A painstaking research conducted into the archives of constitutional cases of the Ghana Law Reports last week has stumbled upon some very startling revelations about the true nationality of the famous Olympio family.

The revelations appear in a case in which an Accra High Court upheld the claims of the late Bonito Olympio, managing Director of VANOLY Bakery at Adabraka, Accra, that he and his father, Sylvanus Olympio, ex-President of Togo, and his mother, Dma Theresa Adjoa Grunitzky, were all citizens of Ghana by descent.

The High Court, presided over by Justice Edward Wiredu, now Chief Justice of Ghana, gave a hearing to the case on July 4, 1969 in Accra. The litigation was sparked off by the deportation of Bonito Olympio from Ghana by the Ministry of Interior during the NLC regime headed by Lt. General Akwasi Amankwa Afrifa.

The court was confronted with a letter signed by the then Principal Secretary, Mr. T. R. D. Addai, which sought to withdraw an alleged permission granted to the plaintiff, Bonito Olympio, to stay in Ghana.

Consequently, the plaintiff was ordered "that you are to leave Ghana within 48 hours from the date of this letter."

However, our investigations revealed how Bonito Olympio fought back gallantly to get the Accra High Court to set aside the Government Deportation order.

According to the Law Reports documented in the "Source Book of the Constitutional Law of Ghana - the cases 1872 through 1970," edited by S.O. Gyandoh, Jnr., and I. Griffiths, Bonito Olympio set the pace for a blistering legal battle by securing the services of two most outstanding legal luminaries, John Quashie-Idun, and J. N. Heward-Mills, as his defence lawyers.

The two then got a writ of summons to be issued out of the court in which Bonito Olympio launched a counter-attack with a declaration, claiming Ghanaian citizenship by descent.

In his writ of summons, Bonito Olympio also claimed that since he was a citizen of Ghana by descent, he "cannot be lawfully deported from, or asked to leave Ghana, and further that he requires no permission from the government of Ghana (the defendant) or from any other body to stay in Ghana."

In an amended supporting statement of claims, Bonito Olympio brought evidence, alleging that his father, the late Sylvanus Epiphanio Olympio, former President of Togo, was born in Kpandu in the Volta Region of Ghana to a Madam Nanaga Affeh, a native of Keta, and Epiphanjo Elpidio Olympio, a trader born in Nigeria but resident in the Gold Coast, on September 6, 1902.

Continuing his submissions, Bonito Olympio also claimed that his paternal grandmother, Nanaga Affeh, was also known as Fides Affeh and that she was born in Keta about the year 1872, baptised in the Catholic Church, Keta, on December 23, 1892.

Bonito Olympio told the High Court that his mother was known as Dma Theresa Adjoa Grunitzky, alleging that she was born in Keta on September 18, 1902, and was baptised in the Catholic Church, Keta, on September 13, 1903.

He also pleaded in the same paragraph that his maternal grandmother was called Hodzinyah Amekpo Amegashie, daughter of Freeman Amekpor Amegashie, and the grand-daughter of Chief Aweku Amegashie of Keta.

Subsequently, Bonito, the plaintiff, pleaded with the court that he was born on April 1, 1933 in Lome, Togo, but averred that he was a citizen of Ghana by descent.

In paragraph (5) Bonito impressed on the court to accept that he travelled outside Ghana on several occasions, and returned to Ghana without any visa or permit and that he had never applied for permission to reside in Ghana.

Our investigations revealed that a statement of defence was filed on behalf of the defendant; that is, the Government of Ghana, in which the defendant joined issue with the plaintiff, Bonito Olympio, on all the averments raised in his statement of claim with the exception that he was born in Lome, Togo.

Chronicle found out that to ascertain the truth or otherwise about the claims deposited by Bonito Olympio, the court, presided over by Justice Edward Wiredu, called three witnesses on behalf of Bonito.

The first witness was the President of the Catholic Church, Keta, who tendered in evidence exhibits in the form of the baptismal register of the Keta Catholic Church.

The name Fides Affeh appeared in the exhibit and is numbered as 42 and is dated December 23, 1892. Exhibit 'D' was the baptismal certificate issued to Fides Affeh and shows her place of birth as Keta, with another exhibit in which the name of Theresa Adjoa appears as number 630 on the register of baptism of the Keta Catholic Church, dated the 13th of September 1903.

The first witness testified in a cross-examination that he knew that the late Sylvanus Olympio was the son of Fides Affeh and said the Olympio family used to stay at Lome and Keta.

The witness said that he knew Sylvanus Olympio as a school boy and even worked with his father, E. B. Olympio, when he was an agent of a foreign firm at Keta. He asserted Affeh was the wife of Epiphanio Elpidio Olympio.

The second prosecution witness was the paternal aunt of Bonito Olympio, the plaintiff.

The witness deposed that the late Sylvanus Olympio was her brother of the full blood, and that Fidelia Affeh and E. E. Olympio, both now deceased, were her mother and father respectively.

