BREAKING GHANA | Former MP Adwoa Safo Reportedly Shot — Gunmen Open Fire on Her Vehicle in Accra

By: Ebenezer Adu-Gyamfi / Emmanuel Ayiku For GhanaianNewsCanada  |  June 21, 2026  |  Accra, Ghana

This story is breaking. Details are still emerging. GhanaianNewsCanada will update as verified information becomes available. Some facts remain unconfirmed by police or official sources at time of publication.

ACCRA — An already tense and widely watched family dispute has taken a deeply alarming turn. Former Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya, Sarah Adwoa Safo — daughter of the late inventor and industrialist Apostle Professor Emeritus Kwadwo Safo Kantanka — is reportedly receiving medical treatment after gunmen allegedly opened fire on her vehicle in the early hours of Sunday June 21, 2026. The shooting, which reportedly occurred at around 7am near the Accra residence of her younger brother Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena, has sent shockwaves through Ghana’s political and business community.

The alleged attack occurred amid escalating tensions within the Kantanka family over two intertwined and bitterly contested issues: the funeral arrangements for the late Apostle Safo, who passed away on September 11, 2025, and the question of who will succeed him as head of the Kantanka Group of Companies and the Kristo Asafo Mission church. At time of publication, Ghanaian police have not issued an official statement confirming or detailing the alleged shooting. GhanaianNewsCanada is monitoring developments closely.

What Is Known — The Alleged Shooting

According to initial reports shared on social media and subsequently picked up by YEN.com.gh and other Ghanaian news platforms, the incident occurred on Sunday June 21 at approximately 7am near the residence of Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena — the son of the late Apostle Safo and half-brother to Adwoa Safo. Reports allege that as Adwoa Safo’s vehicle passed near or approached the location, gunmen opened fire on it. She is said to have been taken to hospital for treatment, though the severity of any injuries has not been officially confirmed.

Reports further indicate that Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena had been mobilising supporters at his residence as part of his campaign to position himself as the successor to the late Apostle Safo when the alleged shooting occurred. It is not clear at this stage whether there is a direct causal link between that gathering and the attack on Adwoa Safo’s vehicle, or whether the two events coincidentally occurred in close proximity. These are matters that only a thorough police investigation can properly establish.

GhanaianNewsCanada emphasises that, at time of publication, these reports are based on social media posts and early media coverage. No official police statement has been issued. No suspect has been arrested or charged. No official medical update on Adwoa Safo’s condition has been provided by her family or representatives. All persons involved are presumed innocent of any alleged wrongdoing until established by a court of law.

Who Is Adwoa Safo — The Woman at the Centre of This Storm

Sarah Adwoa Safo is one of the most recognisable figures in Ghanaian politics over the past decade. She served as Member of Parliament for Dome-Kwabenya constituency in Accra for multiple terms as a member of the NPP, and held ministerial positions including Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection under the Akufo-Addo administration. She became a figure of intense public and parliamentary controversy in 2022 when her prolonged absence from Parliament — she had been in the United States with her children for medical treatment — contributed to a constitutional crisis over parliamentary quorum and a series of key votes.

She is the daughter of Apostle Professor Emeritus Kwadwo Safo Kantanka — the extraordinary Ghanaian inventor, industrialist, religious leader, and founder of the Kantanka Group of Companies whose death on September 11, 2025 triggered the succession dispute now threatening to tear apart one of Ghana’s most prominent families. Since her father’s passing, Adwoa Safo has been publicly identified as head of the Kantanka family — a designation that has been disputed by other members, most notably her half-brother Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena.

The Kantanka Succession Crisis — How It Got Here

The dispute within the Kantanka family is deep, multi-layered, and has been building publicly for months. At its core are two questions: who has the right to lead the Kantanka Group of Companies and the Kristo Asafo Mission now that the founder has passed? And who has the authority to make decisions about his funeral?

Adwoa Safo has positioned herself as the rightful head of the family and the legitimate organiser of her father’s funeral. She held a press conference on May 29, 2026, announcing a revised funeral programme: a burial at Gomoa Mpota in the Central Region on July 30, followed by a national farewell ceremony at Independence Square in Accra on July 31, and a thanksgiving service in Kumasi on August 8, 2026.

