When in Public Service, one never knows the shoes you step on or the individuals who compose despite your good faith particularly when you are currently change, requiring disrupting changes to many.

At some point, sitting in my office, as Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), in the beginning of the duty change process, I was told a courteous fellow by name of Mallam Ismaila Isa Funtua was at the gathering to see me. I welcomed him in, not knowing what his identity was.

He presented himself as an actual existence benefactor of the International Press Institute and Newspaper Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) (I had no idea of what that implied) and said he had an issue to talk about with me.

He drew out an official letter purportedly composed for my sake with respect to singularly forcing VAT on the paper business.

To start with, this was the first occasion when I was seeing the letter. Second, it was not my style. I didn't and still don't take one-sided activities, for example, was proposed in the letter without counsel regardless of whether that was what I needed to do.

I was stunned.

He referenced the explanation he came. That he didn't have any acquaintance with me yet chose to meet with me.

That in the wake of perusing the letter from the FIRS, the paper owners had met and chosen to battle the FIRS and its changes on an activity that was to disable the whole business without even any commitment.

That he guaranteed the gathering that however he didn't have any acquaintance with me, and had never met me, he had seen and tuned in to me on TV at various occasions. That he some way or another needed to be certain that the letter as composed was really composed for my sake as it appeared to be unusual with the individual he had seen from a far distance.

He gave me advantage of uncertainty and I will everlastingly be appreciative to him.

There in began my great connection with Mallam Funtua, Chief Ogunsola then of Punch and Uncle Sam (Amuka Pemu) of the Vanguard papers.

I had constructed the certainty of an impressive trio and just later did I understand what mind blowing esteem that brought. It was in each sense a success win relationship for Government and the paper business.

This relationship reached out to my significant other after we got hitched in 2007.

Every so often I would call after I had left office in 2012, and he would criticize me for not asking after him enough. On his part, beside his infrequent calls, each time my significant other ran into him, he would consistently ask after my prosperity, advising him that he had not gotten notification from us for some time.

If I somehow managed to consider him daily before his death, he would have been directly as I had not addressed him in a while. Be that as it may, I would have let him know, as I generally did, that our relationship was past only a call, yet one everlastingly in my heart. It is anyway a reminder, that for those we love and offer esteemed recollections of, we ought to continually stay in contact as we never know the day God decides to call us to his side.

I will consistently recall him for that solitary demonstration of strolling into my office, not knowing me and giving me the advantage of uncertainty. In Public Service, and to be sure any assistance, that is inconceivable worth.

The updates on his passing was broken to me by my significant other. He woke me up from rest to tell me. It went to my significant other and I as a stun. Looking for answers, and a few calls after, I comprehend that he had driven himself to emergency clinic for a clinical registration as he wasn't feeling admirably. The rest is history.

Mallam Isa Funtua, Rest in Peace. May Allah excuse your transgressions and award you everlasting rest in Heaven.

My sympathies to his quick and more distant family.