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Claim: A Facebook page shared some photos claiming Barbara Asantewaa Kodua, identified by the Ghana Police Service as the person behind the “Ghana Jollof” TikTok account, died in the United Kingdom and was brought to Ghana for burial in 2023.
Verdict: False! The obituary poster is fabricated. The claim that the woman identified by police as Barbara Asantewaa Kodua died in 2023 is unsubstantiated, while the graphic itself shows multiple signs of AI-generated properties.
Full Text
The identity of the person behind the anonymous ‘Ghana Jollof’ TikTok account became a major public discussion point after the Ghana Police Service published a wanted-person notice on Sept. 17, 2026, naming 40-year-old Barbara Asantewaa Kodua.
According to the police notice, Kodua was wanted in connection with an alleged case of inciting violence. The Police said she was last seen at the Accra International Airport on Aug. 4, 2022, and that information available to the Service suggested she could be hiding in the United Kingdom.
The development followed the arrest and remand of senior nursing officer Salomay Awiti Bafoh, whom prosecutors allege acted as a liaison for Kodua in publishing and circulating content on TikTok. Court updates on Sept. 17 and 18 say Bafoh was remanded for two weeks while investigations continue.
On Sept. 18, however, a purported obituary began circulating (see here and here) on social media.
The alleged obituary was also shared here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.
The graphic claims that the same Barbara Asantewaa Kodua died in the United Kingdom and was subsequently brought to Ghana for burial in 2023.
Under one of the comment sections was a Facebook user, Omono Asamoah Koranteng, who claimed the husband of the alleged deceased woman is his friend.
Because the claim directly contradicts the police’s Sept. 17 account, DUBAWA examined the obituary graphic and the available evidence surrounding the claim.
Verification
DUBAWA first contacted Omono Asamoah Koranteng, who publicly commented on the Facebook post discussing the purported obituary.
Because he claimed the husband of the woman in question is his friend, DUBAWA attempted to find out from him if indeed the details in the obituary were true and if he could provide further information to authenticate the claim that indeed the woman had died.
But he did not respond to DUBAWA’s messages at the time of publication.
Screenshot of his comment
DUBAWA observed that Koranteng was not a random Facebook user commenting on a matter that had taken a political twist; checks on his Facebook page suggested he is politically active, with several posts supporting the New Patriotic Party (NPP).
It is important to note that the Ghana Jollof social media pages have remained active with lots of incendiary comments, but it does not in any way address the authenticity or otherwise of the obituary.
The researcher then examined the obituary and found strong indications that the obituary image had been synthetically generated or probably altered from a different obituary publication.
Screenshot of the image being analysed
The image was tested using IsThisAI, DeepAI, ZeroGPT, AI Image Detector, TruthScan, Sightengine, and Image Whisperer.
The verification results shows that the image was generated using AI.
Screenshot of the AI-detection tools’ analysis.
Screenshot of the AI-detection tools’ results.
Sightengine AI detector returned a 99% AI-generated assessment, while other tools returned scores around 90% or classified the image as “synthetic” or “AI-generated.”
This pattern matters because the tools independently assessed the same image, and evaluated it to have high-probability AI classifications.
Conclusion
The claim that Barbara Asantewaa Kodua, identified by police as “Ghana Jollof,” died in the United Kingdom is unsubstantiated. While DUBAWA cannot independently confirm whether Kodua is alive or dead, forensic analysis of the circulated obituary shows the flyer is fake.
