Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President, brooded over the plight of Ghanaians, while staying in exile in Conakry, Guinea, after his overthrow in a military coup in 1966, Hajia Andre Toure has said.

Hajia Toure, widow of Ahmed Sekou Toure, first President of Guinea, who was speaking when Vice President Aliu Mahama visited the house where Osagyefo Nkrumah stayed during his exile, said he was always upset when he heard the news that Ghanaians were suffering and could not even buy bread to eat.

She said Osagyefo Nkrumah showed great affection for the people of Ghana adding that he also showed concern about the fate of his mother, Madam Nyanibah.

President Sekou Toure offered Osagyefo Nkrumah asylum and went to the extent of making him a Co-President of Guinea.

Hajia Toure said her husband, as well as Guineans were ever grateful for the economic support Ghana gave to newly independent Guinea when the French, the former colonialists, emptied the coffers of that country as a punitive measure to scare-off other French-speaking African countries from seeking independence.

Vice President Mahama was in Guinea at the invitation of President Lansana Conte to participate in the activities marking the 50th anniversary of Guinea’s independence.

Alhaji Mahama praised Dr. Nkrumah and President Sekou Toure for forming the Union of Independent African States in 1958 and subsequently the Union of African States, which comprised Ghana, Guinea and Mali from 1960 – 1963, and for facilitating the formation of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now African Union (AU).

He said: “The two leaders would be remembered across Africa for a long time to come.”

Ex-Sergeant Sekou Toure, who was Osagyefo Nkumah’s bodyguard while he was in Guinea, described him as a man of fortitude.

Osagyefo Nkrumah spent six years in exile in Guinea and after his death in a Romanian hospital, his mortal remains were first buried in Guinea until Ghana requested for it for re-interment at Nkroful, his hometown in the Western Region, and later at the Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum in Accra.

Source: GNA