An Interview with Claude Ake

Abstract

I conducted this interview with Nigerian political scientist, Professor Claude Ake, 10 years ago -- on August 14, 1990 -- at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C., where he was a Fellow. I had intended the interview to be part of a series with distinguished African intellectuals but personal extenuating circumstances forced me to abandon the project. Thus, this is the first time it is being published. It may also be Ake's last in-depth, one-on- one, interview. Sad to say, he died in a plane crash near Lagos on November 7, 1996. He was 57.