<mwalilino@prodigy.com>
Date:           Sat, 16 Nov 1996


I am deeply saddened to hear about the untimely death of
Professor Claude Ake. We were not personal friends or
colleagues; he was simply a man I admired and respected for his
formidable intellect, commitment to Africa, and integrity. He
was older than I, and we were from different countries: he from
Nigeria, I from Malawi. However, we both felt passionately about
Africa's chronic economic, political and social problems.

But Ake was made of sterner stuff. While I had lived under
former President Kamuzu Banda's dictatorship in Malawi (where my
older brother, once a diplomat, was a political prisoner for
five years), and I never wanted to work there again, Claude Ake
believed in staying put in Nigeria. There, he resisted, in his
own way, the successive military Presidential thugs that passed
the torch to one another in total disregard of the wishes of the
Nigerian people.

So I was very happy to meet him, for the first time, on August
14, 1990. He was a Fellow at the Brookings Institution in
Washington, D.C. , while I was a struggling reporter, and I
wanted an interview with him. When I placed the call to his
office, I expected the wall to go up -- the usual thing people
suddenly erect when speaking to an unknown newsman. They pose
all kinds of questions to put you off: You want an interview,
which paper do you work for?...What have you written?...Who else
have you contacted?...ad infinitum. But there was none of the
sort from him. Indeed, when he learned I was a mere freelance
reporter, he was even happier to try to help a young African's
career. We set the date for August 14.

When I arrived at his office on a brilliant sunny day, he first
took me to the cafeteria for lunch. He paid the bill for the
both of us. I had expected to meet a big man, of over 6 feet --
Nigerians can be very tall -- garbed in a Western suit and tie.
But, no. He was of medium build, dressed in a short-sleeved
colorful shirt and khaki long trousers. He was wore small round
glasses, like Mahatma Gandhi's. His sense of simplicity and
humility made me respect him even more.

The wide-ranging interview took place against the backdrop of
military-instigated chaos in Nigeria (under Babangida's
regime), and warlord clashes in Liberia. Nelson Mandela had also
made his first big and successful visit to the U.S. Ake analyzed
the significance of these events beautifully. He also spoke at
length about African- African American relations, the
underdevelopment of African women, the causes of Africa's "brain
drain", the conflict of Islam and Christianity in Nigeria, and
the role of the World Bank in African economies. When the
interview ended, and I was walking in the street, I knew I had
been in the presence of a truly great thinker. But the interview
never got published; fortunately, I still have the tape, and
I'll do everything I can to ensure that his words see the light
of day.

But I'll leave you with this response from him about the
Organization of African Unity. I had asked him: "Do you think
[the OAU is] playing a role that it should be playing in
Africa?"

He answered: "No, it's not playing a role that it should be
playing because of its nature. It's a club of governments, and
it will reflect the character of its members. And these are
people of limited vision, anti-radical inclinations, hanging on
desperately to power without legitimacy. And the OAU cannot
transcend this. It is immobilized. Since nobody's house is in
order, nobody can tell the other person to put their house in
order. All of them are in a state of siege, completely involved
with survival in their own countries because they are alienated
from their people. And they have unleashed so many hostile
forces by their coerciveness and their indifference to sharing
the resources of their countries...that they are not available
for any collective endeavors. On the contrary, they oppress by
nervousness. So, they cannot enter into any ventures that would
even tolerate the slightest surrender of sovereignty for the
common good....The OAU can only reflect the internal
contradictions that have been deepening our underdevelopment in
our own countries."

With the current refugee crisis in eastern Zaire over the
Tutsi-Hutu conflict, I can't help thinking just how correct the
was. Everytime I listen to the evening news, or read the papers,
I expect to hear what the OAU is doing to bring peace to the
region. But there's only eloquence silence about its role.

May his soul rest in peace.

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