Dead man buys his own coffin

The coffin of Baffour Awuah, the pauper who died at the Ridge Hospital in Accra, and was believed to have surfaced in Kumasi, was bought for 250,000 cedis, according to the vendors in Kumasi.

Awuah, 56, died on December 26 last year, was said to have been seen in Kumasi, bought a coffin and sent it through a driver for his own burial in Accra.

An accompanying note read: "Kinbus Garden Awuah Coffin" bore his signature. Baffour Awuah, whose body is still at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital morgue, was a squatter at the Kinbu Gardens until he was taken seriously ill and his friends sent him to the Ridge Hospital, where he died.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in an interview in Kumasi at the weekend, the vendors Kwadwo Sarfo and Kwabena Sarpong said a man in an ordinary attire came to the shop on Thursday at about 10 a.m. and behaved as if he knew them and said he had come again to buy a coffin and that they should reduce the price for him.

They said after bargaining for some time, they sold it for 250,000 cedis so he told them that the money on him was not enough and that he was going to see an uncle whom he was travelling with for the rest of the amount.

They said after some time, the man came back paid for it without collecting receipt, telling them that he was sending the coffin, popularly called "Wawa Sprayed" to Accra and so he was going to Asafo Market for a vehicle.

Some minutes later, they said he came with a "207 Mercedes Benz Bus" which was full of passengers. The coffin was covered and placed on the carrier where the man wrote a note to the driver to be given to a receiver in Accra.

"The handwriting was not readable, so a colleague took the pen from him and re-wrote the whole thing for him", they explained. When the Ghana News Agency continued to the Kumasi-Accra lorry station at Asafo Market, Mr Yaw Baffoe, the Station Master said it was true that a man came to him on that day and asked for a car to send a coffin he has bought to Accra.

He said the man told him he would off-load it at a place near the National Lotteries and so he charged him 100,000 cedis, which he paid.

Mr Baffoe said it was three days later that the driver of the vehicle with the registration number "AS 4652 S" came to inform him that he had a problem with the coffin because when he got to Accra the man who was supposed to collect the coffin refused to do so with the explanation that the name, address and the inscription were that of a deceased.

He said the driver further told him that the matter was being investigated by the police in Accra. Nana Danso, a resident of Madina and a friend of the deceased for 20 years, told the Ghana News Agency that Awuah, who hailed from Kumawu in Ashanti, used to be in charge of the toilet at the Kinbu Gardens but was sacked.

His friends took care of him at the hospital and no help came from his relatives, who had written him off as a vagabond. Mr Danso said when Awuah died his friends met with representatives of the Greater Accra Regional Minister, who promised to give them a place for burial provided they could secure a coffin.

"We found it difficult to do this since we had no money." However, on Thursday the driver of vehicle number AS 4652 S, Karikari Acheampong, brought them a coffin saying Awuah had asked him to deliver it to them for his burial.

Mr Acheampong said that he was loading his vehicle bound for Accra at the Neoplan Station at Asafo in Kumasi when a man in his 50s approached him and said he had some cargo to be conveyed to Accra.

"When I asked what it was, he said it was a coffin. He then told me to pick it up at the Kumasi Labour Office on my way to Accra. Acheampong said when he got there Awuah assisted him to put the wrapped coffin onto the vehicle and he paid the charge of 100,000 cedis. The driver said after disembarking his passengers in Accra he then went to the Kinbu Gardens where he met the friends of Awuah.

After narrating how he came by the coffin and describing the person who sent it he was told that the description met that of Awuah, who was dead and his body was at the morgue at Korle Bu.

The driver and the friends then went to the Police Information Department at the Police Headquarters where the vehicle was detained overnight. On Friday morning when the coffin was open it was empty and the Police subsequently released it to the friends for the burial of Awuah. Osei Kwame, a businessman and a friend of the deceased, identified the handwriting on the note accompanying the coffin as that of Awuah. Mr Martin Amofa, Assistant Superintendent of Police, Operations, confirmed the story to the GNA.