Nwakanma Ifeanyi Cosmos is a lecturer in the Department of Information Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (FUTO). He is the national president of the Catholic Bible Society, Nigeria (CBSN, St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy. He spoke to SABY ELEMBA during the CBSN St Thomas Aquinas Silver Jubilee reunion recently, pointing out several opportunities available for members and that donation of funds remains voluntary. Excerpts:
How has it been gathering the graduates and undergraduates successfully for the Silver Jubilee reunion from different places?
If you look at the situation of the country you will know that it is important to be playing any role given to you very well and gathering people because it is important for the peace and stability of the country.
And gathering the graduates and undergraduates has not been very easy but when you remember that the work you are doing is not necessarily your work but the work of God, that same God will give you the power and knowledge to sustain the strategy you are using to the work.
Aside from the spiritual thing what has been of help is the wonderful cooperation of the people themselves because you cannot lead people if they do not believe in you. And I want to thank them for believing in me. For the past seven years. I have been the president and this time, I talked about removing me but they said, stay there, this is contrary to the general thing that happens in the society today where people clamour for power.
But this is a case that the person in power wants to go but the people said no, stay, that to me is a show of passing vote of confidence in my person which they have even done today, renewing my tenure to 2019. I am surprised because I thought we came for elections but only for the general public to say that election would hold in 2019.
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This is a Christian association; some people may also have their own opinion and stick to that, how do you deal with such recalcitrant behaviours?
Yes, there will always be such people; even the Bible mentioned it in 2 Timothy that towards the end of time there will be people that would want to draw away the fickle-minded people away from the house of God, it is normal but you will use the greater percentage of the people who believe in what you are doing to work on the people that do not believe in what you are doing.
But you should remember that not everybody will obey you but you should also remember that the reasons they are not obeying you may be that they do not understand you or what you are saying.
How do you handle them?
It is by consensus, deliberation, pleading, agreement, votes, and meetings. There was a thing I said here in the meeting but the general body overrode me and decided what they wanted and for me, it is what they want I should do and not what I want. So, for people who may want to be disobedient you should remember that they are students and an average student in a University is between the age of 16 and 25.
These are disobedience exuberant youth age, that period is a period associated with so much disobedience. So, we must be aware of such an age bracket and use the appropriate carrot and stick approach as the case may be.
The majority of your members may be students, how do you derive your funds to run this Christian Association?
That has been a very big challenge. In my first five years in office, I was practically running the association with my personal funds and few individuals supporting me. But the story changed in 2015. In 2015 a pass of the vote of confidence was passed on me and in demonstrating that confidence a lot of members took it upon themselves in that meeting, it was agreed that every member should make a minimum contribution of N2000.
I was shocked that some persons made personal donations of N170,000, N200,000 etc just to make sure that the association does not collapse, and by God’s grace this programme is a success because so many people voluntarily donated funds.
So my source of funds has been the Bible approach and the Bible approach I have adopted has been free will donation. I have resisted levies, dues, I do not want any of my members to say, I owe.
So I have always been a disciple of free will donation where people are allowed to donate according to their strength.
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Right now, people donate according to their strength. The students do not donate anything; we do not need their money. Graduates donate according to their strength even some graduates who are not working do not donate anything but they are still members. You are free to be a member we know the economy is bad.
Finally, tell us something about this Silver Jubilee reunion of the Catholic Bible Society, Nigeria, St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Chaplaincy FUTO?
Thank God for Success of the programme. I am happy people are here from Ibadan, people are here from Enugu, Lagos, etc. All the regions of Nigeria have at least two people present in this programme.
I am so delighted that such gathering is bringing people together; people who have graduated for about 21 years ago are here to join with those who are graduating in 2017. For me, that is a beautiful programme.
It is also interesting to note that this gathering has given birth to husbands and wives, people have graduated from this school and have come to attend this programme only to go home with their future wives, future husbands, people have gotten jobs in this programme and some have become business partners. I want to thank God who has made it possible. To God be the Glory.
