Pius Adesanmi

Pius Adesanmi, poet and critic, was born in 1972 and obtained a First Class Honours degree in French Studies from the University of Ilorin (1992). He subsequently obtained a Master’s degree and a PhD in the same discipline from the Universities of Ibadan and British Columbia respectively. He has since pursued a career as a scholar of Francophone and Anglophone African and Black Diasporic literatures and cultures. He is a two-time Fellow of the French Institute of South Africa (IFAS) and has guest-lectured widely in Universities in Africa, Europe, and North America. He has contributed essays on literature and culture to several learned journals, literary reviews, newspapers, and edited books. He regularly serves as a manuscript reviewer for literary publications. His poetry collection, The Wayfarer and Other Poems won the Association of Nigerian Authors Poetry Prize in 2001. He is currently an Associate professor of Literature at Carleton University, Ottawa Canada, and Director, Project on New African Literatures (PONAL).

Project Nigeria: Viaticum for Polyphemus

The current condition of statehood in Nigeria calls to mind two seemingly far-flung and historically divergent analogies, one rooted in Roman Catholic rites of passage for the dying and the other lodged in the fate that awaits anybody who stands in the path of freedom and justice in Greek mythology...

Diasporic Nigerians, 2011, and the Measure of Seriousness

I am personally offended and embarrassed. The international community has no business taking a country seriously whose presidential field can be approached like a guguru and epa stall in Oshodi...

Why I Will not Emulate Jesus

Imagine the weight that would be lifted off President Yar’Adua’s shoulders if 150 million Nigerians decided to emulate the dietary practices of Jesus by fasting all the time, especially in the forty days and forty nights preceding the Presidential elections of 2011?

Orile Ede: Preliminary Reflections

Whenever I’m invited to reflect critically on the condition of the state in Africa using Nigeria as an example, I always love to unpack the philosophical underpinnings of Orile Ede, if only to illustrate how and why Nigeria’s project nationhood was doomed from the very beginning...

Patriotism and Dora Akunyili’s Squealers

It takes a sophisticated degree of disingenuousness for anybody to refuse to understand that the greatest impediment to the Nigerian brand – if there is any - is the Nigerian state symbolized by the Federal Government and Aso Rock...

Rebrand Death First!

It is impossible for any modern computer software or calculator to keep track of the dizzying number of Nigerians who die like goats every day...

Nigerianizing Nigeria’s Embassies

Career badmouthers of Nigeria’s Federal Government have gone gaga over the news that a modest sum of N1.5 billion has been earmarked in the 2009 budget “to fuel generators” in Nigeria’s Embassies and Consulates abroad...

Accent War in ‘Jand’

I’ve always been amused by the cultural arrogance which makes Canadians - and their American brothers - assume that there is anyone in this wide planet of ours who speaks English without an accent!

Don't miss

What Happened To Nigeria’s $20 Billion?

Nigeria is subliminally going through perilous times. Unfortunately, the...

Banks Are Not My Business

Whenever I see any bank and the ill-assorted characters...

Osun election: Between hope and fear

Hope springs eternal, and with elections just days away...

Osun: By this time on August 16

By Dotun Afolayan ​History does not merely happen; it is...

Osun: When words betray the throne

By Akintunde Adewoye ​Power is not just a tool to...