The world has not stopped mourning since the death of renowned scholar Prof Pius Adebola Adesanmi in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 plane crash on March 10; 156 others died in the accident. The late Adesanmi’s friends and colleagues in Canada, where he worked, the United Kingdom (UK), the United States (US) and at home in Nigeria say in the intellectual world he will be greatly missed. Carleton varsity has set up a fund in his honour, writes EVELYN OSAGIE.
It’s been 10 days since the world received the heart-breaking news of the death of one of Nigeria’s widely celebrated scholars based in Canada, Prof Pius Adebola Adesanmi.
Adesanmi, 47, a Professor of Literary Arts in Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada, was a revered social critic and literary icon, who was hyper active on the social media.
The late scholar and another Nigerian, Ambassador Abiodun Bashua, and 40 United Nations (UN) officials, were among the 157 victims of the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 flight.
Adesanmi’s death shook the literati and intellectual world. It left his university, friends and colleagues in Canada and United Kingdom mourning.
Carleton University establishes an endowment fund in honour of Adesanmi
Subsequently, Carleton University has called for donations towards an endowment fund to support students who aspire to follow in his footsteps and Adesanmi’s work.
Encouraging the public to share their memo-ries of Adesanmi with them, the university wrote on its website: “Carleton University is devastated by the sudden death of Prof. Pius Adesanmi, director of our Institute of African Studies and a remarkable writer, poet and political commentator who was celebrated for his eloquence and fearlessness in speaking truth to power. Our thoughts are with his family at this difficult time.
“His award-winning book – You’re Not a Country Africa: A Personal History of the African Present – was groundbreaking. One of the most important minds of the African Diaspora, he inspired his Carleton colleagues with his brilliance and cemented his close ties to faculty, staff and students with his kindness, thoughtfulness, enthusiasm and unforgettable laugh.
“To honour his memory, a fund is being established which will support students and continue his life’s work.”
The university is also collecting memories and tributes that they will be publishing on their website.
The President and Vice-Chancellor, Carleton University, Benoit-Antoine Bacon, said: “Pius Adesanmi was a towering figure in African and post-colonial scholarship and his sudden loss is a tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and all those who knew and loved him, and with everyone who suffered loss in the tragic crash in Ethiopia.
“The contributions of Pius Adesanmi to Carleton are immeasurable,” said Pauline Rankin, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS). She added: ‘’He worked tirelessly to build the Institute of African Studies, to share his boundless passion for African literature and to connect with and support students. He was a scholar and teacher of the highest calibre who leaves a deep imprint on Carleton.”
‘Each time I see his pictures on the TV I shudder in disbelief’
His death is still being felt by his friends and colleagues as they remember him with fond memories. One of them is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, Canada, Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba. Still in shock and at a loss for words, Anyaduba wrote in his piece, entitled: “Pius Adesanmi: A Tribute”: “The first thing that came to my mind past midnight of Saturday when I initially saw a news headline about an Ethiopian Airline crash was: ‘I hope Oga isn’t in that plane. He travels a lot in that region.’ I wished the thought away and went to sleep only to wake up to the intimate reality of that horrifying tragedy. I still don’t know how to make sense of it. Each time I see his pictures on the TV, I shudder in disbelief. And there’s that sharp stab. That deep indescribable sadness. Pius, I never got my chance to “spoil” you in 2017 when you were meant to visit Winnipeg (at my invitation) to deliver a keynote lecture you “wickedly” titled: “You Can Love Drogba and Claim Gretzky: Negotiating the Hyphen between Africa and Canada.” You didn’t know this then: I had set you up for a combat. I was plotting to settle some intellectual scores with you.
