FDA senior official Dr Martin Kusi has cautioned the public over the popular sobolo linked to Believers Worship Centre founder Stephen Adom Kyei-Duah, stating the product has not been registered as a medicine. Speaking in a recent interview, Dr Kusi made clear that once any drink is promoted as able to cure, treat or prevent disease, it crosses into regulated medicine territory under Ghanaian law and requires full scientific assessment plus FDA approval.
Dr Kusi stressed sobolo is ordinarily a thirst-quenching beverage. Marketing it with health claims without registration is illegal. He specifically noted Adom Kyei-Duah’s version has no medicinal registration and said there is no basis for the FDA to approve it as such. The Authority’s consistent position remains that consumers must verify registration before accepting any product’s claimed ability to treat illness.
The sobolo, widely known among Philadelphia Movement members as Yesu Mogya or Blood of Jesus, has long drawn attention. Adom Kyei-Duah has sold it alongside other items such as powder and oils at church gatherings. In a July 2025 sermon he clarified that none of the products, including the sobolo and Yesu Mogya, are medicinal. He attributed members’ testimonies to spiritual purging rather than medical effect.
Public conversation around the drink has been intense for years. Gospel singer Diana Asamoah previously urged the FDA to inspect churches selling untested sobolo and alleged her sister, a long-term diabetes patient, deteriorated after switching from prescribed medicine to the product. Other pastors including Kwasi Awuah and Opambour have also raised death-related allegations tied to similar drinks. Adom Kyei-Duah’s side has maintained the items serve faith purposes.
In February 2026 the Ashanti Regional Head of the FDA, Nathaniel Nana Kwabena Nkrumah, said existing law does not empower the Authority to stop pastors from selling spiritual items framed as matters of faith. The FDA steps in when products are presented as food or drugs. That distinction sits at the heart of the current caution: ordinary beverage status ends the moment medicinal claims appear.
Similar regulatory pressure has hit ordinary local drink producers. In November 2025 the Eastern Regional FDA ordered producers of sobolo, asana and lamugin to suspend operations until they secured authorisation, citing the Public Health Act 2012. Administrative charges and production bans followed for unregistered manufacturing. The Adom Kyei-Duah case sits in a different lane because of the religious framing, yet the medicinal-claim threshold remains the same.
Social media reaction to Dr Kusi’s comments split quickly. Some users insisted Adom Kyei-Duah never called the sobolo medicine. Others saw the FDA statement as overdue accountability. The discussion returns to a familiar Ghanaian tension: faith products that members treat as healing agents versus the regulatory demand for evidence and registration.
When congregants stop prescribed medication for diabetes, hypertension or other conditions and rely solely on church-sold drinks, the practical risk sits with the individual rather than the seller’s spiritual language. Past clarifications that the products are “not medicinal” have not always matched how some members actually use them. That gap between official description and lived practice is what keeps the FDA returning to the same public warning.
The Authority continues to advise consumers to demand proof of registration before accepting any health claim on a drink or powder sold in any setting. As of 5 August 2026, no further enforcement action against the specific product has been announced beyond the public caution delivered by Dr Martin Kusi.