Pius
May the Almighty bless him and his family.
"He freed a lot of people,
But it seems the Good die young
I just looked around,
And he was gone. "
The other legacies by pen ( collected writings , commentaries,) and mouth (conversations, talks) include the Pius in you, the Pius in us. Like Malcolm, speaking - not big grammar but the idiom of the people to whom he relates. Unapologetic Rebel rouser, like Kropotkin "anarchist Prince" except that despite the many perambulations and excursions there's no wholesale embrace of a single word brand : "Socialism" or is there ? (Anathema in North America)
Versatile, an irrepressibly rumbustious and exuberant extrovert, no language or grammar & vocabulary inhibitions , made the language his own and can talk to several people at the same time. Iconoclast but venerating mother ,wife, daughter, family and friends. Only the Almighty can comfort.
Africa. Hallelujah! Right now Pius would have been ploughing and sowing among his at least 43, 000 disciples on Facebook and many others everywhere else.
Right now I'm at the beginning of Chapter 6 , " The Modern Covenant " of Yuval Noah Harari's Homo Deus :
"Modernity is a deal. All of us sign up to this deal on the day we are born, and it regulates our lives until the day we die"
Sounds like Pius.
Moving eulogies by Farooq Kperogi ( so true, so true) Baba Kadiri , and a second to none by none other than Barrister Kennedy Emetulu.
Amen.
The Pius in Pius, soon to be reincarnated.
"Who sabi tomorrow?"
Side-lining the imperfections of an otherwise perfect language which is where it is at its present level of development, this wisdom question has been often asked in the vernacular and the unanimous power answer from the always less -than- omniscient futurologists and ignoramuses , even among the most knowledgeable among the astrologers, seers, professors, prophets , pastors and priests is always either the perfect answer, "Nobody" - (who/ what else?) - or for those still in doubt about any accurate use of the future tense, the answer is concealed in the humble universal confession of infinite human ignorance : "Only God knows!"
God.
Nobodaddy, ( Nobody's Daddy) according to Chidi's good friend Mr. William Blake.
When Jesus , "the Only Begotten" was asked when is the last day – he replied "But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." ( Matthew 24
This evening Baba Kadiri and I lamented that none of Nigeria's prophesying pastors had prophesied that two prominent Nigerians would perish on board Flight ET 302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. In the two-horse race between Brother Buhari and Alhaji Atiku any prophet worth his salt would have prophesied "Buhari!" - but the false, so called prophets and pastors like Obasanjo ( and the others like them who don't realise that Abū al-Qāsim Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Muṭṭalib ibn Hāshim ( Salallahu alaihi wa salaam ) is "the last Prophet" and all the other sour grapes Brother Jeros who said "Atiku" will probably insist that they were right, that it was their man that won alright, but in the end it was "the APC magic" that prevailed over justice. Without having to quote Bible or Quran, they might as well have taken umbrage under, "man proposes but God disposes" and as to the riggers on the other side , the losers , it's well known that "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry"
I heard about the Ethiopian Airlines tragedy just minutes before entering the Concert House to listen to Mulatu Astatke (himself an Ethiopian Jazz performer) and wondered if the concert was going to be cancelled since it was doubtful ( to me) that he would be in any kind of mood to play. Play he did. Pure Catharsis. Standing ovation. Once back home I visited the USA Africa Dialogue Series Website and was stunned to read "Obituary: Professor Pius Adesanmi "
was stunned but could not take it seriously, this must be a callous mistake, not obituary coming at the heels of the near-fatal accident from which Thank God, Pius had recovered, miraculously. So some impious and malicious wretch had probably hacked the website and was now impersonating Oga Falola and posting obituaries of his enemies ? Frenetically scoured the net , but hopefully - My Dearest Almighty God, just as many have said, more prayerful than confident that Pius had not been on the Flight, had missed it or re-bookedand only his name happened to be on the passenger list – too late to call Baba Kadiri – went back to Facebook to Pius' Facebook webpage, could only react with two words : "beyond words". Arthur Hallam? Surely more than one person reacting like Umar Ibn Khattab on hearing that the Prophet of Islam ( S.A.W. ) had blessed the Hereafter was beside himself, overcome with emotion and disbelief, threatening to kill anyone who said that the Prophet of Islam had " died" - was also in a state of shock that has lasted weeks , and I'm still in a state of shock, although by today my blood pressure has sunk some 50 points from the height of worry and stress theses past few weeks . Like when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Malcolm X was assassinated, at age thirty nine, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated , also at age thirty nine, Olof Palme was assassinated – and later Anna Lindh – shock this time compounded by what some would glibly call "superstition" that death had not stalked and targeted dear Pius accidentally , that he had been targeted by some juju operatives just as in 1983 a certain gentleman connected with the Haastrup ( Nigerian Company) lost his life in Korean Air Lines Flight 007, just as they had said he would.
Indeed, we are still grappling with these kind of issues
One approach : Rabbi Nachman teaches
"Every person must say: The whole world was created for me" ( Sanhedrin 37a) .
If the world was created for me, it is therefore my constant obligation to examine and consider what is needed to repair the world and provide everyone's needs, and to pray for them."
To be continued
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
No comments:
Post a Comment