Remembering Pius Adesanmi, A Scholar Of Distinction

By Tunde Olusunle  

I had two spells as a student at the University of Ilorin, abbreviated by us as Unilorin. True, our university started as a college under the University of Ibadan, (UI). We were in a hurry, however, to assert our independence and define our own corporate identity, soon after we were weaned off our mother’s breasts. Unilorin has since imprinted itself in Nigerian and global consciousness.

Late Prof Adesanmi 

The sheer quality of human resources it has availed the world, its groundbreaking ventures in research, teaching and mentoring, the holistic gamut of knowledge production and dissemination has since earned it a more fitting appellation. We call it the Better By Far citadel. My primary excursion through my alma mater ran from 1982 to 1985. The succeeding odyssey straddled 1987 to 1989. I studied English on both occasions, with a dominant slant for literature which I explored for my long essays and thesis respectively. 

Several years after my departure from Unilorin, the name “Pius Adesanmi” became recurring in the public and literary engagement circuits, in Nigeria and beyond. He was at once a poet, scholar, critic, satirist, columnist, author, maybe theorist as well. Biographical information about him, which I picked up in places, described him as a product of Unilorin and he was said to have studied French.

Reflections On Rotimi Amaechi And Nyesom Wike

By Pius Adesanmi

Yesterday, the convoys of Rotimi Amaechi and Nyesom Wike clashed in Port Harcourt. Today, the airwaves will be flooded by their aides. There will be narratives and counter-narratives. Colourful lies will clash with colorful hyperbole. Aides will be locked in a competition to win public sympathy for their bosses. On all sides, the scramble for the winning story has actually begun.

Amaechi and Wike 

Citizen, let me advise you. Let the aides do what they are paid to do. You have no dog in this fight. It is just two irresponsible Nigerian leaders involved in a street fight. Who is right and who is wrong between Wike and Amaechi is none of your business. Both men are mountains on your back. They are your oppressor. In these tough economic times, do not be misled by aides to waste your precious data taking sides with one man against the other. The only way this applies to you is that you are the grass beneath the feet of the two elephants going at it naked in public.

Do you want to know how you are the grass? Come with me.

Thanks are due to Sahara Reporters for providing photographic slides of the street location of the skirmish in Port Harcourt. They are fighting in dirty, rain-soaked streets. Evidence of horrible drainage abounds in the photos. There is some flooding. Everything looks jaga jaga like the streets of urban Nigeria look whenever the rains come.

Stop Rationalizing Buhari’s Lethargic Beginnings

By Moses Ochonu

My friend, Professor Pius Adesanmi, set the tone for what I'm about to say in a recent Facebook update. If you have not read his update in which he makes a forceful argument for holding the Buhari administration accountable for the president's pre-election promises in the area of security and the effort against Boko Haram, please go and read it without delay. It is a prescient and timely intervention. Adesanmi was writing to bemoan the continued rampage of Boko Haram in spite of Buhari's promise to take away their ability to continue their murderous activities.

*Buhari 

Adesanmi's overarching arguments are 1) we should insist on Buhari fulfilling his promise of securing the lives and property of citizens from the menace of Boko Haram, a promise that the recent wave of bombings vitiate; 2) we should demand from this administration a clear articulation of its strategy for ending Boko Haram; and 3) what we criticized and refused to accept when Jonathan was president, we should not accept, rationalize, or fail to criticize in Buhari's administration.

I want to extend Adesanmi's treatise beyond the narrow domain of security. I want to broaden his contention to the entire gamut of issues and challenges confronting the country. I am arguing simply that, regardless of the issue involved, what we didn't tolerate from Jonathan and roundly criticized in his administration, we should also not tolerate from Buhari and should have the courage to criticize. Here is a list of things we rightly criticized Jonathan for, but which, for reasons I cannot fathom, we seem to have ignored or accepted in Buhari's administration.

Chinua Achebe, 37 Other Nigerian Writers Speak On The State Of The Nation

We are troubled by the turn of events in Nigeria, and hereby call on President Goodluck Jonathan and the rest of the country’s political leadership to take immediate steps to tackle the state of lawlessness in certain parts of the nation and address the trepidation and rage that has reached dangerous levels within the Nigerian populace.

