The funeral of the late Daddy Lumba will proceed on Saturday, December 13, 2025, as planned, after the maternal family failed to mobilise to pay the GH¢2 million deposit in 2 hours to enforce a high court injunction.
This comes after his maternal family members — Obaapanin Afia Adomah, Robert and Georgina Gyamfi, Ernestina Fosuh, and Nana Afia Kobi — who secured an injunction to stop the funeral from proceeding, failed to pay a GH¢2 million undertaking to Kofi Owusu, the family head who has led the organisation and planning of the funeral.
The failure to pay the GH¢2 million effectively nullified the injunction granted by the High Court earlier on Friday, paving the way for the funeral to proceed.
Original ruling
On Friday morning, Justice Emmanuel Kofi Diaba barred the family head, Kofi Owusu from organising the final funeral rites of Daddy Lumba on Saturday, December 13, 2025.
Granting an interim injunction, the judge also barred the third respondent, Transitions Funeral Home, from releasing the body until the final determination of the substantive matter, which borders on who should lead the funeral.
It was the court’s view that while delaying the burial could lead to increased costs, the affidavits before it suggested that the immediate family had been sidelined in funeral arrangements, hence the need to consider the merits of the case.
It, therefore, stressed the need to respect process and proper family involvement, adding that the authority of the family head to lead funeral preparations needed to be exercised in consultation with the immediate family.
The family head was ordered to convene a stakeholder meeting within three weeks to agree on a new burial date.
It further ordered that all funds raised for the funeral be separated from accounts belonging to the Daddy Lumba Memorial Foundation.
Further order
Shortly after giving the ruling, the court reconvened and the judge made a further order that because of the costs incurred as of now, if by 2 p.m on Friday the applicants don’t pay GH¢2 million, the funeral home, Transitions, would release the body of Daddy Lumba, and the funeral scheduled for Saturday, December 13, 2025, will come off as planned.
This decision was grounded in a Practice Direction for the courts in Ghana on dealing with determination of applications for injunctions to restrain the burial of a deceased person.
Launched in 2024, the Practice Direction was put together by both lower court judges and Justices of the Superior Court.
Although they have no force in law, Practice Directions serve as protocols for the justice administration in Ghana.
Using the famous case law of Neequaye and Another v Okoe 1993-94] 1 GLR 538, the Practice Direction establishes that the corpse of a deceased person is under the control and authority of the family, which includes both the immediate and the wider family members.
It also gives the family the obligation to arrange for a funeral that reflects the deceased's social standing and the family's dignity.
Damages
Specifically, 4(d) of the Practice Direction states that where an application is brought less than two weeks before scheduled burial such application ought to be refused unless there is compelling reason to grant it including adequate undertaking as to damages that may be occasioned due to disruption of pre-arranged burial rites and funeral activities.
It is therefore, based on this that courts generally orders for the payment of an undertaking to be paid by the applicants in such circumstances.
In his ruling, Justice Diaba emphatically stated that if by 2pm the applicants failed to deposit the money, the order of interlocutory injunction would be vacated.
By close of day on Friday, lawyers for the family head confirmed that the applicants were unable to pay the GH¢2 million undertaking, and as such, have procured an order directed at Transitions to release the body.
Application
The ruling of the High Court followed an application for an injunction from some of the maternal family members of Daddy Lumba, including his sister Ernestina Brempomaa Fosuh and his uncle, Yaw Opoku.
Per the documents filed in court, the applicants argued that their family head Kwame Owusu had sidelined them in the preparation of the funeral.
