2 2 • GCU TODAY
On
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Survivor with a Smile
GCU officer, student a shining light on campus
despite two brushes with death
L
ate at night, a bespectacled Komi
Lokossou sits inches from a large
flat-screen television screen working
on M.B.A. homework streamed from
his laptop. This is how he has to study after
a coma from carbon monoxide poisoning in
December 2013.
The west African native has four homework
stations like this throughout his Phoenix home
and the small outside guest room, the site of the
accident that left him temporarily blind. The
multiple locations are necessary for solace in
the house he shares with his wife, four of his 10
children — ages 16, 14, 8 and 4 (the other six,
ages 33 to 18, live away from home) — and often
his five granddaughters.
Lokossou, 53, a Grand Canyon University
public safety officer and online student known
for his infectious smile and caring personality,
emigrated to Arizona in 2000 after seven years
as a refugee in Benin, the country directly east
of his native Togo. Lokossou is on track to earn
his first master’s degree next year, but he also
possesses a handful of undergraduate degrees in
criminal justice, private investigation, nursing
assistance and paralegal.
His GCU degree, he said, will be another tool
he can use to serve others — his mission in life.
Lokossou spends most of his time on campus
praying with students and acting as a father
figure. He often offers advice while on patrol.
After graduation, he plans to open an
orphanage, something he believes a GCU
business degree will help him accomplish.
“God has a plan for my life and brought me
(to GCU) to help people and show His heart,”
said Lokossou, who didn’t speak English when he
arrived in America. He now speaks 10 languages
fluently.
“I had many hardships in life,” he said. “I
do not know if it is a gift from God, but if I see
someone who is hurting, I am able to help them.”
Running for his life
On a quiet March evening in 1993 in Togo’s
capital, Lomé, Lokossou, his wife and four
children were eating dinner when a neighbor
banged frantically on the door.
Lokossou, then 32, was a corporal in
the Togo army and served as a personal
bodyguard for the former president, whom
Komi Lokossou, a GCU public safety officer,
says God blessed himwith the ability to calm
students who are hurting. He overcame many
hardships, including seven years as a refugee.
photo by darryl webb
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