Personal Tribute to Pius Adesanmi

At Saharareporters.com, once you sign up to be a columnist, you inadvertently join a fraternity. I was one of the first members of the fraternity. Then, one day, Pius Adesanmi joined.

As a fraternity, we do not meet in the dead of the night on top of an Iroko tree inside an evil forest in New York City. But when we do meet each other, usually on the road while on an errand, we do say hello, share ground tobacco and famished smile of a people cooked in the same cast iron pot full of roots and leaves boiled in well water distilled with alum. We are cool like that.

In some cases, we do not even meet but we still break digital kola nut and rinse our mouth with e-ogogoro. Meeting in the future is one of those longings that we share, the hope that one day we shall meet at a joint where we will drink palm wine and pepper soup and eat isi-ewu and nkwobi with ewedu and amala mixed in one plate. It is best if such meeting happens where a western Foundation foots the bill. We do these things because we are sons and daughters of the soil.

Some of us who came from Nigeriaworld.com were the Christian Chukwu and the Segun Odegbami of the cyber contact sport. We did it when there was no reward. We did it when there was not a chance to take it to the next level, playing for a premiere league of the world. Pius was with us on Nigeriaworld messageboard. He was one of the…