Onsy Fights For Recognition

A close associate of the Nkrumah family, Madam Souad Mohammed El Rouby Sinare, has stressed that Onsy Nathan Kwame Nkrumah is the biological son of the late president of the Republic of Ghana, Osagyafo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah.

Madam. Sinare, 89, an Egyptian and mother of Said Sinare, Ghana's Ambassador to Saudi Arabia and vice chairperson of the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC), has therefore urged every member of the Nkrumah family to begin to treat Onsy as such.

There has been a raging controversy in the media circles as to whether Onsy is indeed a biological son of the first president of Ghana as Nkrumah's children with Fathia, particularly Sekou, strongly doubts Onsy's claims, asking him (Onsy) to go for a DNA test.

Madam Sinare, addressing journalists at her Labone residence in Accra last Thursday, debunked claims by social commentators and the media that Onsy is not a son of late President Nkrumah.

She therefore, appealed to the rest of Nkrumah's children to unite and work to uphold the great name of their father.

Secret Marriage

Touching on the 'secret' life of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah to clear the air over the relationship between Onsy and the first President, Madam Sinare indicated that prior to his marriage to Madam Fathia, Dr Nkrumah had befriended an Egyptian lady by name Isis Nashid.

According to her, Nashid was brought to Ghana – then Gold Coast – to serve the colonial establishment.

Madam Sinare said with time, the woman became a friend of Dr Nkrumah when he was the leader of the nation's independence movement.

She said before Ghana's independence, Madam Nashid became pregnant for Dr Nkrumah but the pregnancy and their relationship were kept secret because of her association with the colonial establishment, which brought her into the country, adding that the woman had to leave the Gold Coast for Egypt.

She stated that Nashid, on arrival in Egypt, got married to an Egyptian man 'in order to avoid the implications of carrying a child without a husband in a land governed by strict moral codes.''

According to Madam Sinare, ''The child that came out of the relationship between Kwame Nkrumah and Nashid has traced his roots back to his fatherland; and this is Onsy Kwame Nkrumah, who sometime ago was welcomed by the family of Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah as their son because I know, Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah had told some relatives about him,' she stressed.

Madam Sinare said her husband's father, the late Sheikh Said Sinare, was a very close friend of Madam Nyaniba, the mother of Dr Nkrumah, and so Kwame Nkrumah, in his youth, was like a son to her father-in-law and, therefore, Dr Nkrumah and her husband knew each other from their childhood days and that they 'had been very close to Dr Nkrumah throughout his years as president until his overthrow and death in exile.'

She said Kwame Nkrumah, who at the time did not want to marry because of his obsession with the affairs of Ghana, 'was encouraged by my husband and me to take a wife, especially when he became the leader of Ghana, after the country's independence.''

''Unfortunately, we discovered that Isis Nashid had already been married to an Egyptian man and, therefore, we had to look for an alternative, and after the six-month wife hunt for our friend and Prime Minister of Ghana, we settled on Miss Fathia Rizk, another Egyptian woman from Cairo,' Madam Sinare said.

She added that when they informed Dr Nkrumah of their find of a bride, he too informed the then President of Egypt, Gamal Abdul Nasser, who was very happy that his friend, Kwame Nkrumah, had decided to marry from his country.

According to her, President Nasser subsequently paid the dowry to engage Madam Fathia to Dr Nkrumah, even when he had not yet seen his wife-to-be.

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BY Melvin Tarlue