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He also, according to his cousin Tunde Asaju, “challenged mediocrity” and “berated a system that lavished resources on the privileged few while impoverishing the masses.”

Photo by Bruce Deachman / Postmedia

These were just some of the accolades friends used to describe the Nigerian-born Adesanmi, a 47-year-old Carleton University professor and director of its Institute of African Studies.

“He was an indefatigable champion for the study of all things African,” said Carleton professor Pauline Rankin, who spoke on behalf of the university. “And, when you were is Pius’s presence, he had a way of making you feel like you were the most interesting person he’d ever met.”

He was, she added, “ordinarily extraordinary.”

Photo by Bruce Deachman / Postmedia

A specialist in African literature who was lured to Carleton from Penn State University in 2006, Adesanmi was also a poet, a columnist for Nigerian newspapers, a satirist and blogger, remembered for his outgoing personality and warm laugh.

A friend, Emmanuel Bayo Aregbesola, talked about Adesanmi’s sense of mortality and a recent premonition he had that he might not live past the age of 50.

“Life is a question,” Aregbesola said, “and how we live it is the answer.

“He used his pen to mock death,” he added, noting how, in the minutes before the plane he was in crashed, Adesanmi posted from the Book of Psalms on his Facebook page: “If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.”