Nigeria, June 18 -- 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 Oruru Amuka Pemu, aka Sad Sam, aka Uncle Sam, on the occasion of his 70th Birthday. In that piece, I talked about his immeasurable contribution to Nigeria's journalism as a columnist, editor and publisher.

As a 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 dat...