Uncle Sam at 90

It seems like only yesterday but it is about twenty years or so ago  this month when I wrote a widely publicised and well received tribute to Prince Samson OruruAmuka Pemu, aka Sad Sam, aka Uncle Sam, on the occasion of his 70^th Birthday. In that piece I talked about his immeasurable contribution to Nigeria’s journalism as columnist, editor and publisher.

As columnist using the pen name Sad Sam, his popular weekly column, “This Nigeria” in the Sunday Times which he also edited, was a must read because of what I said was its “combination of humour, wit, simplicity and clarity of language.” Among his classic pieces I mentioned this memorable one he entitled “The rising cost of dying”. I don’t remember the date now but from its obviously imaginative title to its body text, it very well captured all these four qualities – and more – in a way that was typical of Sad Sam.

An inversion of sorts of the common expression, “the rising cost of living”, the piece was a humourous comment on the bad habit of Nigerians, especially the rich, of spending more to bury their poorer cousins than they ever did to support them in life. More than 50 years after he wrote the piece, that foolish habit has refused to die. On the contrary, it seems to have even grown.

Perhaps it was in consideration of such bad habits of Nigerians that Uncle Sam chose to declare himself Sad in those good old days. However, as I said twenty years ago, a happier and more easy-going person than Uncle Sam is hard to imagine. His philosophy seemed to be to live life to the fullest and spread happiness all around him. Life, he often said, was too short for anyone to take it too seriously. Perhaps it was this happy-go-lucky attitude to life that has helped him live to reach the ripe young age of 90 years on June 13.

Opportunity, it is often said, knocks only once. For Uncle Sam as a newspaper publisher, it knocked twice, first in March 1973 when he co-founded Punch with the late Chief Olu Aboderin, and then in July 1984 when he had to leave Punch less than ten years from its founding, following the souring of the relationship between the two.

In between his leaving Punch and founding Vanguard the man thought he could live life outside being a newspaperman. He dabbled into offshore fishing but soon discovered he just had to return to the only profession he knew best how to practice.

Among so many of us who paid tribute to Uncle Sam on his 70^th Birthday twenty years ago none captured his essence like his favourite journalistic godson from the heydays of Punch. I am, of course, talking about Muyiwa Adetiba, predictably his first Editor at Vanguard and now a veteran columnist with the newspaper. As Muyiwa said in his tribute, Uncle Sam stood out as someone who knew how to identify talents, delegate authority and responsibility without abdication, and was as generous in rewarding hard work as he was quick in detesting sloth.

At the risk of sounding immodest, I believe I am a living example of his search for talent and generosity. At the height of Punch’s popularity in the late seventies or so, he led a small team all the way to Kaduna from Lagos in search of northern talents. We met in the course of that trip and he offered me a job in the newspaper. His offer was hard to resist but I declined because I thought at that time Punch was more entertainment than hard news, although I did not tell him so.

In spite of my saying no to his offer, Uncle Sam, who, like me, is small in stature, gave me two very expensive designer safari suits that became my favourite wear for many years. Not one to easily give up on his objective, he told me that his offer was open any time I changed my mind.

Among the many virtues I admire in the man is his insistence that though comments are free, they must be fair and balanced. This must be why, several years ago, he would not let me be until I got him a good writer who could articulate a northern point of view on issues as a counter to Vanguard’s predominantly southern viewpoint. This was how, first, Is’haq Modibbo Kawu, a former Editor of Trust, and subsequently Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, a former university teacher, retired federal permanent secretary and the last executive secretary of the Independent National Electoral Commission, came to write their weekly columns in his newspaper.

In recent years Uncle Sam has gone well beyond his success as a newspaperman to become, among other things, a pioneer, and, given his wide and deep contacts in the country, a highly valued member of the National Peace Committee chaired by former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Alhaji Abubakar. This non-governmental organisation has played a critical role since 2014 in monitoring and ensuring that our elections at both national and state levels are conducted in the most peaceful and credible manner.

As the man celebrates his 90^th Birthday, it is not surprising that he was rewarded a day before his birthday with the national honour of the Commander of the Order of the Niger (CON), one of Nigeria’s higher national honours, by President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, in his speech commemorating this year’s Democracy Day.

Uncle Sam, here’s wishing you Happy 90th Birthday and many, many more returns in good health!

Haruna is national commissioner, Independent National Electoral Commission, Abuja.