Dr. Stanley Macebuh:
“This book is a collection of Dr. Stanley Macebuh’s writings from the Daily Times, The Guardian newspaper, The Post Express, The Sentinel Magazine and his column in Thisday. In addition, we have about 50 tributes from friends, fans and Nigeria’s best public commentators.”
By Taju Tijani
How do we begin to celebrate an icon of excellence, indomitable intellect and a master craftsman? Who will deny the unparallel contribution of Dr. Stanley Nkachukwu Macebuh to a refined public intellection and nuanced journalistic discourse? To what depth can we plumb our memory and remember the footprint of this apostle of polished writing, an art that is becoming gradually extinct in a nation where scholarship, brilliance, originality, fecundity, perfection and fine writing are being corrupted by the rising gravitational pull of survival.
Not for Stanley Macebuh. His quickening passion for hardwork, distinction, and excellence first gained him a first in English at the University of Ibadan. The stricture of profundity in intellectual pursuit enabled him to gain a doctorate at 26 from the University of Sussex. By 1968, Stanley was Dr. Stanley and a member of the prestigious Faculty of English Department at the University of California, Berkeley. Stanley, as an academic, had the brain, call it the software, to make imprint on the faculty canvas of the best seat of learning from Ox-Bridge to the renowned Ivy League of America. Seeing his untapped, soaring intellect, Dr Patrick Dele Cole persuaded Macebuh to return home. He took a gamble and returned to Nigeria leaving behind a brilliant teaching career in Berkeley.
The Guardian newspaper was to be the launching pad for the limitless breadth of his awesome intellect. There his genius flowered. He used journalism as a crusading tools to discover the truth about power, politics and politicians. He shattered the canons of imperious arrogance among the Nigerian elites. He reduced the high and mighty to plain Mr in his experiment to deflate the colossal ego of our super rich. That aside, his intelligent, patrician eyes were on the ineffable purity of a new journalism discourse, even though he knew that he lived in a heady, adversarial atmosphere. He guarded the grove of public communication, or if you like English language, with such professional exertion that Rutam House became a fertile soil for journalism high fliers.
Today, I am writing to the hearts and minds of those who enjoyed the gem of invention and illumination Stanley Macebuh brought to the darkest alley of journalism. We, the connoisseurs of his rich and varied journalistic heritage have come together to honour our creative high priest by binding together the collage of his journalism oeuvre in book form. We had fetishised Stanley Macebuh, the language alchemist, in learned discussions, panegyrics, essays and articles but the time is now to memorialise and immortalise his name inside the pages of a book in the form of his collected writings.
This book is a collection of Dr. Stanley Macebuh’s writings from the Daily Times, The Guardian newspaper, The Post Express, The Sentinel Magazine and his column in Thisday. In addition, we have about 50 tributes from friends, fans and Nigeria’s best public commentators.
As a product of his journalistic constituency, I am forever plagued by conscience that not much had been done to honour Stanley in death. The life of people like Stanley Macebuh radically challenges our concept of national heroes and heroines. He was not given any national award. He did not amass wealth. At the end, his life was a story of uncompromising principle that was very much a product of rigid integrity. A man with such faithful confidence in character over wealth is disdainful to politicians who love parasites, sycophants and flatterers. Let us celebrate his life together and pay our respect to a man who brought delight to the life of the mind in his intellectual pursuit.
The book of tribute is being co-ordinated in Nigeria by Dr. Raphael James, the Director of Center for Research, Information Management and Media Development in Lagos. CRIMMD is a non-political, non-governmental, non-profit making but standard research development institution. CRIMMD specialises in information management, media and political research, biographical and autobiographical writings, documentations and public exhibitions. Dr. James is also the founder of the Photo Museum of Nigeria History, the Publisher of African Dame and a recipient of many prestigious awards for selfless service to humanity.
In the diaspora of London, there will be a launch of his collected writings followed by a public lecture on Stanley Macebuh’s life and his contribution to public intellection and purity of word. Here, the idea is to construct an identity of honour, respect and gratitude to public communicators who live to educate, entertain and encourage us with their own ideas and interpretation of our muddled up society. I am only encouraged that the social solidarity enjoyed through the social media will make this a distinct success. My pain is in vail for this folksy legend and master of letters.
What better way to celebrate our kinship loyalty to a man who gave us the finest, as succinctly crafted in the words of celebrated public commentator, Sonala Olumhense : “ In my view, that is why every journalist alive today is a professional relative of Stanley’s: you are either someone that he has inspired, or you are standing next to someone with a direct bloodline. For the past generation, journalism has been Stanley’s trade.”
Programmes of event in London will be announced as soon as the books arrive from Nigeria. Meanwhile, those who, through kind heart, will bless the efforts of ordinary Nigerians who are planning a tribute for Dr Stanley Macebuh’s legacy could contact Dr Raphael James.
Taju Tijani (tajutijani@hotmail.com) writes from London