Chinua Achebe

Nigeria is witnessing a new escalation of sectarian violence, culminating in explosions that have killed or seriously wounded scores of people at churches and other centers of worship and local businesses.

As a people who lost two million citizens in a civil war, Nigerians must bring an urgent sense of history to the gloomy events. The country’s leadership should not view the incessant attacks as mere temporary misfortune with which the citizenry must learn to live; they are precursors to events that could destabilize the entire country.

We applaud President Jonathan’s declaration of a state of emergency in certain local government areas in four states. However, we have seen little indication that the country’s security and law enforcement agents are up to the task of protecting the lives and property of citizens in all parts of Nigeria.



Okey Ndibe

Clearly, the sophistication and deadly impact of the terrorist attacks suggest an agenda to create widespread fear and, possibly, to foment anarchy or war. President Jonathan has no greater duty than to ensure that Nigerians are safe wherever they live or visit within the country. He should demonstrate his recognition of that solemn duty, in our view, by doing the following:

(a) Outline both short and long term plans to comprehensively address the scourge of terror,

(b) Appoint competent and committed officials to head the various security agencies, and

(c) Serve as an agent to heal the many divisions plaguing Nigeria, and persuade all well-meaning people to enlist in the fight against festering violence.



Tess Onwueme

President Jonathan’s decision to remove fuel subsidies in the country at this time was ill-advised. Coming at the advent of the New Year, and barely a week after the gruesome Christmas Day attacks on worshippers, the policy has forced many Nigerian citizens to perceive his leadership as one that is both insensitive and possibly contemptuous of the mood of its people.

We stand with the Nigerian people who are protesting the removal of oil subsidy which has placed an unbearable economic weight on their lives. This action has clearly imposed an untenable and unfair burden on those segments of Nigerians who are already impoverished - subsisting on less than $2 a day. We call on President Jonathan to immediately change course. By reverting to the old prices of petroleum products, President Jonathan can work to diffuse tension in the country and exemplify the true servant leader who not only serves but also listens to his people. To insist on having his way, and to deploy state security and legal apparati to crush growing popular uprisings is to stamp on a highly valued tenet of democracy – the right to peaceful assembly – and to inadvertently promote greater violence in the country.



Isidore Okpewho

President Jonathan’s administration has made a persuasive case that a few highly connected Nigerians have corruptly profited from fuel subsidy. The government should swiftly bring to justice those corrupt profiteers as well as the bureaucrats who aid and abet their unconscionable parasitic activities and economic sabotage.

We acknowledge President Jonathan’s recent announcement of 25% cut in the basic salaries of political office holders.

But we believe that the move merely scratches the indefensible bloated salaries and allowances paid to Nigerian political officials. The president should also champion significant cuts in the huge cost of running the various tiers of government and the luxuries that have become the signature of those who ought to protect the commonwealth, serve the people, and not exploit them.



Besides, the culture of corruption and impunity in official quarters constitutes a grave threat to national security and to the country’s effort to establish a democratic culture and meaningful economic development.

Nigeria needs a return to relative calm to enable its people, and the Jonathan administration in particular, to focus on the task of combating the incubus of corruption, poverty and home-grown terrorism.

Signed by:
Chinua Achebe,  Okey Ndibe, Nduka Otiono, Helon Habila, Akin Adesokan, Pius Adesanmi, Tess Onwueme, Obiora Udechukwu, Yinka Tella,  Richard Ali, Chiji Akoma, Paul Ugor, Tolu Ogunlesi, Samantha Iwowo, Idowu Ohioze, Offiong Bassey, Chido Onumah, Bunmi Aborisade, Omolade Adunbi, Mahmud Obeamata, Mahmud Aminu, Nasr Kura, Gimba Kakanda, Obioma Nnaemeka, Sonala Olumhense, Ikhide Ikheola, Isidore Okpewho, E.C. Osondu, Ogaga Ifowodo, Mike Nwosu, Herbert Ekwe Ekwe, Chimalum Nwankwo, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Ebenezer Obadare, Ahmed Maiwada, Madina Shehu, Hussein Abdu, Auwal Musa Rafsanjani