Fathia Halim Rizk landed in Accra on 30 December 1957. By that evening she was the wife of Ghana’s prime minister.
Kwame Nkrumah had led Ghana to independence in March of that year. He was unmarried, and friends and colleagues had urged him to take a wife. He decided to marry a woman from Egypt, a choice he saw as a symbol of the unity he wanted between North Africa and the rest of the continent.
The bride
Fathia was a young Coptic Christian woman from Cairo. The match was arranged through contacts in Egypt, with the knowledge of President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s government.
The couple barely knew each other when they married. Fathia spoke little English at first, and Nkrumah spoke no Arabic, so the early months of the marriage were also months of learning a language.
The ceremony
The wedding took place at Christiansborg Castle in Accra, the seat of government. It was a small ceremony, and the announcement came as a surprise to many Ghanaians. The new Madam Fathia Nkrumah quickly became a public figure, attending state functions and receiving visiting dignitaries.
Family
The couple had three children: Gamal, born in 1959 and named after Nasser; Samia; and Sekou. They lived at Flagstaff House, Nkrumah’s residence in Accra.
1966
When soldiers and police overthrew Nkrumah in February 1966, he was abroad. Fathia and the children were at Flagstaff House, which came under attack. She was allowed to leave for Egypt with the children. Nkrumah went into exile in Guinea and never returned to Ghana alive. He died in Bucharest in 1972.
Reunited in Accra
Fathia later returned to Ghana for visits and was honoured as a former first lady. She died in Cairo in 2007. Her remains were brought to Accra and buried beside her husband at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum.
A pan-African marriage
The marriage remains one of the most famous in Ghana’s history. Their son Gamal became a journalist in Egypt, and Samia Nkrumah became a politician in Ghana, serving as MP for Jomoro and as chair of the Convention People’s Party.
A bride who arrived in the morning and married a prime minister by nightfall now lies beside him under the mausoleum’s dome, a few kilometres from the castle where they said their vows.
