Mrs. Akosua Serwah Fosuh, a widow of the late highlife legend, Charles Kwadwo Fosuh popularly known as Daddy Lumba has petitioned the Kumasi High Court for legal clarification regarding her late husband’s citizenship status and the implications for custody and burial rights.
In a formal letter addressed to Her Ladyship Justice Dorinda Smith Arthur, through her counsel, William Kusi, Mrs. Fosuh asserted that her late husband had lawfully renounced his Ghanaian citizenship in 2002 after acquiring German citizenship.
She therefore requested the court to recognise that, under both Ghanaian and German law, all legal and funeral decisions should rest with her as the lawful widow.
According to the letter, Mr. Fosuh applied for and was granted German citizenship in the year 2000. He subsequently renounced his Ghanaian citizenship through a written declaration to Ghana’s Ministry of the Interior, which was processed at the Ghana Embassy in Bonn, Germany, under File No. SCR/TA14/184/01A/G.
Attached documents cited in the petition include a certificate of renunciation issued in 2002, a surrendered Ghanaian passport, and a copy of his German passport.
Mrs. Fosuh argued that under Section 9 of the Ghana Nationality Act, 1971 (Act 361), once a Ghanaian citizen renounces their citizenship and receives a certificate of renunciation, they cease to be recognised as Ghanaian and forfeit rights under Ghanaian customary family status (abusua). Consequently, she maintained that her late husband could not be subjected to the authority of any Ghanaian family head or lineage.
Citing German civil law, Mrs. Fosuh emphasised that the rights to custody, burial, and funeral decisions of a deceased person belong exclusively to the legal spouse and surviving children, not to extended family members. She therefore urged the court to uphold her legal authority over her late husband’s remains.
“It would be contrary to both Ghanaian and international legal principles for my husband to have been recognized as a German citizen during his lifetime, yet be treated as a Ghanaian subject to customary control only upon his death,” Mrs. Fosuh wrote.
She prayed the court to take judicial notice of the attached documentation and affirm that the late musician was, at the time of his passing, a German citizen and that rights over his remains fall solely under her authority as the lawful widow and German citizen.
