Nana Kofi Drobo II was a herbalist, head of the Drobo Memorial Herbal Center and chief priest of the Kwaku Firi Shrine at Nwoase, near Wenchi, in the Brong Ahafo Region of Ghana from 1971 to 1992
His real name was Kofi Adawia and the first son of Nana Kofi Drobo I.
He attended sunyani secondary school.
When his father died in 1971, he was still a student but was called by the family’s guardian spirit Kwaku Firi to succeed his father.
The ‘spirit’ ushered Kofi Adawia into the office a week after his father’s death with the stool name Nana Kofi Drobo II.
Nana Drobo II’s grandmother, Okomfo Abena Asamoa was a herbalist just as his father was.
As a typical Ghanaian will say ‘the profession is in the blood ‘ It is clear that spirit chooses carefully the person whom he wants to endow with the gift of healing so that those who needed him come and be healed.
Why was Kofi Adawia chosen?
Tradition says that the job calls for intelligence and tact.
However, it is known from Adawia that, he had already admirable skills honed by his father was when he was still a student at Sunyani Secondary School.
Nana Drobo III (son of Nana Drobo who discovered AIDS Cure), in an interview said:
“when the spirit possessed my father the first time, people came from all over to see him where he healed everyone, except if it was a disease which could not be cured”.
According to him, the spirit revealed the therapy of the dreaded disease AIDS to his senior brother in a dream in 1990 as the spirit revealed to their father the therapy of all diseases treated at the Shrine.
Nana Drobo I, was the first individual to build a school at Wenkyi traditional area in 1949.
He employed and paid teachers for ten years before handing it over to the Nkrumah government in 1959.
After his school has been handed over to the government he again built a boarding school to serve the children in the Wenkyi traditional area in 1950.
The school exist till today but it’s no more a boarding school.
To promote peace and security, he built a police station at Nwoase and appealed to the government for peace officers to take care of the station.
He also built a rest house at Nwoase and it was in the rest house that, the then Magistrate stayed and judged cases at Wenkyi in the 1960s.
Nana Kofi Drobo I was the founder and the first high Priest of the legendary Kwaku Firi Shrine in the early 1940s.
He was also the joint founder of Nwoase with the Kwaku Firi deity.
He was indeed a specialist in medicine and was the most useful source of help not only to the people of Nwoase but Ghana and bordering the seas.
He was the friend of the community and to those without hope and was accessible to everyone and at almost all times.
Nana was a hunter, Priest and seers are often hunters, and so they live in closer contact with nature than other men. Priest and diviners are the principal makers of charms,for they have the necessary knowledge, which has been acquired from others doctors.
Nana Drobo II achieved international fame in 1992 when he declared to have found the cure for the dreadful Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).
On May 28, 1992, Nana Drobo II and his secretary Paa Koi Mensah arrived in Tokyo, Japan upon the invitation of Tokyo Broadcasting System, Dramatic Vision and Dental and Medical University of Tokyo for the purpose of testing the efficacy of his AIDS drug.
Recounting their ordeal in Japan at the Manhyia Palace on July 4, 1992, Nana Kofi Drobo II and Paa Koi Mensah said attempted poisoning, robbery and a miraculous escape summed up their Tokyo trip.
A story published in the Wednesday, August 26, 1992 edition of The Pioneer Newspaper on the account that Nana Kofi Drobo II narrated to the Ashantehene, Otumfuo Opoku Ware II states:
Nana Kofi Drobo II said on their arrival a reception was held for them.
However as soon as he touched his bottle of soft drink, it fell and broke into pieces.
His secretary who drunk his developed a swollen face and red eyes three days later.
He said on the second day of their visit his drug was taken for an invitro-test which according to the Japanese, would take 5 days instead of the normal 12 days due to their advanced technology.
After 5 days, the researchers led by Prof. Yamamato came to report that the drug had not only eliminated the virus but had also destroyed the containers in the testing machine.
In view of this they would reduce it from 9% to 3% for another test.
According to Nana Drobo II it was at this juncture their battle for survival begun.
Prof Yamamato wanted to know his academic background since to his thinking a mere herbalist was not capable of inventing such a potent drug against the dreaded AIDS when world renowned researchers and medical practitioners had failed in their attempts to find the cure for it.
Prof Yamamato also pleaded with him to make him (Yamamato) the inventor of the potent drug while Nana Drobo II becomes co-inventor to avoid the disgrace which would befall the world medical field if it became known that an ordinary herbalist had invented the cure for AIDS.
When Nana politely refused the request, Yamamato asked to be vaccinated with Nana Kofi Drobo’s anti-AIDS vaccine since he may in the course of his duties contract the disease.
Again, Nana Drobo rejected the request.
Nana said he later discovered that the telephone in their room had been disconnected and very powerful and sensory machines had been secretly installed in their rooms to monitor their activities.
At a point in time when he feigned sick, one of their hosts, Mr. Schimada, brought an American doctor, who diagnosed that Nana was suffering from heart attack and declared that his blood pressure is so bad that anything can happen at any time.
When Nana refused to be injected, he prescribed ‘Brandine’, a poisonous drug for him and promised to come back at the appropriate time to give him an injection.
The doctor (name Dr. Askinof) left with the message, “you look like a King, but I will soon reduce you”.
Prof. Yamamato confessed to him later that three prominent Ghanaians had asked them (Japanese), to eliminate him so that he would not enjoy the fame that will surely accompany his invention and that he will faithfully accompany their request.
A few days after the disclosure, Nana Drobo and his secretary’s properties including one million yen and a gold ring were stolen from their room.
Suspiciously, characters also started trailing them wherever they went.
Due to the tribulations they were going through, they poured all their drugs into a water closet and flushed them to prevent the Japanese from illegally acquiring the AIDS Drug.
Nana Kofi Drobo II concluded by saying the Japanese used all sorts of devilish tricks to eliminate him and his secretary and take possession of the AIDS drugs but failed.
Professor Nana Kofi Ayisi, former Head of the Vitrology Unit of the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research (NMIMR), in April 2004 held that the late Nana Kofi Drobo’s claim that he discovered anti-HIV/AIDS plants was based on scientific principles.
Professor Ayisi insisted that if it turned out that Nana Drobo selected his plants for treating HIV/AIDS patients based on the fact that the plants had been found to inhibit cancer cells (just like Dr. Sebi also earlier suggested) then Nana Drobo may have been one of the first people to have tested an anticancer agent for its possible anti-AIDS efficacy.
Nana Kofi Drobo II died at 47 from gunshot wounds on August 25, 1992 at a village near Offinso-Ashanti.
The Ghanaian Times of 3rd October 1992 reported that five people including his secretary, driver, personal aide, and a linguist of the Kwaku Firi Shrine, where Nana Drobo was chief priest, were charged with his murder and conspiracy to murder.
It is understood that three of the five were convicted.
Nana Kofi Drobo II
