Still on Late Prof Pius Adesanmi

The sudden loss of one of Nigeria's revered scholar and Canadian Professor of African literature, Pius Adesanmi is painful and will be remembered in my history of people who have really left an indelible mark in the sand of time.

I will remember vividly where we first met. Well it wasn't that we both sat down to talk but i was privileged to be in the same hall with him at the annual AKE Art and Book festival (2017 edition) which hosts yearly in Abeokuta, Southwest Nigeria. There i saw him alongside several other fellows in the Nigerian Academia terrain. He was in attendance with his home-based colleague, Prof Remi Raji.

During the 2017 edition of the Book festival I also met his renown book, 'Naija no dey carry last' for the very first time and was thrown aback at how this erudite scholar of letters was able to articulate Nigeria pressing societal issues in an easy to read, plus humorous manner. Well, I wasn't surprised since he once lived here as well. I wouldn't know so much about this late scholar but a friend based in Germany once said Prof Adesanmi is one of those Nigerian scholars one can run to in a short space of time and when you need someone to help access your work.

Really i think his good name has accorded him so much respect like that, no wonder his indigenous state government (Kogi State) has chosen to honour him even at his demise. According to information gathered a library will be named after him and likewise a secondary school in the state. The monarch from Isanlu (Moses Babatunde), the town from which Late Prof Adesanmi hails  announced this.


You will recall that Prof Pius Adesanmi died on March 10, 2019 aboard the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines, flight 302 which took off from Addis Ababa and was headed to Nairobi but crashed about six minutes after take-off.