The Untold Story Behind Dofopa FM, Occupy FM, and Samuel Awatey's Road to Russia

When Samuel Awatey, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Dofopa 105.1 FM, departed Ghana on what colleagues were told was a business trip to Russia, he left behind more than a station. According to DJ Cobby Rich, a former manager of Dofopa FM who has spoken to this reporter, Awatey had already sold the station before his departure a transaction that has now taken on a deeply tragic dimension in the light of his reported death on a Ukrainian battlefield.

The disclosure adds a new and disturbing layer to a story that has gripped Ghana's media industry since news of Awatey's death emerged in March 2026. Samuel Awatey, founder and CEO of Dofopa FM, was reportedly killed during a drone strike while serving with Russian forces on the battlefield. Details about how and when he joined the Russian military remained unclear, but reports suggested he had travelled abroad before associates later learned he had enlisted to fight in the war.

What was not reported at the time and what DJ Cobby Rich has now confirmed is that Dofopa 105.1 FM, the station Awatey built from the ground up at Pig Farm, Ebony Junction in Accra, was sold to Occupy FM before his departure. The proceeds of that sale, sources close to the matter indicate, were among the funds that financed his travel. Awatey, it now appears, did not merely leave for Russia. He liquidated his life's professional work to get there.

The Man Behind the Microphone
Samuel Awatey was the Chief Executive Officer and founder of Dofopa 105.1 FM, a radio station based in Ghana. Friends, listeners, and colleagues in the media industry described him as a passionate broadcaster and entrepreneur who built the station to serve local communities with news and entertainment programming.

His close friend Emmanuel Ayirebi Woyome confirmed the death after being informed by Awatey's wife, who had herself been told of her husband's death by the agent who helped him travel abroad. Woyome recalled that Awatey had told him he was going on a business trip to Russia and that he believed his friend and never thought he would enlist in the Russian Army.

News of Awatey's death was announced by his close friend, who had been informed by Awatey's expectant wife. The detail that his wife was pregnant at the time of his death has added particular poignancy to public responses to the tragedy a child who will grow up never knowing their father, a father who traded his station and his future for a promise that led to a drone strike in Eastern Europe.

Awatey's last social media post, shared on November 25, appeared on both his Facebook and Instagram pages and promoted travel opportunities to Russia. Reports later indicated that the Dofopa FM founder travelled to the same country featured in the advert, where he eventually died. That the same man who was marketing Russia to others had himself been drawn into the recruitment pipeline is a detail that speaks volumes about the sophistication and reach of the networks operating within Ghana.

Awatey Was Not Alone
DJ Cobby Rich's disclosure extends beyond Samuel Awatey. According to the former Dofopa FM manager, Awatey was not the only individual from the station's orbit who sold assets to fund travel to Russia. Others connected to the station and to the wider media and entertainment community in Accra are said to have made similar calculations liquidating property, vehicles, savings, and in some cases professional assets to raise the funds demanded by recruiters promising salaries of between $30,000 and $40,000 per year on the Russian front.

Recruiters reportedly promised salaries ranging from $30,000 to $40,000 per year. In a country where the average annual income for media workers at small independent stations is a fraction of those figures, such promises represent not merely financial temptation but a seemingly life-changing opportunity one that exploits the aspirations of individuals who have worked hard and built something, only to find that what they built is not enough to secure the futures they envisioned.

The pattern is consistent with what Ukrainian and Ghanaian intelligence have described as a sophisticated and deliberate targeting strategy. Recruiters did not focus exclusively on the unemployed and desperate. They also targeted the employed and striving people with assets they could liquidate, people motivated by ambition rather than destitution, people whose professional networks could serve as secondary recruitment pipelines once they had themselves been drawn in.

The Sale No One Told Him About
What DJ Cobby Rich did not know and what Awatey apparently chose not to tell him was that his CEO had decided to sell. Awatey negotiated and concluded the sale of Dofopa FM for GHC 330,000, collected the proceeds, and made his arrangements to travel to Russia, all without consulting the man who had been managing the station. The first DJ Cobby Rich knew of the transaction was after it had already happened.

