Sam Omatseye

Samuel Oritsetimeyin Omatseye (born June 15, 1961) is a Nigerian poet, novelist, playwright and journalist. Sam Omatseye hails from Delta State, Nigeria. He is a 2019 recipient of the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM).

Education Sam Omatseye attended Government College, Ughelli, (former Bendel State), Delta State, from 1973 to 1979 for his secondary school education and obtained the School West African School Certificate. He attended the Federal School of Arts and Science, Victoria Island, Lagos, for his higher school education. He studied history at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) from 1980 to 1985 and obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree. He became deputy editor of Sunday Concord in 1996 after the Concord Newspaper Group was unbanned.

Between 1998 and 2006 Sam taught media and journalism at the Metropolitan State College of Denver. He also taught classes and gave talks at the University of Colorado and the University of Denver. He became a technology journalist covering the wireless world in its bursting beginnings with RCR Wireless News.

From 2006 to the present, he has been chairman of the editorial board of The Nation Newspapers. He oversees the opinion section of the newspaper and runs a weekly column, In Touch. He has given talks several times in Nigerian universities, including Obafemi Awolowo University, University of Ibadan, and University of Lagos.

Sam was appointed a member of the Governing Council of the Lagos State University. He has also been a frequent commentator on television and radio shows on contemporary Nigerian issues. He hosted a television show, Standpoint, on TVC and currently hosts The Platform, an edgy political programme that airs every Saturday on TVC.

Awards Sam Omatseye won the Nigerian Media Merit Award in 1991 as Best Reporter for coverage of the military air crash in Ejigbo, Lagos, after he was beaten by soldiers for daring to go through military cordon to capture the visual horror and drama of the tragedy. and was in a full academic year at the University of Toronto.

In 1997 he won the Alfred Friendly Press Fellowship, under the terms, he worked as a journalist with the Rocky Mountain News, he was not able to return to Nigeria because of the threats during the Abacha Years. In 2011, he became the first to win both NMMA and DAME the same year.

He was made an Honorary Fellow of the Nigerian Academy Of Letters in 2015.

In November 2019, he received a national award, the National Productivity Order of Merit (NPOM). According to the letter informing Omatseye of the award signed by Labour and Employment Minister Dr. Chris Ngige, “The President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari GCFR has approved the conferment of the National Productivity Order of Merit Award on you in recognition of your high productivity, hard work and excellence.” Columns In Touch, Journalism as National Narrative A Chronicle Foretold. Poems Mandela's Bones and Other Poems Dear Baby Ramatu Lion Wind and Other Poems Scented Offal

Criticisms He generated nationwide criticisms with his column, In Touch, when he wrote on sensitive issues such as the legacy of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, erstwhile premier of the Western Nigeria; the Nigerian Civil War role of the late Biafran leader, Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu; the literary accomplishments of the late Chinua Achebe, rebutting a statement by Orji Uzor Kalu, Chairman of The Sun and New Telegraph