The African Studies Association mourns the loss of Margaret Vogt, who passed away on September 23, 2014. Our thoughts and prayers are with her family and friends.
By Toyin Falola
Professor Vogt was a leading African scholar in the area of International Peace and security. Indeed, her books on the Liberian Civil War served as the Roseta Stone for many of us who later worked on the subject.
She was an Associate Professor at the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs, establishing the Institute’s Strategic Studies Unit and later worked as the Director of Studies at the Command and Staff College, Jaji, Nigeria, and as a lecturer at the Nigerian War College and the Institute for Strategic Studies, Kuru, also in Nigeria.
Margaret also worked as Chief of Staff of the African Union Commission Chairperson in the African Union. She was also one of the key scholars in the conceptualization and facilitation of the adoption of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and Organisation of African Unity (OAU) mechanisms for peace and conflict management. With the United Nations, she worked as Deputy Director of the Africa I Division in the Department of Political Affairs at the United Nations Secretariat and later as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General at the United Nations Political Office for Somalia.
With her death, Africa has lost an electrifying intellectual and many of us have lost a genial host and a wonderful sister.
May she rest well.
Abiodun Alao
