The Sam I Knew, By Azu Ishiekwene

I first met him after the 2003 election, which his candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari, lost. I was then Editor of PUNCH and Sam Nda-Isaiah, was founding member and Publicity Secretary of The Buhari Organisation (TBO). He came to see me about the coverage of Buhari, which obviously displeased him.

He barged into my office, flinging the door wide open, before I had time to figure out if he even knocked. His voice preceded him, booming over the office partition and giving my secretary no chance to announce his presence.

“Azu,” he pulled a seat, “you people are not being fair to Buhari at all, haba!” He went on and on the substance of which was that he thought there was a deliberate editorial decision to antagonise his principal.

If you know Sam, you would know that he did most of the talking. I managed to tell him that PUNCH had nothing personal against Buhari and that if he had any specific evidence to the contrary, I would be happy to investigate it. He seemed slightly mollified, but I could tell that his visit to PUNCH was one of the many media rounds on his schedule on that Lagos trip.

Anyone with Buhari as his principal in 2003, was on a long, bumpy road. Of course, Buhari was not an unknown; he was military head of state between 1983 and 1985. Before that, he was Federal Commissioner for Petroleum in 1977 and before that, first military governor of Borno State, among other high-profile positions.

The problem was how he was known or perceived: a loner, a religious bigot, an obtuse, obdurate, stony-faced fellow, and above all, an incorrigible hater of press freedom and human rights, with long, harsh jail sentences he meted out to politicians as military ruler, to show for it.

If charm was a currency of politics, Buhari’s persona shortchanged him. You wouldn’t notice, of course, if you were Tony Momoh. Or Sam who not only had a job to do, but as it seemed to me from our first encounter, also had a conviction to proselytise for Buhari.

Sam had been with Buhari way back, apparently since Buhari’s days as Chairman of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), where he not only worked with PTF consultant/brain-box and CEO of Afri-Projects, Salihijo Ahmad and the others, but also met Zainab, the woman who would later become his wife and best friend. In a way, Sam owed Buhari more than a post-election defeat mop up. But of course, I didn’t begin to know the extent of his debt till nearly seven years later.

When I left PUNCH in April 2010, the headline was that I had retired after 21 years of service. That was funny because I was only 45. The irony wasn’t lost on three publishers – Vanguard founder and publisher, the venerable Uncle Sam Amuka; ThisDay Publisher, Prince Nduka Obaigbena; and of course, LEADERSHIP Chairman, Sam.