Page 100 - Afrika Must Unite

OUR GHANAIAN CONSTITUTION 85
time-servingj will now be the reward of merit. The new consti­
tution contains a high challenge to our civil servants. Their
response will be recorded in the accelerated rate of our national
development.
The changes in our constitution which I have so far described
and explained, have been designed to create an environment in
which G hana can proceed more positively with national recon­
struction. But even as I have always been concerned with the
independence and development of Ghana as part of the total
liberation and reconstruction of Africa, and have made this a
guiding principle in the foreign policy of my government, so I
felt that our constitution should make a positive demonstration
of G hana’s willingness to surrender her individual sovereignty
to the total sovereignty of Africa, if this should ever be required.
O ur relations with the rest of Africa did indeed have more than
a little bearing on our decision to sever the link with the British
Crown and transform our state into a republic. But we con­
sidered that some more revolutionary illustration of our attach­
ment to the cause of African Union should be embedded in the
instrument that governs the country’s policy. Hence, in the pre­
amble to our new constitution, there is to be found the statement
that:

We the people of Ghana . . . in the hope that we may by our
actions this day help to further the development of a Union of
African States . . . do hereby enact and give to ourselves this
constitution. . . .

While the Declaration of Fundam ental Principles includes these
specific conditions:

That the Union of Africa should be striven for by every lawful
means, and, when attained, should be faithfully preserved; and
That the independence of Ghana should not be surrendered
or diminished on any grounds other than the furtherance of African
Unity.

This, I believe, is the first time that an independent, sovereign
state has voluntarily offered to surrender its sovereignty for the