The shock of that discovery is not difficult to imagine. A manager who has poured his professional life into a station scheduling programmes, managing staff, maintaining relations with advertisers and listeners expects, at minimum, to be part of any conversation about the station's future. To learn that the ground had been sold from beneath him, without warning and without inclusion, is a particular kind of professional devastation. It is not merely a financial injury, though the financial dimensions are real enough. It is a statement about how little the other party valued the partnership.

The GHC 330,000 sale price modest by the standards of Accra's larger multimedia houses but representing the accumulated value of broadcasting license, physical infrastructure, and years of brand-building went entirely to Awatey. There is no indication that DJ Cobby Rich received any share of the proceeds or any compensation for the position in which the secret sale placed him.

Russia: A Journey Into War
With the sale complete and the money in hand, Awatey left Ghana for Russia. He told his close friend Emmanuel Ayirebi Woyome that he was travelling for business. Woyome had no reason to believe otherwise. It was only later after Awatey had enlisted in the Russian military and been deployed to the front lines of the Russia-Ukraine War that the truth emerged.

Awatey was killed in a drone strike on the battlefield. He left behind a wife who was expecting their child and a circle of friends and colleagues who were informed of his death by the very agent who had facilitated his travel and recruitment.

His final social media post, dated November 25, 2026, was a travel advertisement promoting Russia. It now functions as an unwitting epitaph the last public trace of a man who had closed one chapter of his life in Accra and walked into another from which there was no return.

The Occupation of Dofopa's Frequency

The acquisition of Dofopa FM by Occupy FM one of Accra's most prominent talk radio stations, known for its strong public affairs programming and its association with activist and social commentary broadcasting has not been publicly confirmed by either organization. This reporter has sought comment from Occupy FM's management and had not received a response at the time of publication.

The transaction, if confirmed, would represent a significant consolidation in Accra's independent radio landscape and would carry uncomfortable symbolism: a station built by a man who died in Russia, absorbed by one of Ghana's most vocal media voices, its frequency now carrying content on the very public affairs crises recruitment, trafficking, youth unemployment that claimed its founder's life.

The National Communications Authority, which regulates broadcasting licenses and must approve transfers of ownership, has equally not confirmed any such transaction. Ghanaian broadcasting law requires formal notification and regulatory approval for ownership changes. Whether the appropriate processes were followed and whether the NCA was notified are questions that deserve answers, particularly given the unusual and distressing circumstances surrounding the sale.

What the Industry Must Reckon With
The case of Dofopa FM and Samuel Awatey forces Ghana's media industry to confront an uncomfortable reality: the Russia recruitment crisis is not a story that happened to other people, in other communities, in other sectors. It happened inside the broadcasting industry. It happened to a station owner. It happened to someone with a Facebook page, an Instagram account, and a frequency on the Accra dial.

The 55 Ghanaians confirmed killed fighting for Russia represent the highest number of casualties from a single African country to have been officially confirmed in the Russia-Ukraine war. Behind each of those 55 deaths is a story like Samuel Awatey's a person with a history, a family, a professional identity, and a moment of decision that could not be undone.

The Mahama Administration has signaled a zero-tolerance policy toward the recruiters and local agents facilitating these departures, representing a major test for the administration's intelligence apparatus because dismantling these cells requires a sophisticated cyber-security response to track crypto-payments and encrypted messaging used by dark web operators.

That is the technological dimension of the response. But the human dimension requires something different an honest accounting of the economic desperation and misplaced ambition that makes Ghanaians, including successful media entrepreneurs, vulnerable to promises that deliver not prosperity but death.

DJ Cobby Rich, in speaking about what he witnessed at Dofopa FM, has performed a public service. The story of how a radio station was sold, a frequency transferred, and a founder lost to a war on the other side of the world is not merely a media industry anecdote. It is a parable about what happens when a society fails to provide its people with futures worth staying for.

Samuel Awatey built a radio station. He deserved to die in his studio, not in a trench in Eastern Europe. Ghana owes it to him and to the families of all 55 dead to ensure that no more of its citizens feel compelled to make the same choice.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

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