However, her brother Nana Kwadwo Safo Akofena has directly and aggressively challenged this authority. Shortly after his sister’s announcement, he posted a separate funeral flyer on Instagram indicating June 25, 2026 as the date for their father’s funeral — a direct contradiction of Adwoa Safo’s announcement. He also made serious personal allegations against his half-sister, claiming she had not spoken to their father for three years before his death, that she had retrieved gifts she had previously given him, and that she had no right to control arrangements for the funeral while the extended family was still actively involved.

The family’s official spokesperson from the Aduana Kotoko Royal Family also weighed in, stating that all funeral-related communications should come from the royal family’s abusuapanyin rather than from Adwoa Safo individually. A family secretary alleged that the late Apostle had expressed a wish not to remain in the morgue for an extended period and had not wanted his body to undergo prolonged preservation — a wish that, the secretary implied, Adwoa Safo’s revised funeral timeline was not respecting.

The public nature of this dispute — played out across social media, press conferences, and media interviews — has alarmed observers who note that the Kantanka brand is one of Ghana’s most important symbols of indigenous industrial achievement. A prolonged, visible family war over its control risks damaging not just the family’s reputation but the Kantanka legacy itself.

The Late Apostle Kwadwo Safo Kantanka — A Legacy That Demands Dignity

To fully understand the stakes of this family dispute, one must appreciate the extraordinary magnitude of what the late Apostle Kwadwo Safo Kantanka built. He was not simply a businessman or a religious leader — he was a national phenomenon. Born in 1948 in the Ashanti Region, Apostle Safo founded the Kristo Asafo Mission in the 1960s — a church that grew to hundreds of thousands of members across Ghana and beyond. He was a self-taught inventor whose scientific and engineering achievements were recognised by multiple universities, including the University of Ghana, which awarded him an honorary doctorate.

He founded Kantanka Automobile in 1994 — a company that by 1998 was producing Ghana-manufactured cars, motorbikes, tractors, helicopters, military vehicles, and electronic equipment. At a time when African industrial self-sufficiency was more aspiration than reality, Apostle Safo was building it. His factories employed hundreds of Ghanaians. His vehicles drove on Ghanaian roads. His inventions won international recognition. He was, by any measure, one of the most remarkable individuals Ghana has produced in the modern era. His death at the age of 77 on September 11, 2025 left a void in Ghanaian public life that the family’s current disputes are making all the more painful.

What This Means — Ghana Needs Answers, and Urgently

If the reports of Sunday morning’s shooting are confirmed, they represent a catastrophic escalation in a dispute that had already gone far beyond the normal parameters of family disagreement into the realm of public scandal. The use of firearms to resolve succession disputes is not only illegal — it is a direct assault on the rule of law, on personal safety, and on the dignity of the Apostle Safo’s memory.

Ghana’s police service must act swiftly, thoroughly, and transparently. If a former Member of Parliament has been shot — whatever the family context, whatever the succession dispute — that is a criminal matter that demands the full weight of the state’s investigative and prosecutorial resources. The individuals responsible for any use of firearms must be identified, arrested, and brought before the courts. No succession dispute, however bitterly contested, justifies gun violence.

The Kantanka family — all factions — must also look at this moment honestly. The late Apostle Safo spent his life building something extraordinary. The spectacle of his children and relatives fighting publicly, alleging misconduct against each other on social media, and now — if reports are confirmed — resorting to gun violence, is destroying the legacy he worked a lifetime to create far more effectively than any competitor or adversary ever could. Ghana deserves better. The late Apostle’s memory deserves better.

GhanaianNewsCanada extends its prayers to Adwoa Safo and all members of the Kantanka family during what is an extraordinarily painful period. We call on all parties to exercise restraint, to work through legal channels, and to allow the Ghana Police Service to do its job. We will continue to report on developments as verified information becomes available.

By: Ebenezer Adu-Gyamfi / Emmanuel Ayiku  |  GhanaianNewsCanada  |  June 21, 2026

© 2026 GhanaianNewsCanada. All Rights Reserved.