“I don’t even know my Abusuapanin’s name…”
Daddy Lumba sang it like a joke. The crowd laughed. The band played on.
Today, nobody is laughing.
In one of his deep, reflective songs, the late Highlife legend Charles Kwadwo Fosu — Daddy Lumba — sang that he did not know the name of his own Abusuapanin, his family head. It was a lyrical way of saying: This man is distant from me in life, irrelevant to my hustle, unknown to my daily struggle.
But in death, that same Abusuapanin whose name he claimed not to know, has taken control of everything — and according to Lumba’s widow and siblings, is messing up his funeral.
That song has stopped being entertainment. It has become evidence.
From Stage to Courtroom
Daddy Lumba died on July 26, 2025, at age 60 at the Bank Hospital in Accra.
He left behind over 30 years of music, but he also left behind a complicated family structure that has now exploded in public.
What should have been a befitting state-like burial for a national icon has become a Kumasi High Court drama with adjournments, injunctions, petitions to Manhyia, and two women fighting for recognition as widow.
At the center of it all, according to court filings and family accounts, is the Abusuapanin — Kofi Owusu Boahen.
The Widow’s Fight
Maame Akosua Serwaa Fosuah says she is Lumba’s only lawful wife. She married him on December 23, 2004 in Bornheim, Germany under German monogamous civil law.
On October 27, 2025, the German Embassy officially confirmed this in a statement, adding that no divorce or dissolution was ever recorded before his death.
On that strength, on October 1, 2025, she filed an interlocutory injunction at the Kumasi High Court to halt all funeral arrangements. She named the Abusuapanin, Priscilla Ofori aka Odo Broni, and Transitions Funeral Home as defendants.
Her claim: The Abusuapanin and Odo Broni had registered themselves as controllers of the body at the morgue and blocked her access, and the Abusuapanin intends to allow Odo Broni to perform the widowhood rites that belong to her as legal widow.
Her lawyer, William Kusi, told the court the Abusuapanin is the root cause of the dispute.
The court, presided over by Justice Dorinda Smith Arthur, refused the injunction on balance of convenience, ruling that after death, under Ghanaian custom, the extended family takes full responsibility for burial despite the type of marriage. The case was adjourned to October 28 for settlement talks.
Later, on November 28, 2025, the same court declared both Akosua Serwaa and Odo Broni as surviving spouses — a ruling that has now opened a bigger inheritance battle.
The Siblings’ Cry
It is not just the wife complaining about the Abusuapanin.
Lumba’s own siblings, led by his elder sister Ernestina Fosu, also petitioned the Asantehene’s Traditional Council. In that petition, she accused the Abusuapanin of making unilateral decisions — announcing December 6 at Baba Yara Stadium as funeral date without consulting them, controlling information, and disrespecting Lumba’s mother.
She even invoked Otumfuo’s Ntam Kese — the great oath of Asanteman — to get the Abusuapanin to answer.
After Manhyia’s intervention, the funeral committee was dissolved and the funeral was rescheduled to December 13, 2025.
The family is now split: the Abusuapanin faction and the widow/siblings faction.
The Man Who Knew
And that brings us back to the song.
When Daddy Lumba sang “I don’t know my Abusuapanin’s name,” he was not being disrespectful. He was being prophetic.
He was saying: When I am alive, this man does not contribute to my career, does not pay my studio bills, does not know my pain. But when I die, he will appear and take control of everything.
Exactly what is happening now.
The man whose name he said he did not know is now the man whose signature is on the morgue papers.
The man he left out of his songs is now the man controlling his final song — his funeral.
In his petition, Maame Serwaa also argued that Lumba had renounced his Ghanaian citizenship in 2002 after acquiring German citizenship, and under Section 9 of the Ghana Nationality Act, 1971, he had ceased to be under abusua authority, and that under German law, burial rights belong to the legal spouse.
Custom says one thing. Civil law says another. The Abusuapanin says another.
Let Lumba Rest
Daddy Lumba gave Ghana love. He gave us Aben Wo Ha, Theresa, Yɛne Wo Sere Kwa, Seese Wo Sɛ.
He did not give us court cases.
If he truly said he did not know his Abusuapanin’s name in life, why should that Abusuapanin be the loudest voice in his death?
At some point, respect for the dead must be louder than power struggles of the living.
The Abusuapanin must listen to the widow. Must listen to the siblings. Must listen to Manhyia. Must listen to the court.
Because a funeral messed up by power is not a funeral. It is a second death.
And Daddy Lumba does not deserve to die twice.
Alexander Afriyie, supervising editor, ghanacrimereport.com and ghanatalk.com