She said her father had four issues of which the late Sylvanus Olympio of Togo was the second born, and she came immediately after him, and that the last was one Cuthbert.

According to the witness, all the four of them were born at Kpandu where their father Epiphanio Elpidio Olympio was an employee of Swanzy and Co.

The witness said her mother, Fides Affeh, was born at Keta and identified Exhibit 'D' as belonging to her mother.

She denied a suggestion during cross-examination that her father ever worked in Dahomey, now Benin Republic, although some of their relations lived there.

The third and last witness was Joseph Amegashie, the present head of the Amegashie family of Keta.

Joseph Amegashie, who described himself as 'a Clean Ghanaian,' said that Bonito was the grand nephew of the Keta Amegashie Stool, which he occupies.

He said the plaintiff's mother, that is, Bonito's mother, Theresa Adjoa Grunitzky, was his stool's maternal niece, and that the Keta Amegashie family of which he is the head is a Ghanaian family.

Amegashie told the court his own mother was one Adenko of the Japetu family based at Keta. Witness denied a suggestion that part of the Amegashie family is settled in Togo.

The defence team of the Ghana Government, represented by K. Gyeke Darko, l5rincipal State Attorney, and Safo Sampong, Assistant State Attorney at the time, did not call any evidence and relied solely on the evidence as brought on behalf Bonito Olympio.

In his findings, the High Court Judge, Justice Edward Wiredu, ruled that he was satisfied that on the strength of the evidence before him that the late Sylvanus Epiphanio Olymplo, the father of the plaintiff, Bonito Olympio, was born in Kpandu, on or about September 6, 1902.

"That Madam Nanaga Affeh, alias Fidelia Affeh or Fides Affeh, was a native of Keta born in, or about 1872 and was baptised in the Catholic Church at Keta on December 23,1892.

That Dma Theresa Olympio, otherwise known as Theresa Adjoa Grunitzky, the mother of the plaintiff, Bonito Olympio, was the niece to the Keta Amegashie family Stool which is occupied at the present by the plaintiff's third witness. That the plaintiff's third witness is a Ghanaian national, and the Stool he occupied is the property of a Ghanaian family, and that Bonito was born in Lome in 1933."

With regard to the application of NLC Decree 191 on the Ghana Nationality Act, Justice Edward Wiredu upheld submission by the defence that "a person born outside Ghana is a citizen of Ghana by descent if at the time of his birth, at least one of his parents was a citizen of Ghana by birth."

The judge ruled that even though the late Sylvanus Olympio was born in Kpandu at the time, when towns like Kpandu and Peki were under German administration, with the advent of British rule over part of Togoland, those towns that formed part of Togoland became a Protected Territory and persons belonging to them were described as British Protected Persons.

The judge averred that as Ghana now embraces the former British Togoland, Kpandu and Peki are now towns within Volta Region of Ghana.

Judge Wiredu ruled that by section 4(1) of the 1957 Ghana Nationality Act, Sylvanus Epiphanio Olympio, who was born in Kpandu in 1902, and became a British protected person on the advent of British rule in Togoland, was a Ghana National because his mother, Fides Affeh, was born in Keta.

"It follows in my judgement that under paragraph 1(a) of N.L.C.D. 191, Sylvanus Epiphanio Olympio was a citizen of Ghana," Justice Wiredu ruled.

The learned judge said the case of Bonito's mother presented no difficulty at all.

"She was born at Keta. Her mother, Hodzinyah Amekpor Amegashie, was from the Keta Amegashie family so that for all purposes, under the British Nationality Act, 1949, the Ghana Nationality Act, 1957, and N.L.C.D. 191, paragraph 1(a) she was a Ghanaian by birth."

"It is clear therefore that the plaintiff has two strings to his bow, both paternally and maternally," the judge declared in his judgement.

Consequently, his Worship Judge Justice Edward Wiredu upheld the submission of learned counsel for Bonito Olympio, that his claim to Ghanaian nationality was well founded and therefore succeeded in his claim.

Mr. Justice Wiredu therefore gave judgement in favour of Bonito Olympio as against the Government of Ghana, with a declaration that "Bonito Olympio is a citizen of Ghana by descent and cannot therefore be deported from, or asked to leave Ghana, and that the plaintiff requires no permission from the defendant (the Ghana Government ) or from any other body to stay in Ghana."

Costs of 250 cedis were awarded in favour of Bonito Olympio.

"The 1969 High Court ruling about the true nationality of the late Bonito Olympio, at once removes all existing shreds of doubts about the genealogy of the late Togolese civilian President, Mr. Sylvanus Olympio, and all his other legitimate offspring and successors, and this includes exiled Togolese opposition leader Gilchrist Olympio, junior brother of Bonito Olympio, unless, of course, other evidence can be produced to the contrary." That was the observation of an Accra legal practitioner, who spoke to the Chronicle last Friday.