He is the Director, Institute of African Studies, Carleton University, in Ottawa, Canada[1][2][3][4] and his multidisciplinary research addresses how street stories —popular urban narratives in postcolonial Africa—travel through many cultural formations, such as oral tradition, the press, movies, popular songs, and social networks.
He worked in print media, with a focus on literary and cultural journalism, and earned expertise at the editing and management levels.
In 2010, he won James Patrick Folinsbee Memorial Scholarship in Creative Writing, in 2011, he was nominee for the Governor General's gold medal.
[13] In 2015 and 2016, he received the Carnegie African Diaspora Fellowship and in the latter year he won Capital Educators’ award for excellence in teaching.
[14][15] In 2022, he made it to the final list of Archibald Lampman Prize for poetry for his anthology DisPlace[1] and in 2023, he was one of the winners of FASS Research Excellence Awards.