ODOGWU EMEKA ODOGWU reports that the Founder, Chancellor and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Tansian University, Umunya, Very Reverend Monsignor Professor John-Bosco Uchechukwu Ndubueze Akam has said that the institution has zero tolerance for cultism and all immoral acts.
Reverend Monsignor Akam in a chat with newsmen in his office at Umunya, said Tansian University is a faith based university and therefore cultism is completely zero in the University and it will never be accepted in the University.
Monsignor Akam was flanked by Prof Chinyere Stella Okunna, former Dean of Social Sciences, Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka but on Sabbatical to Tansian University, Umunya and the Pro Chancellor of the University, Prof Godwin Akam said the University is training the students to have a level of lifestyle of its Patron Saint Iwene Tansi and not attenuated one.
Monsignor Akam who is the Founder of the famous Konigin Des Friedens College, (KFC), Enugu and Our Lady of Waldenstein Educational Centre, Uga, as well as Lumen Radio said ‘’In Tansian University, we have zero tolerance for cultism, immoral life. We don’t say we manage this way and continue the other way. No! We don’t cut corners. As far as cultism is concerned, it is completely zero; we don’t accept that. And whoever is doing anything like that is in camera; it’s hidden; it’s obscured.
‘’ Anytime the person is discovered, the person is gone. And therefore, we cannot say that it thriving here, it is progressing or blossoming. No! Cultism will never be accepted. This is my will as a person. And it will be contradiction in terms for a priest of God starting a university to breed cultists. It is a contradiction in terms and reality. So, we don’t talk about it. If a child comes in and says that the only way he can get his BSc is by belonging to a cult group. That person, if known is already gone.
‘’ The knowledge and the going are contemporaneous. When one is happening, the other one is happening. But supposing a student comes here and he is living at a certain street and the other one at another street in the town comes in only for lectures, but when he goes back to the other private halls and so on, cultists come to him and woo him into becoming; well I don’t know what he is doing when he is there but as long as he is in school here we cannot tolerate that. We don’t have any cultist here as a matter of fact because it is against our will, faith, and nobody can do things that contradict his own personal life.
‘’The second point is on the issue of rape or immoral life in general. Ask the students. If they do that in camera; hidden somewhere, we can’t break our head over that. But if they come here while in class or we are doing something, and a boy grabs a girl, the person goes home immediately. It is intolerable’’.
Monsignor Akam added that Tansian University in its 13th year of existence has excelled in discipline and rules hence he said: ‘’Tansian University excels in rules and discipline. There many things we can buy with money. There are many things we may not also have because there is no money but in the area of discipline, good life; there is need in our society today to have people who will come out and ruggedly follow good life, good living; a way of living that will be commensurate with their own faith because this university is a faith based university. It is not like any other university where I go I get my knowledge and then I go into the world to look for work.
‘’Our motto is ‘knowledge is power.’ Knowledge is power is not power to do evil but power to achieve, power for success and so on. The second part of the motto is ‘knowledge is virtuous life.’ We got it from Socrates of many centuries before Christ who said that if you know really what is good, how honourable, how excellent noble knowledge is, you will certainly pursue virtue. It is by pursuing virtue that your knowledge is climaxed. That is the two particles you have to note in the definition of our motto. What is pursing us on is that if get knowledge from this school, I am also going to get virtue. That’s why we have rules about dressing.
‘’There is a way our students dress. I don’t mean tattered trouser; calling it fashion and so on but we have a way of dressing up that depicts or smacks of clean dressing. And it is not a type of dressing that may lure somebody into evil or immoral behaviour. For that reason, you get most our students honestly pursuing all that; more of being a good person. If I get my BSc with 2.1 and I come out a rugged person, a drunkard, an immoral personality, a person who doesn’t believe in good life, your BSc has no meaning as far as Tansian University is concerned. That moral aspect; that rectitude of life, we put it as supreme or superior to even knowledge; but the two of them are intertwined’’.
Prof Okunna lauded the philanthropy of Monsignor Akam as over 1000 students are on scholarship even as she pointed out that the unbundling of Mass Communication remains the best as it would generate a lot of jobs and admission opportunities for students as well as engineer specialization; while Prof Akam, the Pro Chancellor in his separate speech pointed out that not even the Federal government or the state were able to cater for its university, hence Monsignor should be commended for sustaining the university in the past 13 years.
