In our series of letters from African writers, journalist and former Ghana government minister Elizabeth Ohene writes that Zimbabwe’s ex-President Robert Mugabe, who has died aged 95, had a special place in the hearts of Ghanaians.
We in Ghana called Robert Mugabe our in-law. It was in Ghana that he met his first wife, Sarah Francesca Hayfron. He married her in 1961, and she became known as Sally Mugabe.
She was one half of a set of female twins and she was teaching in Takoradi in Ghana’s Western Region when Mr Mugabe met and fell in love with her.
Ghana had achieved its independence from the UK in 1957, and Mr Mugabe had come to “to find himself” and experience the dream of an independent African state.
The unofficial story was that he had received training on how to wage the struggle for independence in what was then Rhodesia.
Those were heady days in the newly independent Ghana, and the Hayfron family was educated, political, well-connected and part of high society.
The father was a well-trained horticulturist and his home was famous for well designed gardens.
Sarah Francesca Hayfron was certainly quite a catch for the then unknown and struggling Robert Mugabe.
As it turned out, his new wife turned out to be a veritable political partner and activist, when he took her back to his home country.
The story of the couple’s struggles in Rhodesia – including their incarceration – have become the stuff of legend.
In the midst of it all, and when Mr Mugabe was in prison, their son, Nhamodzenyika, died of malaria in Ghana.
This was to have far reaching consequences because by the time husband and wife were together again, they could not have another child.
In 1987, Mr Mugabe started an affair with his secretary, Grace Marufu, 41 years his junior, because, according to him, he felt he had to provide grandchildren for his mother. It was not because of his desires.
Sally stayed by her man, continuing as a political activist and earning the well-deserved title of Amai, or Mother, by the time Mr Mugabe became prime minister in 1980, and First Lady when he became president in 1987.
We in Ghana felt we had a special status in newly independent Zimbabwe and it was suddenly the place to go. -BBC
