Prophet Adom Kyei-Duah Is My Second-Cousin; Spiritual and Material Sacrifice Is Deeply Etched in Our DNA

Amidst the charlatanic behavior of dozens of prophetic poseurs, one is often heartened to come across the stories of the handful of Christocentric leaders who are widely acknowledged and acclaimed to be at the very top of the pack. One such morally instructive story is that of Prophet Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah who, until my immediate senior sister, Abena Yeboaa - aka Auntie ’Kua - brought his path-paving activities in the country to my attention, very recently, I had never heard of or known about. Obviously, some Ghanaians may also be expected to have their own not-so-palatable version of narrative about our Dear Brother and Beloved Cousin.

Recently, for example, one of my aunties, a long-retired professionally trained teacher in her early eighties, earnestly pleaded with Yours Truly to reach out and counsel Prophet Adom Kyei-Duah because in her opinion, my beloved cousin was causing a lot of “concerning” waves in the country. That was after I had brought it to the attention of my equally beloved Auntie Ampofowaa, of Akyem-Amanfrom, that my sister had just brought it to my attention, rather delightfully, that we also had an Akyem-Asiakwa relative in the glorious realms of the vatical who was doing our family and clan proud.

At any rate, what makes the Prophet Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah Story one that is intriguing and morally and spiritually exhilarating to Yours Truly is the fact that we both appear to have grown up in what Western Anthropologists call the same Extended Family, sharing the same great-grandfather, to wit, the Legendary Nana (Theodore Adolphe) Kwadwo Aboagye, the centenarian from Asante-Juaben and the Akyem-Asiakwa royal families, who is gloriously credited with having introduced Presbyterian Missionary Activities, in particular Missionary Education, to Akyem-Abuakwa and Okyeman, in general, in the late 1870s and the early 1880s, according the equally legendary Presbyterian Church of Ghana Scholar and Historian Fred Agyemang, in his book celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Presbyterian Missionary Activities in Ghana, titled “The Presbyterian Church of Ghana: 1835-1960; a Younger Church in a Changing Society.” Accra: Ghana Universities Press, 1966.

We also share the same great-grandmother, Nana Mary Akosua Baduaa of the Asante-Mampong Royal Family and Clan, and a younger sister of the Mamponghene, Odeefuo Nana Amaniampong, I. Awo Baduaa is known to have died somewhere in her fifties in 1931, as my grandfather, The Rev. Theodore Henry Yawbe (Aboagye) Sintim (1896-1982) told me and annually memorialized his mother. So I suspect Awo Baduaa must have been born sometime in the late 1870s or the very early 1880s. She was the third and the most beloved wife of Nana Aboagye, as our great-grandfather was more popularly known. Anyway, somewhere along our existential pike, the trajectories of our lives diverged. Awo Baduaa hailed from the Asante-Mampong Biretuo Clan that eventually settled in Akyem-Begoro in the wake of the Kumasi-Juaben War of 1870.

According to my immediate elder sister, I have two elder sisters and one younger sister, Prophet Adom Kyei-Duah, whose father is known to have hailed from the famous Township of Vakpo, in the Volta Region, is also the grandson of my favorite and eldest grandaunt on our late mother’s father’s Akyem-Asiakwa and Akyem-Begoro side of the family. Now, what the foregoing means is that we are what Westerners call “Second Cousins,” because Prophet Adom Kyei-Duah’s maternal grandmother, Nana Akosua Ntimaa/Ntimmaa (1894-1980), was also the immediate elder sister of our grandfather, The Rev. T. H. Sintim - aka Nana/Papa Yawbe Sintim-Aboagye - of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and Akyem-Asiakwa and Begoro, in that order, as the Old Man preferred to be known and called.

That also means that Prophet Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah and Yours Truly share two great-grandparents together, as already noted, namely, Nana (Theodore Adolphe) Kwadwo Aboagye, of Asante-Juaben and the Akyem-Asiakwa Royal Families. Legend has it that Nana Aboagye, the second of two brothers, the elder one was called Sintim, from both of whose names was derived the compound surname of Sintim-Aboagye, some of the family members settled in what is today known as the Township of Asamankese or Asaremankese, in the Old Kingdom of Akyem-Abuakwa, was the biggest farmer and landowner in Akyem-Asiakwa for quite a considerable while.

Still, what is most significant and relevant to underscore here is the fact that Nana Aboagye, who is widely acknowledged by family members to have lived past 100 years old, is that centenarian who is recorded in Fred Agyemang’s 150th Anniversary Historical Narrative of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, who is credited with having introduced Presbyterian Missionary Activities to Akyem-Abuakwa and, to be certain, Okyeman in general, first to Akyem-Begoro, in the early 1880s,from which seminal and nodal location Presbyterian Missionary Evangelism and Education radiated all across the land and well beyond.

Now, I obviously make the foregoing observation to underscore the fact that like this author, Prophet Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah has a well-established and respectable Christocentric pedigree that goes well beyond that of those among the contemporaries of the General Overseer of the Believers’ Worship Center who behave as if they are the very inventors of Christianity in Modern Ghana. Equally significant, Fred Agyemang, the late erudite scholar of Presbyterian Church of Ghana History, also highlights the phenomenal missionary activities of Yours Truly’s own maternal grandfather and the eldest son of Nana Mary Akosua Baduaa of the Asante-Mampong Royal Family and Younger Sister of Odeefuo Nana Amaniampong, I, of the Biretuo Clan which settled in Akyem-Begoro at the beginning of the 1870s, during what came to be known as the Great Migration that resulted from the Kumasi-Juaben Wars or Feud.

The Spirit of Giving and Charitable Activities is one that is writ large in the DNA of the descendants of Nana Kwadwo Aboagye, a cocoa and para-rubber planter or plantation farmer who is widely believed to have been born in Asante-Juaben sometime in the 1850s and died well past 100 years old in the 1950s, according to legend. The Presbyterian Church in Akyem-Asiakwa and the Akyem-Asiakwa Presbyterian Schools were constructed by Nana Aboagye and some members of his Oyoko Clan, both men and women.

Which is why it comes as absolutely no surprise at all to this author that Prophet Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah would be celebrated by one of his congregation members as a leader who is uniquely concerned about the fiscal and the material needs of his followers and church members in ways that cannot be attested on behalf or in favor of the overwhelming majority of Non-Mainline Ghanaian clergymen and women (See “Adom Kyei-Duah's church thrives by giving back; he's given members up to GH¢86 billion for businesses — Broda Sammy” Modernghana.com 10/29/24).

*Visit my blog at: KwameOkoampaAhoofeJr

By Kwame Okoampa-Ahoofe, Jr., PhD
Professor Emeritus, Department of English
SUNY-Nassau Community College
Garden City, New York
Oct. 29, 2024
E-mail: [email protected]