Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr was a member of the Faculty of Law (as it was then called) of the University of Ghana from 1970 to 1981. During the period, he demonstrated an excellent command of the subject matter of his courses; sterling teaching abilities; quality debating skills; and a genuine interest in his students; equipping them with knowledge, skills, and values that inured to the benefit of Ghana and beyond.

Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr was one of the most important intellectual influences, not only in law but in related social sciences as well. He nurtured scholarly debates on development issues, contributing especially to the international investment law programme, which sought to examine political economy and development from various perspectives. Through insights generated by him, Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr successfully situated the role of law in the context of other social sciences, adding to the innovative ways of handling legal education from a multidisciplinary perspective.

Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr has continued to maintain an interest in the School of Law, placing his wealth of experience at our disposal. He has never failed to share his candid and profound thoughts with the School of Law.

In addition to his love for legal scholarship, Professor Sawyerr has always been a radical thinker with an abiding passion for political economy. Indeed, because of the efforts of Professor Sawyerr and his associates in the 1~70S, some considered the Law Faculty a rival to the Political Science Department at Legon as a centre for the analysis of issues relating to political economy. During his lectures in those days, Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr engaged his students in active debates over legal concepts, which contributed to nurturing critical thinking abilities and a better appreciation of the role of law in the broader social context. He did not only teach his students to become astute lawyers, but also to be conscious of the values that culminate in the welfare of the ordinary person.

His last job before joining the Faculty of Law at Legon was at the Faculty of Law in Dar-Es- Salaam in the Tanzania of Julius Nyerere, from where he cultivated and transported the need to inculcate a social awareness in Law students. In the recollections of a former colleague, the greatest academic contribution that Professor Sawyerr made to the development of young and inquisitive minds was to challenge them to a multiplicity of avenues for solving societal problems through the application of the law. This perspective was an invaluable addition to the blend of elements which constituted the intellectual climate at the Law Faculty at Legon. Another colleague recalls that Professor Sawyerr taught Contracts and Conflict of Laws and, together with Dr. Kwesi Botchwey, introduced the Law of International Trade and Investment into the Faculty's curriculum.

Professor Sawyerr contributed immensely to the Faculty's lively intellectual atmosphere, with differences in outlook about the law and social issues vigorously articulated, sometimes polemically, but also respectfully. While proclaiming his preference for a socialist approach to the law, Aki was nevertheless sufficiently open-minded to allow his colleagues, who did not share his philosophy of the law, to make presentations to his students. That open-mindedness and the strength of his convictions stood him out as a teacher of quality. His numerous students who have achieved distinctions in their legal careers attest to the quality of Aki as a great scholar.

He was a team player and had a way of yielding to the majority even when his position appeared unassailable. Once, he argued in the Faculty of Law for the Balme Library to be open on Sundays so that students could have more time to study and research there. Those who thought that Sunday was a day of rest, and that it was anathema to "work" on such a day, voiced their opposition. In bewilderment, he looked on silently and allowed the majority to carry the day. Time has vindicated his wisdom, as Balme Library is now ordinarily open to students on Sundays.

To conclude, the best summation of Professor Sawyerr's humanness, generosity, and love for his work and for his students is evident when yet another of his colleagues recounts that one of the recurring images of Professor Sawyerr was seeing him after lectures walking with students in continuing conversations from the old Faculty buildings up to the roundabout at what used to be the main University gate, by the Institute of Adult Education.

We at the University of Ghana School of Law salute you and wish you the very best on your 80th birthday.