Ottawa professor Pius Adesanmi, one of the 18 Canadians killed in Sunday's Ethiopian Airlines crash, is being remembered as a public intellectual whose outreach to Africans across the globe shaped the way Canada is seen abroad.
A colleague says Adesanmi, as director of Carleton University's Institute of African Studies, deepened the academic discipline within Canada and elevated the school's program to international renown.
Nduka Otiono, a fellow Carleton professor and Adesanmi's friend of 25 years, says the Nigerian-born professor amplified his activism to his "cult following" on social media and by building relationships on the ground in Africa.
Otiono says it's difficult to imagine the depth of the devastation being felt across the globe in the wake of his colleague's tragic death.
A Nigerian representative to African Union's Economic, Social and Cultural Council told The Associated Press that Adesanmi was on his way to a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, when the jet went down Sunday shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport, killing all 157 aboard.
Adesanmi, who was also a professor in Carleton's Department of English Language and Literature, won the inaugural Penguin Prize for African non-fiction writing in 2010.