The disunity and enmity that exist between the two factions was one that everyone who attended the burial and funeral ceremony of the late coach would notice.
The canopy that was reserved for the family was rejected by his brothers and five daughters who settled for a different one.
At the mention of the wife’s name, jeers and hootings were the response that greeted it.
As custom demands, Mrs Gifty Acquah Addo had to perform some send-off rites for her departed husband but the usually solemn tradition was marred by shouts of disapproval from the late coach’s nuclear family.
Tradition has that it the wife always gives the send-off goods to the husband’s family but it was not so at Herbert Addo’s funeral.
The family rejected calls by the MC to accept the goods with a uniform shouting of ‘Ye Ngye ooo ye Ngye" to wit we will not receive the stuffs from his wife.
This attitude was one that eventually irked the officiating minister Very Reverend Crowther Hagan who called on the family to exercise some restraints but his plea fell on deaf ears.
The wife’s tribute was welcomed with similar treatment. Whiles the teary wife read her tribute, the other faction was busily jeering and hooting at her.
Portions of his daughters’ tribute were subtle attack on their stepmother who according to one of her daughter Perpetual Addo they don’t recognize as a family.
Whiles the event was ongoing www.ghanaweb.com caught up with two of his three brothers, Philip and Isaac Addo who opened up about the hostile relationship that existed between the family and Mrs Addo.
Philip and Isaac Addo denied knowledge of the woman referring to her as ‘so called wife’.
According to him, the family is unaware of any union between Herbert Addo and his ‘wife’.
He remarked that the Mrs. Addo coerced their brother into marriage amidst protests from the family. Perpetual Addo, one of his five daughters corroborated his uncle’s assertion by alleging that the ring used at their engagement was bought by stepmother whom she does not want to be associated with.
“The family was left in the dark over the whole funeral arrangement. When someone dies, it’s the family who takes the key decisions but the family had no idea how the funeral arrangements were done. We asked questions and tried to make peace but that was never achieved. Herbert left behind a lot of properties and we believe it’s the reason why the funeral has been hijacked by his wife”.
Herbee (referring to Herbert Addo) told me about his engagement and I asked him to hold on because he was unwell but few days later he defied my advice and married her without the family’s consent, the brothers remarked.
“The woman pressurize my dad a lot to the extent that she had to buy her own engagement ring. My dad was exhausted after the event so he had to take days off to rest”. I was with him a day before he died and he complained bitterly about the woman” Perpetual bitterly said.
