A revolutionary book on legal literacy for the ordinary and the legally untrained mind has been launched to serve as a guide for the citizenry, especially in situations where a lawyer is not readily available.
The book titled “iLegal” is authored by Lawyer Dr Nana Oppong (Nana Em), an internationally renowned expert on intelligence and author of groundbreaking works on education, science and economics.
The “iLegal” is the author’s solution to solving some of the misconceptions about the legal profession as well as arming the ordinary man on the streets with some legal education on everyday issues so as to guide people’s day-to-day activities that may require legal advice.
The 126 page book which was published by Smartline publishers promises to be the most controversial yet most educative book on legal education for the ordinary Ghanaian. It has 20 chapters that address matters ranging from the overview of the legal culture, through contracts up to criminal matters among others.
The book has already started stirring up controversy as professionally trained lawyers are questioning the rationale for the publication of such valuable legal information that could threaten the relevance of lawyers in the society.
During his remarks, the author, Dr. Nana Oppong, observed that one would no longer have any excuses to be ignorant of the law after reading the book.
He explained that the book is not meant to make lawyers irrelevant but rather to complement their efforts and to make their work easier because the prospective clients would be in a better position to appreciate the legal processes.
The learned Dr. Nana Oppong summarized the whole book and distinguished all laws under three categories. He said, “the first law is that everyone has the right to be wise. The second is, everyone has the right to be foolish. And the third law is that, the wise has the right to exploit the foolish in accordance with the law.”
According to him, the lack of appreciation of these three fundamental rights of the law is responsible for the resource exploitation of Africa in a legal framework.
The author who is a lawyer, scientist and an author with more than 20 ground-breaking books written in diverse fields such as physics, economics, logic, philosophy, Intelligence among others, expressed the hope that “iLegal” will become the standard book for legal education so that no one would become ignorant in the law.
The Chief Executive Officer of Smartline, Mr. Elliott Agyare, said his outfit was glad to have partnered the author to publish such a book that clearly challenges the status quo and dares to do things differently for the greater good of the society.
He observed that there couldn’t have been a better time for the publication of such a book, saying that it was very critical for the citizenry to be legally literate in these day and age.
Mr. Agyare also expressed the view that even though the publishing industry is very critical to national development very little attention has been given to it by past governments. He however praised the first government under President Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah for prioritizing the publishing industry at the time.
He underscored the need for the establishment of an indigenous publishing industry to document and propagate the culture and heritage of the Nation.
The Pro-vice Chancellor of Knutsford University, John Kwabena Essel, bemoaned the fact that a lot of people who are supposed to be documenting their experiences in books for the next generation to learn from them are not doing so. That, according to him, has contributed to the underdevelopment of the publishing industry in the country.
He therefore urged people in the academia, business as well as people from all walks of life to endeavour to document their experiences for others to read and learn from them in order to avoid common mistakes in life.
Source: Clement Akoloh
