Akilagpa Sawyer

Akilagpa Sawyerr (2 March 1883 – 13 December 1948), born Gosford Collins Sawyerr and also known as Akilagpa Osabramba Sawyerr, was a Ghanaian lawyer and political activist. Sawyerr was born in the British colony of the Gold Coast, which would become Ghana in 1957.[note 1] He helped to establish the National Congress of British West Africa, a body that agitated for African self-government and also the political party known as the Accra Ratepayers Association, whose goal was to elect members to the Accra town council and eventually Parliament. From 1932 to 1946, he served on the Accra Town Council and, in 1947, he became a member of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast as a representative for the capital. Quotes Sure. Well, thank you for having me, and I must say the idea of bringing a person like me, whose life straddles the pre-independence and post-independence periods is always an interesting experience. My childhood was fairly straightforward. I come from a rather privileged background. My father was a lawyer and a public figure. The thing about him that I remember was how principled he was, not only in his public life but also in his domestic life. He passed away when I was nine years old. So, I was left to be brought up, together with my other siblings, by my mother, who was a single mother for many years. She had two more children by a later marriage. But for a long time she had exclusive charge of three pre-teens and one teen - it wasn't easySure. Interview response to the question 'Thank you very much for speaking to CJAS. And congratulations once again on your 80 birthday. We felt that the occasion, the celebrations and all that came out of it such as the photography exhibition, generated a lot of conversations and we thought this was a good moment to talk to you and to publish your views on the many issues for our readers.' No, I was the last but one. Two girls came before me, and one boy after me, followed by our half-brothers. My mother was very dedicated, very committed and tough. She managed to put all of us through secondary school. I went to Achimota School, where I had the benefit of a very good education, as I'm sure you appreciate. So, my childhood was pretty uneventful as far as I can tell. Interview response to the question 'And you were the youngest of your direct siblings?' Oh yes. One event I can pick out immediately. My father belonged to the generation before the Nkrumah-type independence struggles; his generation wore suits and neckties, went on delegations to petition the UK Parliament, and so on - a very genteel kind of politics. I remember one day he came back from a political rally or something, looking very upset. He had to be helped into the house because he was so completely distraught. We were told afterwards that the rally had been violently interrupted by a crowd of young people from the other side of politics, and that the group was led by somebody whose name we all know: Obetsebi Lamptey. Interview response to the question 'You say uneventful, but with hindsight, in those early years when your father was still alive, was there anything “political” that you remember from your childhood?' It must have been around 1946 or 1947, or 1948. The point about it was that my father and his type had been used to a regular form of advocacy, where you argued your case, others argued theirs, after which all would go home. Meanwhile, this new breed of political players heckled, threw chairs about, and so on. I recall to this day, how upset my father had been. Thus, the change to a more violent political practice, which was to get a whole lot worse, had begun, and people like my father were unprepared for that. I'll never forget the experience of seeing him so completely baffled by the emerging political culture. That is the one political thing I can remember from that period – and very clearly. Interview response to the question 'What year are we talking about?' Not quite in the way I turned out in later life. It was just that I always had difficulty following rules that seemed silly to me, obeying orders that didn't make sense, with the result that I was constantly upsetting my immediate seniors, who were the House Monitors. So reports went from the Monitors to the Housemaster about how 'bad' I was. There was one interesting occasion, when my mother came to the school to see my Housemaster to ask what it was exactly about my behavior that led to all the bad reports I got! I recall my Housemaster struggling to describe my 'offences'. Truth was, he just got reports and he took them forward - he himself hadn't observed anything himself. My mother was very sharp and she did press him, and I remember enjoying the discomfiture of my Housemaster, who couldn't explain or justify the reports he had been sending about me. But I have to admit I must have been quite a handful, making life difficult for my seniors. Interview response to the question 'I guess we can fairly describe you as an activist. Would you say you were one in Achimota School?' That's interesting … I became quite a hero to many for being such a nuisance. There was one very famous incident, when a large number of us were in 'detention' [as punishment for misbehavior of one sort or the other] and the supervising teacher was a Scotsman. I remember him observing us sitting there, making jokes among ourselves. Here we were, supposed to be silent, yet talking and laughing and passing a naughty drawing around. When the supervising teacher told us to stop, everybody looked down at their books, except me. So he came charging up to attack me. As I tried to escape, I slipped and fell. He caught up with me and slapped me - and I hit him right back! Interview response to the question 'Did your peers support any of this?' I must have been thirteen or fourteen. My problem was that, I hated unfairness. I wasn't the only one making the trouble, yet he had picked on me. That upset me, and so when he hit me I just reacted. Colleagues of the time remember that incident to this day. Interview response to the question 'No! And how old were you?' External links Category:1939 births Category:Living people Category:Academics from Ghana Category:Legal scholars Category:Educators from Ghana Category:Lawyers from Ghana