The Early Years
Akilagpa Sawyerr grew up in the then Gold Coast during the militant struggles for self-determination. Aki’s father, who died when he was only nine years old, made important contributions to these struggles. The Honourable Akilagpa Sawyerr, an Accra lawyer, was one of the leading public and political figures of his generation. He was, among many things, a founder member of the National Congress of British West Africa, a member of the colonial Legislative Council and a patron of sports and many public causes. Aki’s mother Charlotte Amy Sawyerr, nee Mettle, as a single parent was the key figure in Aki’s upbringing, including overseeing school work and making the considerable material sacrifices that enabled Aki to fulfill his dream of studying law. Her incredible longevity, she died aged 103, enabled her to see the fullness of what her parenting and sacrifices had facilitated.
After completing his secondary school education at Achimota School, Aki studied law at universities in United Kingdom and the United States, obtaining his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley. Aki’s teaching and research was initially mainly in law. Over the years however, as he moved across academic positions in Tanzania, through Ghana to Papua New Guinea, with involvements at other universities around the world, his work increasingly reflected a multidisciplinary approach. This shift was rooted in his evolving theoretical and political perspectives and a growing concern with the challenges of underdevelopment and transformation in Africa.
Aki’s growing disciplinary scope and interests allied with the transcending of the parameters of mainstream jurisprudence informed his involvement in the community of progressive scholars in Africa and beyond. This was exemplified in his active involvement in CODESRIA (Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa) in which he became a leading influence and was elected president of the governing council. Aki’s first academic job was in the Faculty of Law at the then University of East Africa, Dar es Salaam. This context made an important contribution to his development as a progressive scholar and activist with a consistently anti- imperialist position. Newly-independent Tanzania was in the vanguard of the anti-colonial struggle including serving as the headquarters of the OAU Liberation Committee which oversaw collective African support for the national liberation movements across Africa. The University in Dar es Salaam was at the forefront of the struggle for intellectual freedom in Africa and its progressive anti- imperialist scholarship became known as the Dar es Salaam School.
Aki’s contemporaries in Dar included well known radicals such as Tomas Szentes, Justinian Rweyemamu, Henry Mapolu, John Saul, Lionel Cliffe and Walter Rodney. Specifically, in the Faculty of Law his contemporaries included Sol Picciotto, Yash Ghai, Joe Kanywanyi, Haroub Othman. In this environment he contributed to shaping a generation of progressive lawyers from all parts of the world, including Prof. Issa Shivji and Willy Mutunga, former Chief Justice of Kenya. Aki was a Professor of Law at the University of New Guinea for almost a decade, an appointment he took up after many years in the Law Faculty of the University of Ghana, Legon.In Legon, just as in Dar es Salaam, Aki was a central figure in an influential circle of progressive law lecturers and their associates in other Faculties who questioned establishment values and mainstream scholarship and encouraged their students to explore beyond their boundaries. They were an important influence in the development of a progressive Leftist tradition in the Ghanaian student movement of that period. His contemporaries and associates included Jawa Apronti, Kwesi Botchwey, Ebo Hutchful, Ama Ata Aidoo and Atta Britwum.
