That Sam wept!

Soon after the lecture that marked the birth day anniversary, a few friends whom we did not meet at the Conference center venue of the lecture were eager to call me and express their surprise that Sam wept when he was given the opportunity to say a word at the occasion which attracted the cream […]

Soon after the lecture that marked the birth day anniversary, a few friends whom we did not meet at the Conference center venue of the lecture were eager to call me and express their surprise that Sam wept when he was given the opportunity to say a word at the occasion which attracted the cream of Northern society.

Everyone that matter was in my view there because I saw Senator Bola Tinubu, General Muhammadu Buhari and Senator Ahmed Makarfi amongst others. As a student of power, the trajectory of forces that these three individuals and in fact many others who were there represent is so massive to the extent that they individually stand as colossus in the art of politics and administration.

This is not to talk about the General Danjumas, Maitama Sules, Adamu Ciromas and other very prominent citizens of Nigeria that graced the occasion. When I was going to Ahmadu Bello University in the early 1980s, I thought Ango Abdullahi was immortal. He represented to me what an embodiment of intellectualism and technocracy meanings are in the book. The best Vice Chancellor that Ahmadu Bello University has had outside the era of Darnley Alexander and Professor Ishaya Shuaibu Audu of blessed memory.

Ango delivered the lecture and others too spoke. Maitaima Sule, one of the few last amongst the best in Nigeria, was typically oratorical. At this advanced age, his sight is lost but his glamour and grasp of the mastery of that language called English remains undiminished. The country will certainly lose this Gem when the time comes.

Not for a minute, I was never surprised at the quality and quantity of those who attended the lecture. Sam has since surpassed the tiny Samuel Isaiah who came to Government College in Kaduna just a day after me towards the end of the first term. He was the last student to report in my set and we naturally were in the same class. Of equal heights but certainly not same in the understanding of what we were taught.

The Lord was as always our shepherd as everyone in the class could take us for granted may be because as very young people everyone looked around him to see who he could transfer his aggressions on. Most of us could not communicate in English and became the issue because only the few who came from Capital school, St Anne’s and similar other schools could even comprehend what most of the teachers were saying. Sam was one of them therefore it wasn’t surprising that from the second term, he took the lead and until we dispersed to our various classes in form three, Sam was the first in the class.

That earned him respect, envy and love. His brightness was a protection against those very exuberantly wicked seniors who wouldn’t allow us sleep as at when due and would wake us up about the same time the cadets in NDA were doing their morning runs.

It was the kind of experience that I would love my children to have but can’t have it. If I remember how virgin I came to Kaduna from the local education primary school in Zangon Kataf mid 1974 and the quest and thirst to know from the different segments of people from all the six Northern states, I become angry by what we have as government in this country today that is under the leadership of those who couldn’t even wear shoes to go to school.

Nigeria certainly is at its lowest moment and to all those who have the opportunity and the conscience, the common denominator is anger and frustration. This perhaps may be the explanation of the content and context of what some of us that are privileged to write columns and comment of issues.

From 1999 when San Nda Isaiah became a famous columnist with the Trust Newspapers, what in view informs the anger in his pen has been how things are by the minute falling apart. Those who ought to pack the bits and pieces are too busy elsewhere doing other things that are ill important. It is annoying when one sees these as the rule rather than exception.

That is why Sam Nda-Isaiah is angry and to the chagrin of many, they saw him wept when given the opportunity to speak at a function organized in his honor. Of course he is human; he has feelings and certainly emotions. Very few with conscience would not behave in the same manner given the huge attention and reception that Sam got at 50.

It was not a surprise, nothing in the ordinary but in my view a simple expression of the emotion and sentimentality of a critic who has been shouting on top of his voice that things must move right, but by the minutes, they are going left.

Let me congratulate Sam for this feat at fifty. Several of those we started with aren’t here anymore. Several others have fallen by the way side and here is one not just kicking on but very strongly too. To me Sam at fifty is a story of success and I hope that the report card presented on Tuesday would increase the tempo in the person.

I appreciate though that the times are running out fast but with the required maturity and decorum, what is left ahead would better be used to advance the cause of God and humanity. I am proud to be associated with Sam Nda-Isaiah and I feel fulfilled even when things have so degenerated from bad to worst that truly we received the best of training at home and school.

The struggle to make the children today enjoy same or even better is a task that must be accomplished.

Congratulations Sam at fifty.