For fourteen years, Micheal Boafo and Tony Boafo had been estranged from their father, a Fante, with his constant travels serving as the only information about his whereabouts.
The narrative changed dramatically when circumstances brought them face-to-face with their father at the age of fourteen. Raised by their caterer mother in Abeka, a suburb of Accra, the family had to relocate to Takoradi due to their mother's career change.
Now part of the renowned Ghanaian music group, DopeNation, Micheal and Tony shared their story during an interview on The Delay Show on February 4, 2024, monitored by GhanaWeb.
They recounted how their mother of Ewe descent, unaware of their father's presence in Takoradi, moved there for work. Each of them added to the narrative, seamlessly completing each other's sentences as they recalled the unfolding events.
"At the time, our mum worked with Unilever," they reminisced. "She lived in a guest house, and our dad was in Takoradi, serving as a Principal at Takoradi Technical Institute. Our mum had no inkling that he was there; it was only after she started working in Takoradi that she discovered his presence."
Describing the experience of meeting their father for the first time, they found it "interesting."
The revelation of their shared dark complexion became a moment of realization for them. "Our mum is very fair, so we always wondered where our complexion came from. There's a resemblance, a part of us looks like him, but overall, we really resemble our mum."
As expected, bonding with their father took time. The incubation period was slow, but the process was facilitated by their father's performance of fatherly roles, such as buying items for them, picking them up from school, and showing them his properties.
"It was easy building a relationship with him," they shared. "There was an unspoken conversation about 'where have you been; how has life been?' We never touched that conversation at the beginning because we didn't click. It was only later, after eight years in Takoradi, that we truly got to know him."
Unfortunately, the "connection is no more" after they left Takoradi.
BB