seemed like a harmless trip, to deliver a car to his uncle in Somanya. It was a journey that would alter his destiny.
According to Nyarko, the police officer returned from the uncle’s home with a number plate and instructed him to replace the original one on the vehicle. Nyarko obeyed, unaware of the implications.
Moments later, the District Chief Executive (DCE) saw him changing the plate and asked for an explanation.
When the DCE questioned the officer, the policeman failed to justify the act. Sensing danger, he vanished into, leaving Nyarko alone, exposed and defenceless.
A Brush With Death
What happened next was nothing short of horror.
Because he was the driver and the one physically changing the plate, the angry crowd concluded he was the criminal mastermind. Nyarko, a natural stammerer, struggled to explain himself. The more he stammered, the more the mob believed he was lying.
“They beat me till I could not feel my own body,” he recalled. “Then they tied me down, put a rope around my neck, and said they would burn me alive.”
A petrol car was right beside him, yet the crowd marched to a nearby town to get fuel instead. As he lay dying on the ground, he heard what he describes as a divine whisper: “You will not die.”
Just minutes before the mob returned with fuel, a police patrol team arrived and rescued him.
It was the beginning of another ordeal.
Seven Years in Remand Without Trial
Although his life was spared, Nyarko was immediately treated as a suspect. With no lawyer and no family support, he was remanded at Nsawam Prison.
He stayed there, not for weeks, not for months, but for seven years without trial.
He was eventually charged with conspiracy to commit robbery. With no counsel on his day in court, he was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison.
“The judge told me I should have known better because I was a licensed driver,” Nyarko said softly. “That day, I thought life had ended.”
Life Behind Bars, A World of Fear
Nsawam Prison, he said, was a world unlike anything he had imagined.
“They told me to salute the toilet because it served all of us and was of great importance,” he recounted. “That is when I understood that prison is another universe.”
But inside that universe, he found purpose.
He became a church leader, ministering to inmates and winning the trust of officers. With their support, he filed an appeal. Though crucial documents could not be retrieved, the court reduced his sentence to 25 years, time he had nearly completed.
He walked out a free man two decades after he first stepped into a police vehicle with a friend he trusted.
A New Life, a New Calling
The day he was almost burned alive never left him. Nyarko believes he survived for a reason.
“The car we used was a petrol car, if they had opened the tank, they could have burned me instantly. But they chose to go to another town. God kept me alive.”
Today, Evangelist Richard Nyarko ministers across prisons in Ghana, telling his story to inspire others and push for reforms.
A Call for Prison Reform
“Prisons are not made only for offenders,” he said. “Many people are there by accident.”
He believes the laws must change, especially for inmates charged with conspiracy, who are often excluded from amnesty even when they have transformed.
“Every man is subject to change,” he emphasised. “Every man deserves a chance to prove he is no longer who he used to be.”
From a frightened boy abandoned by society to a condemned man who survived a mob attack and two decades in prison, Evangelist Richard Nyarko is proof that the human spirit can rise from the ashes, literally.
His life is an indictment of a justice system that failed him… and a testimony of grace that saved him.