“It was my way of trying to “arrive,” to impress you, and to offer my mentee loyalties. But then… Yes, you were that kind of man who even when in the opposing end of a debate still managed to pave a path for others to walk. You were, to me, the man faraway, yet so present in my life and consciousness. Thank you for all your generosity and friendship and mentorship. The only consolation I can fathom from your tragic death requires me to brush aside, even if only temporarily, my acquired education in empirical thinking and agree with your paternal grandmother that you’re indeed an abiku. That way, I can live with the hope that in your characteristic spiritual trickiness you came, left, and indeed, you are coming again. Be ready because next time we will brand you with a bigger, deeper scar, if only to keep you much longer in this pain-sweet realm. Journey well, brother!”
‘Pius Adesanmi: A humane,
rare breed scholar!’
One of his mentees, Ademola Adesola, who is a PhD candidate at the Department of English, Theatre, Film and Media, University of Manitoba, and a research assistant at the Centre for Globalisation and Cultural Studies, University of Manitoba, describes Adesanmi’s death a “disabling tragedy”.
“His tragic death on the ill-fated Ethiopian plane that crashed penultimate Sunday six minutes after take-off concentrates the mind. Many precious souls met their untimely end in that disabling tragedy. My heart goes out to all the families of the deceased, who with Prof. Adesanmi took ‘the wings of the morning’.
“The pitiless grim reaper has robbed us of a mind who truly cared for our humanity. Death knifed us brutally when it snatched Prof. Adesanmi from us. Prof. Adesanmi was one of the finest of us as humans. Doubtless, the world has lost a rounded and sound knowledge producer. His robust scholarship is of the excellent brand. He was a rare breed scholar. He was uncompromisingly given to the pursuit of excellence and unreservedly demanded same from all around him. Mediocrity depressed him. It was for that reason that he became the punishing nemesis of many African, nay Nigerian, rulers.”
Adesola recounted further: ‘’The news of Adesanmi’s death is disconcerting. Wasn’t he just healing from his last close shave with death last year?” I asked myself as I began to process the excruciating pain of his sudden exit from this world. In that hour of incapacitating grief, one of my conversations with him popped up on the screen of my mind. I vividly remembered the ineradicable impression this eminent, humane, patriotic, and witty scholar made on my mind.
“It was a day in January 2018. I had just started my PhD programme at the University of Manitoba (U of M) in Canada. Being a member of the African Doctoral Lounge (a Facebook meeting point for African scholars he created together with others), I had written to inform him of my programme at U of M. A few minutes after I pushed the send button, I received his response. His reply revealed to me his deep unaffected sense of altruism and irrevocable readiness to be instrumental to young scholar’s progress.
“In that response, he provided the names of two people at the U of M that I should go and introduce myself to, noting to them that he asked me to see them. That meant those people should vouchsafe to me – within what was and would be humanly possible for them – whatever help I would require as I settled down for the programme given that I came from him. Only a person of solid reputation and productive connection could confidently make that kind of recommendation. Yet, I am talking of a man who I had no personal relationship with! As a matter of fact, that mail I sent to him was the first time I would write to him. And there he was; on being notified of my presence in a foreign land in pursuit of the proverbial golden academic fleece, he freely made available to me his network of contacts. In other words, my quest for progress immediately became his and he hanged no fire in walking me on a path that he considered vital for the actualisation of my dream. Those I shared my story with crooned similar ditty of his uncommon contribution to their academic wellbeing.
“Prof. Adesanmi was irreversibly convinced that, in the wide, sometimes confounding labyrinth of academic forest, healthy association is vitally important. He networked wisely and widely. He connected people to sources of beneficial ideas and inspiration. He spent and was spent for the causes of young scholars. He was a mentor to innumerable established and burgeoning scholars. He neither lacked nor withheld the right resources for the advancement of intellectuals. Whatever he didn’t have, he knew someone who possessed them. He was an active port of grace and ideas that many easefully connected to for their career advancement.
“His structured interventions and critical contributions to debates on issues of governance, human development, and knowledge production around the world, especially in Africa, energised my mind. I benefited richly from his deep insights, unafraid engagement of varied issues, and his unbending candour in the face of misdirected angst and bile.
