After the coup in Ghana, Sekou Toure came to the rescue of Kwame Nkrumah, the deposed of Ghana and invited him to Guinea where he arrived on March 2, 1966, together with his bodyguards and a few civil servants who had remained with him.
Nkrumah was received by Toure as Head of state, and given a 21 gun salute. At the airport, Toure declared that Kwame Nkrumah would be with him as “the head of state of and secretary-general of the Guinean Democratic Party”. After the death of Nkrumah from cancer on April 27, 1972, in Romania, where he had traveled for treatment, Sekou Toure declared three days of national mourning throughout Guinea. Nkrumah’s old friend Kojo Botsio flew to Conakry, with Nkrumah’s remains from Romania. The funeral was scheduled for May 16. On the eve, a ceremony was held in the Palace of the People in Conakry, where the coffin containing and Nkrumah’s remains stood draped with a Guinean flag.
The heads of delegations which had come from 40 countries offered their condolences to Fathia Nkrumah and her children. Toure concluded with the words “Nkrumah is not Ghanaian, he is an African. Nkrumah will never die”. After the ceremony, Nkrumah’s body was taken to the stadium were thousands of Guineans filed past the coffin in mournful silence.
Toure turned down the many offers that were made by private Ghanaian citizens for the responsibility of transporting the remains to Ghana. He declared that this would not occur until the Ghanaian government provided an official guarantee that Nkrumah would be accorded final honours that befitted him, and that, his former colleagues would be released from prison. Talks with the Ghanaian government, resulted in an agreement between the two governments and Nkrumah was buried in his native village Nkroful with the state honors.
Adapted from Immortal Heroes of the World by M S Gill, 2005
March 2, 1966: Nkrumah arrives in Conakry, Guinea after Ghana coup