The Bookman - A Tribute to S.N. Tita (1929-2011)

By Franklin Sone Bayen*

Playwright, Bole Butake said at a 1994 “Conference on Anglophone Cameroon Literature” in the University of Buea that indigenous writing and publishing was rare in decades past because books in their printed form looked so perfect – they so looked like the Bible – and thus could only have been made by God, if not Whites only. 

Neither God nor White, S.N. Tita (1929-2011) who died December 1 in Limbe aged 82, may have been immune to that complex. At the time he wrote and printed books in his own printing press from the late 1950s, the art and technology were still a marvel and looked alien to even some of the most enlightened of his time. He was author, publisher and printer of the legendary series History, Geography, Rural Science for Cameroon from his Nooremac Press. He was a bookman par excellence in all senses. 

What study manuals would we have used in primary school had Tita not written and printed? In my schoolbag the only other indigenous author was E.K. Martins, rather co-author – with a foreigner – of “New Nation”, the famous Arithmetic textbook. Incidentally our neighbour during my childhood in Clerks Quarters, Limbe, Martins was a Krio, member of a community of freed (Black American) slaves from West Africa who sailed to Victoria (Limbe) with Baptist Missionary, Alfred Saker. He was therefore not so indigenous. 

Even when there was another early indigenous author, Tita had evidently pulled his hand along. S.E. Abangma’s “Civics for Cameroon” was printed by Tita’s Nooremac Press. Martin Amin’s Mathematics textbook for senior primary only came later towards the 1980s and the first indigenous English reader with a Cameroonian co-author, “Cameroon Primary English” by David Weir and Augustin Ndangam, was introduced when we did senior primary in the early 80s. And that launched the post-Tita age of indigenous publishing. A decade later, local publishing began to open to the floodgate we know today.

 
Before them, primary school textbooks, the “Evans English Reader” series by J.C. Gagg with Work Books, Lacombe’s senior primary Mathematics, “First Aid in English” and its cousin “Student’s Companion”, were in the category of “perfect” books that intimidated local author’s, according to Butake; not S.N. Tita. So thanks to Tita, we read Whiteman books and read Blackman books and for us, they were all just books without distinction.

How natural therefore, that when publishing became an academic discipline in the University of Buea’s Department of Journalism and Mass Communication in the mid 1990s, my Publishing professor was Julius Che Tita, son of S.N. Tita.

Born and bred in his father’s factory, Nooremac Press and exposed and initiated into his father’s rudimentary, instinctive printing, Che had returned from the UK, polished with some of the most modern literature and techniques in the art, scientifically measured and computer assisted.

If his father’s printing was self-made like Michael Henchard in Thomas Hardy's “Mayor of Casterbridge”, Che Tita gave the touch of Farfrae when outside amphitheatres, he published books and other documents as a business. 

S.N. Tita was some man. Elsewhere people of his ilk are heroes. In my country, while those who gain fame hurting the nation are hailed because of the flamboyance ill-gotten wealth enables them to show off, true heroes who give so much from so little, fade away like the star of the morning, without a heroes’ song sung in their honour. But God knows they can always be remembered at least by us the lowliest for what they have done. S.N. Tita will be remembered.

*Franklin Sone Bayen is an Alfred Friendly Fellow, journalist and the founder/editor of Viewpoint Press Visions, an emerging media group in Cameroon. This article is published here with his permission.

Comments

[Amouta Denis]

Very poor English. Horn your skills as a journalist my friend.

[Batumbu]

Good article. May his soul rest in perfect peace. Lets keep working hard and show patriotism to our dear nation. One day we will get rid of these corrupt bastards.

[J.S. Dinga]

Some day, God willing, Cameroonians will rise up and be counted among those who progress by seeking out the good in others and making the best of it. Having said this, let me hurry to congratulate first the late S. N. Tita for his pace setting effort and then you, Franklin Sone Bayen for a nice write-up which contains enough educational material for those who care to educate themselves. Mr. Tita was a great man indeed and we all owe him much gratitude for leaving us manifestly enriched in many ways. Franklin Bayen, you too are in your own way and I would encourage you to ignore unhelpful criticisms esepcially from persons displaying, this distressing "pot-calling-the-kettle-black" mentality. I am sure your critic above meant "hone" rather than "horn". That is life.

[Dr Nkongho Elias sone]

Oh! S.N. TITA,, may his soul rest in peace.
To you Mr. Franklin Bayen,
I thank you very much for this article.It has got to do with my school days in cameroon.
And to you Mr Amouta,
please criticize only when necessary, and in correct English!

[Janvier Tchouteu-Chando]

Great tribute Mr. Bayen. I raise my heart in honor of Pa Tita and for the well-written piece.

[Janvier Tchouteu-Chando]

Great tribute Mr. Bayen. I raise my hat in honor of Pa Tita and for the well-written piece.