13 Facts About Fathia Nkrumah

Helena Ritz Fathia Nkrumah, born Fathia Halim Rizk, was an Egyptian, and the First Lady of the newly independent Ghana as the wife of Kwame Nkrumah, its first president.

Fathia Nkrumah was born to a Coptic Christian family and brought up in Zeitoun, a district of Cairo.

Fathia Nkrumah was the first child of a civil servant who died early; Fathia was raised by her mother single-handedly after her husband's death.

Fathia Nkrumah was born Fathia Halim Rizk in Zeitoun, Cairo, in 1932.

Fathia Nkrumah's father worked as a clerk in an Egyptian telephone company and died early, leaving her mother widowed and having to raise Fathia single-handed.

Fathia Nkrumah was the eldest of five children in the family.

Frederick, an American journalist, who published her book in 1967, said Nkrumah sent his friend, Alhaji Saleh Said Sinare, who was one of the first Ghanaian Muslims to study in Egypt, to find him a Christian wife from Egypt, and Fathia was one of the final five women chosen.

Fathia Nkrumah's mother was reluctant to see another of her children marry a foreigner and quit the country, as Fathia's brother had left Egypt with his English wife.

Fathia explained that Nkrumah was an anti-colonial hero, like Nasser, yet her mother refused to speak to her or bless the marriage.

Fathia Nkrumah was the mother of three young children when her husband was overthrown in Ghana's first successful military coup d'etat on 24 February 1966.

Fathia Nkrumah had to take her children to Cairo, to be raised there while her husband went into exile in Guinea.

Fathia Nkrumah's children have all gone on to have careers relating to politics.

Subsequently, Fathia Nkrumah's bodily remains were flown to Ghana for a funeral at the State House and, following her "lifelong request", was buried next to her husband at the Kwame Nkrumah Memorial Park.