On behalf of the Nda-Isaiah Family, I regret to announce the passing away of my beloved father, Pa Clement Ndanusa Isaiah. Though the family is deeply saddened by the loss, my father lived a full and remarkable life. Below is a tribute to my late Father, which I wrote in honour of his 80th birthday, published on July 21st, 2014; My Father At 80 This weekend, my father Clement Ndanusa Isaiah will clock 80 years. That is some cool four scores – 10 years longer than the proverbial three scores and 10. Only the very few favoured by God attain this age. It shall, therefore, be a time of celebration for friends and family members. Even though dad has asked for only thanksgiving in church, and not much of a celebration, this is one instruction that I feel certain will be disobeyed. If I may sound funny, I cannot remember the exact day I first met my father. Was it at the maternity ward on the day I was born? I am not very sure. But one memory I still have is of my father visiting Minna regularly from Zaria where he worked with Gaskiya Corporation, and, as a child among a group of cousins, I looked forward to his visits in those days. My cousins and I were all living with our grandparents then. All my life, I have known my father only as a newspaperman. He has not done any other job all his life and all my life. In the very early days, he worked with The Nigerian Citizen and Gaskiya Corporation in Zaria, and then The Mail, the Northern People’s Congress (NPC)-owned newspaper in Kano. He was a pioneer staff member of the New Nigerian in 1966; my father loved to speak about the power and authority of the New Nigerian of those days. The story of his entry into the New Nigerian is one he still enjoys to tell. Most northerners of those days who had anything to do with newspapering (and they were very few in those days) moved into the New Nigerian as a matter of course, as the newspaper promised to be bigger and different from all those before it in Northern Nigeria. The managing director then, Mr Charles Sharp, a Briton, was only interested in the appointment of the very senior editors at the time. My father and several others were left looking for what to do within the organisation. The first week, he did what he thought was a very good story on sports and simply signed off as sports editor even though nobody had appointed him sports editor. Because the story was very well researched and well written, Mr Sharp didn’t complain and, from then, started calling him sports editor himself. That was how my dad became sports editor. He simply appointed himself and did an excellent job of it. Malam Mamman Daura, who was his boss in the New Nigerian at a time, first as the newspaper’s editor and subsequently managing director, once told me that my father was one person he depended on as editor to do his work thoroughly. He didn’t for once have cause to supervise him. Mamman Daura remains one of the best thinkers and writers this country has had and I remain proud to be very close to him and to have him as a role model. My father was subsequently promoted to the position of news editor, then chief sub-editor, then associate editor (north). He was to move over to New Nigerian, Lagos office, as managing editor before he was poached by his friend, Dr Haroun Adamu, who had been given an assignment by the then governor, Abubakar Rimi, to start The Triumph, the national newspaper out of Kano during the Second Republic. In The Triumph, he was the managing editor and acted as managing director on occasion. In 1983, Governor Solomon Lar called him and offered him the job of managing director of the Standard newspaper in Jos, then a national newspaper out of Jos. Lar was to make the announcement of the appointment in the New Year, but that was not to be as the military terminated the life of the Second Republic on the last day of the year. My father remains a newspaperman till today. His main preoccupation these days is going through all the pages of LEADERSHIP to fish out errors. He sometimes gets quite upset at the kind of flaws he sees and, a few times, he has threatened to march on LEADERSHIP to take over the job of editing the paper himself. For politics, my father “swears” by Malam Adamu Ciroma who was also his editor and managing director at the New Nigerian. Ciroma, who is now the Galadiman Fika, was in fact the first indigenous editor and managing director of the New Nigerian. Dad still speaks glowingly of Malam Adamu Ciroma’s leadership qualities and integrity. In 1979, he was pained that Ciroma did not get the NPN presidential ticket and I remember him telling all his friends then that Nigeria had missed a good president. Subsequent events were to prove him right. Up until very recently, he still believed that Adamu Ciroma was the best material on offer for the presidency. When I told Malam Ciroma about this, he simply laughed and said they (he and my father) knew themselves very well. Adamu Ciroma will also be 80 this year. My dad was particularly close to the late Malam Turi Muhammadu who was also his editor and managing director after Mamman Daura. There was a particular kind of kinship between him and Malam Turi. I remember that it was Malam Turi that got me into Government College, Kaduna. When I was a little boy, my father always entertained every visitor to our house with my school report cards. That was so particularly when I was in Government College, Kaduna, where I took first in class from my first examination in Form 1 to my final-year examination in Form 5. Whenever any visitor came in, he would scream my name and ask me to go and bring my report card. My card became the equivalent of drinks for the visitors. He did this so subconsciously that, I think, he might have offended a few of his friends. But he was too proud a father to notice. He didn’t choose a career path for me, however. He left that to me and I did it all alone. There are two attainments my father remains very proud of. The first is understandably my becoming a newspaper proprietor; I think this should go without saying. And the second is the conferment on me of the traditional title of Kakaki Nupe by the Etsu Nupe, His Royal Highness Alhaji Dr Yahaya Abubakar. At 80, he is now frail, weakened the more by arthritis. But he has never been afflicted by most of the other old-age sicknesses like high blood pressure, diabetes and back pain. He remains mentally and intellectually sound. I tease several 80-year-olds that they are doing a third term. As my father clocks 80, this is one third term that I gladly approve of. Thank you Dad.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 22:33:44 +0000
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