Sam was born on the 19th of May, 1964 in Umudioka Orlu, Orlu Local
Government Area, Imo State, Southeastern Nigeria. His father, Mr. David
Okwaraji worked with the defunct Nigeria Airways as a Duty Officer with
the mother, Lady Janet Okwaraji being a retired school headmistress.
Both met at Port Harcourt, Rivers State where he was working as a
Produce Examiner at the Produce Board and courted for about 3 or 4 years
before marriage in 1950 and had seven kids. They lived together for
just nine years before the Nigerian Civil War broke out during which he
died, five boys, two girls. Sam was second to the last. 
According to his mother, Sam had a very active childhood and played various games while growing up. Football was one of them while table tennis was another. However, he seemed to enjoy football more. His mum stated that he was quite hardworking right from primary school and because he was quite intelligent, he was jumping classes, and according to her, he was the most intelligent of all her children. But unfortunately, he lost his father at a young age, even before he was admitted into secondary school. He attended WTC Practicing School, Enugu for his primary education then proceeded to Ezeachi Secondary School, Orlu, Imo State. Later, he went to Federal Government College, Orlu where he was with the very first set admitted and had a brilliant academic performance there. A serious-minded chap, he bagged both Bachelor's and Master's degrees in International Law, and yes, he could speak five languages -English, German, Italian, Spanish and of course, his native Igbo. Give it to him, he was an intellectual giant -flawlessly combining academic rigours with footballing talents. According to his mother, Sam could be a lawyer and a footballer at the same time but he believed playing was a better career path for him. A talented midfielder wearing the Number 6 jersey for Nigeria, Okwaraji had an eventful soccer career albeit a very short one. During the 1988 Nations Cup in Morocco, he blasted one of the fastest goals past the Cameroonian goalkeeper -all within 60 seconds! He was later named the Most Valuable Player (MVP) -twice.
His mother narrated how he got to start his footballing career: I was lucky to meet a friend of mine whose son was going to Europe. But I knew it would cost a lot of money to send children to Europe so I went to her and made enquiries after which she told me everything about it. I gathered the little money with me and asked if my son could also follow hers to Europe. I felt that he was so brilliant that letting him stay here was a waste of time. So I had to send him. (Abiyamo, o ku oro omo o...Olohun a je ki gbogbo ikunle Abiyamo jere wahala won o, a de nu omije Mama Samuel Okwaraji nu).
He passed his West African Secondary School Certificate Examinations with flying colours and got admission to the Sapienza University of Rome (Sapienza – Università di Roma) which is the largest European University by enrollment, is regularly ranked the best of universities in Italy and remains among the top 3% of universities in the world. Samuel Okwaraji studied law at this great citadel. Upon getting to Europe, it did not take a long time before he started displaying his soccer skills and was soon sported by football scouts and was promptly signed up in 1984 at the age of 20 by Associazione Sportiva Roma (AS Roma) a professional Italian football club in Rome, Italy. Over time, he would play for the following clubs too:
-NK Dinamo (Građanski Nogometni Klub Dinamo Zagreb), Zagreb, Croatia. Here, he scored a hat trick in one of his matches with NK Budućnost Hodošan (now NK Hodosan) on the 30th of April, 1986. Dinamo actually won the match 12-0!
-VfB Stuttgart, Stuttgart, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany.
-SSV-ULM 184
6: His last match for the club was on the 29th of May, 1988 under Klaus Toppmoller. The match was against FC St. Pauli.
Later, he would be recommended to play for the national team by the former chairman of the Nigerian Football Association, Group Captain John Obakpolor (rtd). His very good friend and footballer, David Ngodigha said of his late friend in an interview with SuperSports.com:
“When Sam was in Rome studying and playing for AS Roma, I knew him well. Also there was another friend of ours, Bismarck, who was in Italy playing football too though he didn’t make the headlines like Sam did.”
The Nigerian Football Association requested his release from SSV-ULM 1846, his club, so he could come and represent Nigeria in the match but his club refused demanding that NFA pay a sum of $45,000 in gating fees which they’d lose if Sam did not play for them. Group Captain John Obakpolor, then the NFA Chairman decided to broker a deal for $15,000.
When Sam heard that the club was charging his country, he was very angry and charged at his manager for making such demands. Then he left these indelible words in the ears of his manager:
‘I am a lawyer and you know and I signed to play football for certain conditions but I don’t think it included reselling my services to my country. You or your club cannot stop me from playing for my country. Let me tell you, I am going to represent my country whether you like it or not.‘
And with those words, he left for Nigeria, a land he loved so much and gave his all to. He was actually among the very first players to arrive Nigeria (not today that you will have to be begging some players with bloated egos, and I didn’t mention anyone’s name o so don’t quote Abiyamo! LOL!)
Okwaraji’s mother was not too anxious knowing what he meant by ‘coming to play for his country.’ She said: ‘I wasn’t very anxious to know what it is playing for a country means. I was just hearing it for the first time as he told me, playing for your country, what does it breed. By then, he would have been qualified as a lawyer. But coming to play for his country, well I don’t know…He was very keen, very serious, very anxious to play for his country. He said that Nigeria has never come into World Cup, world map, that he wanted to bring Nigeria to the world map and I said you yourself would bring Nigeria to the world map, I didn’t know what it meant then…..he wasn’t the only one invited, others were invited but didn’t go because they said Nigeria was not giving them anything, any money…but Sam uses his little money to come down to Nigeria, they don’t send them tickets
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