Page 74 - Afrika Must Unite

ACHIEVING OUR SOVEREIGNTY 59

government, which was the platform on which we went to the
country.
People who are independent, free and sovereign make their
own constitution. Although Ghana achieved what is called Tull
independence’ on 6 M arch 1957, there were certain provisions
in the constitution imposed on us which limited the full employ­
ment of our freedom, which were an affront to our sovereignty, a
fetter upon our free development. These were the entrenched
clauses which the British Government insisted upon writing into
the constitution as a condition of our accession to independence.
We raised our arguments against their inclusion, but the concern
in British official quarters for the protection of minority rights and
the welfare of British civil servants in Ghanaian employ out­
weighed consideration for the prerogatives of our independence
and the expressed will of our people. O ur resentment at being
forced to accept what was partially a dictated constitution in
order to keep the time-table of independence that we had
given to our people, was made quite plain by me and my
Government, as was our determination to divest ourselves of the
objectionable clauses as soon as we were in a position to do so
constitutionally.
W hen it was found in 1956 that it would be impossible to delay
full independence much longer, negotiations were started to
frame the constitution by which an independent Ghana would
be governed. My Government was then a Government largely
in name, ultimate power residing in the Governor of the Gold
Coast, who really represented the Colonial Office on the spot.
Until the moment when the instrum ent of independence was
actually placed in our hands, freedom could be denied us. O ur
stand that independence involved the right of the local
population alone to determine the nature of the laws, regulations
and procedures of their State through their parliam entary
institutions, was discountenanced. The British argum ent was
that they held in sacred trust the rights of all the people in the
Gold Coast, and it was incumbent upon them to safeguard the
position of a section of the population, albeit a minority, which
might be opposed to the existing Government. This we con­
sidered a somewhat grotesque premise and sought in vain for a
precedent in special protection of minority opposition to the