By Yahaya Balogun
For those of us who did not know Professor Pius Adesanmi , a rare gem and quintessential young Professor before he smiled away to his lord, I am writing this synopsis of his short but memorable life for your perusal.
Professor Pius Adesanmi was born on February 25, 1972 in Isanlu Isin, an ancient town in Isin Local Government of Kogi State, Nigeria. Isin LGA Kogi State was created from the old Irepodun Local Government Area in 1996 with the headquarters at Owu-Isin. Pius was blooded and nurtured from this rustic town and put the town’s name glowingly on the worldmap.
Professor Pius Adesanmi was a writer and a literary critic and columnist. He was the author of “Naija No Dey Carry Last“, a 2015 compendium collection of satirical essays. Pius Adesanmi and Ambassador Abiodun Bashua along with others foreign nationals who were passengers died on 10 March 2019 when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after take-off.
Adesanmi was a Professor of English and African Literature and Director of the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University in Canada. He graduated from the University of Ilorin with Bachelor degree. He had his Masters degree from the University of Ibadan.
Adesanmi obtained his PhD from the University of British Columbia, Canada. He taught at Pennsylvania State University in the United States before he left for Carleton University, Canada.
Pius has remained a voracious intellectual who combined both family tasks and intellectual engagement with social media savviness. The intelligent Professor will be missed by the cyberborgs and cyborgs on zukerville, a man loved and followed by more than 40,000 savvy social media users in a fast naughty shrinking global village.
Through his social media posts, he has influenced thousands of resourceful young Nigerians in the diaspora and other nationalities around the world.
Professor Pius Adesanmi will be remembered as a Nigerian-Canadian, and a bubbling young African with intellectual acumen. Prof. Pius was a great asset to the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Nigeria and Africa. He will be sorely missed by all and sundry.
In our humankind, Professor Pius Adesanmi was also satirist, kindred spirit, humorist, linguist, extemporaneous speaker, orator, tourist, untiring traveler, a lettered man with vintage styles of pounding our corrupt politicians with his smitten power of words.
Professor Pius Adesanmi graciously poured libations at the entrance of the epicenter of Professor Wole Soyinka-Kongi harvest, our literary icon in Nigeria. Soyinka is a literatus and stupendous literary gnome in the forest of our thousands literati.
Pius Adesanmi’s conscription and initiation into the Museum of arts of Professor Wole Soyinka is also one the academic credentials possessed by Pius Adesanmi. The initiation that weaponized Pius’s pen to rattle our leaders’ conscience, and enhance our insatiable quest for knowledge and intellectual acquisition.
Professor Pius Adesanmi was an effervescent professor to evolving and incubating global professors. He was a gentle soul and ghostly confessor to his friends dead or alive. Prof. Adesanmi was a flourishing flower to his young daughter Tani and his beautiful wife. In the ecumenical parlance of literary empire, the ebullient Professor spoke ex-cathedral and extemporaneously to his audience with captivating words from his bank of ideas. He was also a God-fearing man with unpretentious personality.
There was never a dull moment in Professor Pius’s interactions with humankind. To live in the hearts of those we love and beloved is never to die. The attestation and manifestation of the nuance above is evident in tributes and eulogies being poured on the kindred spirit of the youthful Canadian Professor.
Professor Pius Adesanmi’s vintage and funny mien, romance and unblemished affection for his family, colleagues and friends will be sorely missed. But this bubbling soul has embarked on an unending blissful journey to unknown eternity. To live in the bosom hearts of the lives we have touched while alive is not to die!
Goodnight, Professor Pius Adesanmi.
Yahaya Balogun wrote from Arizona, USA