“Although his sudden departure is disheartening, one takes solace in the fact that he has made indelible marks. Anywhere and anytime people speak of exemplary, humane, and sound scholars, Pius Adesanmi’s name will stand out attractively. His works remain inexhaustible sources of useful inspiration. I am grateful I know and read him
‘Pius was a scholar per excellence and a humanist’
Benjamin Maiangwa, who is completing a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba, Canada, says Adesanmi was “one of Nigeria’s contemporary leading public intellectuals and celebrated columnists; never afraid to say it as he saw it – tactfully and with grace who worked tirelessly for good governance and scholarship in Africa and beyond, where the array of people he has trained and groomed will no doubt continue his legacy”.
He recounted: “My first encounter with the late Pius Adesanmi was at the University of Johannesburg in February 2014, where he gave the keynote at a Young Scholars and Graduate conference organised by the African Institute of South Africa. Pius’s passion for social justice and post-colonial issues rubbed off on all the participants at the conference. I know this for sure because our hearts and minds were greatly moved as we sat with rapt attention listening to him with open mouths.
“It was expected then that, after his speech, all of us were struggling for selfies with him in the corridors of the University of Johannesburg. What could have been our second encounter never took place because of his very tight schedule. Pius was supposed to be the keynote speaker at an Africa-Canada Colloquium that Dr Chigbo Anyaduba organised at the University of Manitoba in 2017. I was supposed to welcome Pius at the event.
He added: “Pius’s untimely death was shocking and painful, to say the least, and so was that of my former schoolmate from Kenya (Kageche Mukua) and the rest of the victims of the ill-fated Ethiopian flight. Pius was a scholar par excellence and a humanist at that. As precious as he was in our eyes, I believe in the words of the psalmist that even ‘more precious in the eyes of the Lord is the death of his saints.’ May God grant consolation to all who mourn him and his dear family, and rest his soul!”
‘Pius taught us to think differently’
Another PhD student with the University of Manitoba, Ifeoluwa Adeniyi, said of the late Adesanmi: “Even now it still seems like a dream that Professor Pius Adesanmi is no more! His demise feels not like death in the sense we think of death. It feels as if he’s still there somewhere, except that he’s now not accessible to us. Like a flight away from all the decadence and rot he so unsparingly criticised. How do we mourn a man whose words had been and now will remain echoes of wisdom? It will always be said that he was one of us and all of us. Pious Pius, he taught us to see differently, think differently, just as he was – the uncommon academic superstar.”
‘Pius was a true African, passionately committed to its liberation
and development’
A Masters student in African Studies, Oxford, UK, Folabi Jimoh wrote: “As humans, it’s usually an invidious part this calculus of living to unconsciously regard death as closer to the ‘others’ than ourselves. But we’re often jolted into awareness of its callous nearness on encountering a near-death experience, or when death actually happens to someone close to us! Death’s occurrence has a canny way of unsettling our settled habit of living.
“Pius Adesanmi’s death yet again affirms for me that, as a unifying human experience, there is no ‘us’ and ‘them’ in death! There’s no ‘distance’ or ‘nearness’ about it. Death is as distant as it is near! Adesanmi was neither my ‘close’ relative nor friend. Yet he was by no means a ‘distant other’ to me. I only came to know him through his writings and ideas –and through them he had become an intimate part of my life, my thought processes, and my outlook on life. Probably like everyone else in his orbit of life (both ‘distant’ and ‘close’) I had grown accustomed to seeing him trot around the African continent and return to his base in Canada. Africa is a continent he loved dearly, and a continent that paradoxically took his life!
“He was a true African, passionately committed to its liberation and development. Pius Adesanmi’s death is another tragic revelation that dying is closely and inseparably woven into the ontology of living. And this should inform our apprehension of death and appreciation of life. His life was meaningfully impactful; and his death inspires grievability in every sense of the word.
Rest in peace, professor!”