A member of the communications team at the seat of Ghana’s presidency, Jubilee House, Kwadwo Adubofour Agyekum, is dead. The late Adubofour doubled as a producer and reporter for the Accra-based Oman FM.
Kwadwo Adubofour Agyekum, who was a son of the renowned expert in linguistics at the University of Ghana Professor Kofi Agyekum, was born on 5 March 1981.
He died at about 3.35am on Saturday (17 June 2023) at the University of Ghana Medical Centre (UGMC).
Sources close to the family of the late Adubofour have confirmed to Asaase News that he was taken ill on Tuesday 13 June and was rushed to the Ga East Municipal Hospital and later transferred to UGMC. However, all doctors’ efforts to save him were unsuccessful.
President’s right-hand man
Kwadwo Adubofour Agyekum was very well known in the rank and file of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) and the Ghanaian media industry. During the unsuccessful 2012 and the two successful political campaigns prosecuted by Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the NPP in 2016 and 2020, he was the bearer of the microphone of first the candidate Akufo-Addo and then the president.
During these campaigns, he could also be heard reporting for Oman FM and all its affiliates across the country.
His death has come as a shock to many people who knew him, and particularly those in the NPP.
He continued to be the bearer of President Akufo-Addo’s public address system once he assumed office as president in January 2017, until taken ill. During the COVID-19 outbreak, Adubofour was personally responsible for sanitising the microphone and podium for the president before and after every public engagement.
Some took to social media to eulogise the late Adubofour. Richard Obeng Bediako, popularly known as Sir Governor, wrote on his Facebook wall: “What happened to Adubofour Agyekum, please, someone should give me explanations [because] I can’t believe it. The president’s friend and son of Opanin Agyekum of Peace FM. Oh, Adubofour Agyekum, rest well!”
Beposohemaa Naana Ntiri, a member of the presidential press corps, also wrote as follows of her Facebook wall: “Adubofour Agyekum, you fought so hard to pull through but death won. Have a peaceful rest, my brother. You will be missed.”
Nana Hesse Ogyiri, a known NPP activist on social media, also wrote on his Facebook wall: “Hmmm …. woke up to sad news of the passing away of my friend Adubofour Agyekum of Oman FM and Presidential Press Corps. ‘Adubofour Agyekum reporting from Manhattan’ is gone.”
The late Kwadwo Adubofour Agyekum was a graduate of the University of Ghana, where he studied sociology and linguistics. He leaves behind his wife, Elsie Baidoo Adubofour, and a child, Nana Afia Agyekum.
