A Kumasi High Court on Friday ruled that both women who have been battling over their status as spouses of the late highlife legend Daddy Lumba are to be recognized as his surviving wives, a landmark decision that removes the last major legal obstacle to his long-delayed funeral.
Presiding over a packed courtroom, Justice Dorinda Smith Arthur held that Akosua Serwaa Fosuh, based in Germany, and Priscilla Ofori, widely known as “Odo Broni,” are both lawful surviving spouses of the musician, born Charles Kwadwo Fosuh.
The judge directed that the family head must acknowledge them in the performance of widowhood rites and stressed that there should be “no hindrance” to the removal and burial of the late musician.
The ruling is expected to finally unlock plans to bury Daddy Lumba on December 6 at Kumasi’s Baba Yara Sports Stadium, a state-scale farewell that has already been postponed once as relatives fought over who had the right to stand publicly as his widow.
The case began after Lumba’s death on July 26 at The Bank Hospital in Accra at the age of 60. When the family announced that his final funeral rites would take place in Kumasi on December 6, a dispute erupted between two women who each claimed to be his only lawful spouse.
In October, Akosua Serwaa sued in the Kumasi High Court, asking to be declared the sole surviving spouse based on what she said was a 2004 civil marriage to Lumba in Bornheim, Germany.
She also sought to restrain the head of the extended Ekuona family and Odo Broni from claiming any right to funeral or widowhood rites.
On Friday, the court rejected that argument. Justice Smith Arthur found that Akosua Serwaa had not proved the German civil marriage to the standard required by Ghana’s Evidence Act, noting that she failed to provide the original marriage certificate from the German registry or expert evidence on German marriage law.
Instead, what was before the court was an extract, which the judge said “fell short” of the statutory requirements and could not, in an age of digital image manipulation, be treated as conclusive proof.
At the same time, the judge rejected the family head’s claim that Akosua Serwaa’s customary marriage had been dissolved when she allegedly “returned the head drinks,” a traditional act some witnesses said marked separation.
The court described that evidence as inconsistent and unreliable, and held that her customary marriage to the musician remained valid at the time of his death.
Crucially, the court also accepted evidence that Priscilla Ofori, known publicly as Odo Broni, was herself customarily married to Lumba, had lived with him for more than 15 years and had six children with him.
Graphic Online, citing the court’s 74-page judgment, reports that the court concluded she “was also a wife” of the deceased and therefore entitled to all rights of a spouse under Ghanaian law.
The effect of the judgment is that, in the eyes of the law, both women are surviving spouses with legally recognized interests in his funeral, widowhood rites and estate.
Friday’s decision builds on an earlier ruling in October, when the same High Court dismissed an interlocutory injunction that Akosua Serwaa had filed to stop the funeral outright. In that ruling, Justice Smith Arthur held that under Ghanaian customary law, ultimate authority over a corpse rests with the deceased’s family, regardless of the type of marriage contracted.
Granting an injunction, she said then, would not be in the best interest of either the family or the public, especially given the cost of keeping the body in the morgue and the intense national attention on the case.
The court refused the injunction, effectively giving the family the “green light” to proceed with preparations for the December 6 funeral in Kumasi.
Friday’s judgment goes further. According to reporting based on the full decision, the court held that the extended family of the late musician retains the right to decide which of the two wives will perform the key widowhood rites, even though both must be recognized as spouses.
By expressly stating that “there should be no hindrance to the removal and burial of the late musician,” the judge signaled that the spousal dispute should no longer be used as a basis to stall the funeral.
The case, heard in the cultural capital of Ashanti Region, has been followed across Ghana much like a serialized courtroom drama. Media reports described heavy security around the Kumasi High Court as the verdict approached, with fans, family members and curiosity-seekers massing outside.
Inside, relatives from Akosua Serwaa’s side left in tears after the judge declined to crown her the sole legal wife, even as she retained recognition as one of two surviving spouses.
For Lumba’s extended family, the ruling appeared to vindicate their insistence that the funeral should go ahead under the direction of the matrilineal clan, with both women acknowledged but neither able to veto burial plans.
From a practical standpoint, Friday’s ruling clears the last major legal cloud over the funeral timetable.
Courts have now refused an injunction aimed at stopping the December 6 funeral, settled the core question of who qualifies as surviving spouse, affirming both women as lawful wives, and reaffirmed the extended family’s authority over the body and burial arrangements and instructed that nothing should hinder the removal and burial of the musician.
Legal analysts say that combination makes it significantly harder for any of the parties to secure a fresh court order that could halt the funeral in coming days.
Any new attempt to injunct the burial would now have to overcome a clear judicial finding that the family controls the funeral and that both wives must be accommodated within that structure, rather than one displacing the other.
This, in effect, nudges the dispute out of the courtroom and back into the family compound.
The court has set December 1 as the date when a certified copy of the full judgment will be available, giving lawyers and the family less than a week to pore over its reasoning before the scheduled funeral.
Family-law practitioners point out that the ruling is likely to influence not just the pending funeral but the distribution of Lumba’s estate.
By recognizing both women as surviving spouses and affirming their long-term relationships with the musician, the court has signaled that any future succession or property cases must treat them as having parallel marital status, at least under customary law.
That could prove significant given that the highlife legend is widely reported to have children with both women and to have accumulated considerable wealth over a decades-long career.
Beyond the immediate family, the case has become a national civics lesson in the complexities of marriage and death under Ghanaian law. In open court, Justice Smith Arthur observed that in Ghana’s plural legal system, customary and civil marriages are each independently valid, and that the existence or collapse of one does not automatically erase the other.
For many Ghanaians who followed the hearings on radio and social media, the spectacle of lawyers arguing over German marriage records, “head drinks,” and customary rites around one of the country’s most beloved entertainers has highlighted how messy modern relationships can become when they are never fully regularized on paper.
Yet, for all the legal nuance, the judgment’s most immediate impact is simple: nearly four months after his death, the man whose music soundtracked weddings, breakups and political rallies across generations may finally be laid to rest in his home region, under a court-endorsed compromise that insists his two wives stand acknowledged, even if only one leads the rites.
If the family proceeds as planned, thousands of mourners are expected to converge on the Baba Yara Sports Stadium on December 6 to say goodbye to the artist who helped redefine highlife and whose personal life, even in death, has forced the country to confront uncomfortable questions about love, law and loyalty.
