The Shift Of Ghana’s Second Republic Foreign Policy And Its Outcomes

On 6th March, 1957, Ghana became the first country south of the Sahara to gain independence from her colonial masters. The country’s foreign policy, since independence, has been characterized by a commitment to the principles and ideals of the Non-Aligned Movement and Pan-Africanism, as first espoused by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first President. Dr. Nkrumah was of the view that, Non-Aligned Movement meant complete independence from the policies and alliances of both the East and West. Additionally, it also meant a support for a worldwide union of Non-Aligned Nations against both the Eastern and Western power blocs.Pan-Africanism, by contrast, was specifically an African policy that envisioned the liberation of African people from Western colonialism and the eventual establishment of an economic and political unity of the African continent. The African continent was envisioned by its leaders as one with the potential of realising an accelerated economic development, redemption in the image of its people, and an end to the exploitation of its natural and human resources. Following the overthrow of the first President of Ghana, Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, on 24 thFebruary, 1966, the National Liberation Movement, a military regime led by General Ankrah assumed the reins of governance of the country until elections were held in 1969.The second republic was ushered in on September 3rd 1969 and brought into power the Progress Party Government led by Dr Kofi Abrefa Busia. Dr. Busia inherited an ailing economy saddled with mounting debt and wasted no time to engage the creditor nations for debt rescheduling. It is worth noting that the policy shift was quick and largely driven by the domestic variables. The creditor nation’s were mostly western countries and significantly accounted for the subsequent bandwagoning with the West.This research is aimed at assisting policy makers to, inter alia; familiarize them with Ghana’s second republic foreign policy shift. The findings will serve as a secondary material for future researchers in the topic area. This study is based on the Neo-classical Realism theory. The justification for the theory was largely because as a new strand in the Classical Realist theory it recognizes the relevance of domestic variables in a country’s foreign policy formulation which is in tandem with Dr Busia’s foreign policy.