COMMONWEALTH PRINCIPLES, OUR CONSTITUTION

Today I intend to write a bit about Parliament but will focus on the British/ Commonwealth type or Westminster type of parliamentary system and how this fits well into the total governance of the Commonwealth of Nations, which eventually created governance guidelines for all former British protectorates and colonies to govern themselves even after their independence.

I will start by defining Commonwealth. It is a community of nations that are former British colonies. These countries are found in almost all continents of the world which are the North and South Americas, the sub-Saharan Africa, East Africa and West Africa, Asia and Europe.

The founding of the Commonwealth goes back to the era of the British empire, when certain countries were directly and indirectly ruled by the British. Some of those countries were freed from being ruled by the British but they retained the British Monarch as their Head of State.  It was then that the Commonwealth started after realising that most of those countries were self-governed but still heavily dependent on Britain. This started in the 16th Century when Britain started invading other countries to rule over them.

The Commonwealth known as the British empire played a major role during the First and Second World Wars, where Germany, led by Adolph Hitler lost in 1945. The process of giving back countries their independence started but those countries had to demand, struggle or fight for their freedom.

In Africa, starting from the mid 1950’s some countries started struggles for their freedom and which they were eventually given. Ghana under President Kwame Nkrumah was one of the first African nations that got independence much against the will of the British at the time. Kwame Nkrumah was the first Prime Minister and President of Ghana in 1957.  He was a staunch Pan Africanist and his rallying slogan was ‘Africa must unite’ and he fought against imperialism and neo- colonialism.

Let’s leave Kwame Nkrumah for another day, as all African leaders who brought independence in their countries became very unpopular with the British, particularly those who became anti-west and began to align themselves with socialism and communism.
This was after more countries got their independence some through fighting and some through volunteering the British Protectorate status.

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