‘Priesthood, my most cherished calling’

Could you tell us a little about you and becoming a priest?It’s difficult to answer why I became a priest because it’s not something that I thought I was going to do even after I became catholic and attended a secondary school with four priests. I never spoke to them about joining the priesthood. After […]

Could you tell us a little about you and becoming a priest?
It’s difficult to answer why I became a priest because it’s not something that I thought I was going to do even after I became catholic and attended a secondary school with four priests. I never spoke to them about joining the priesthood. After secondary school I started work in the ministry in August 1973.
One fateful day, a primary school classmate invited me out to celebrate the completion of my secondary (school) education. I was offered something I had never tasted before and reacted badly to it. I wasn’t myself when I got home but my uncle was able to handle the situation and I felt better. I was told that after sometime I began singing that I want to be a priest. And that song continued throughout the night.
When I was told, I decided it was God calling me to the priesthood. At the time a classmate late Fr. David Mato was completing his secondary education from the Minor Seminary in Zaria. He told me he was proceeding to the Major Seminary and I told him I would go with him. This is how my vocation came. I compare it with what happened to St. Paul when God knocked him down and began to call him asking ‘why are you persecuting me’?

How did you get into the academia?
After my ordination, I worked for about a year. My bishop sent me to study Biblical Theology which I completed in 1985. An opportunity was open in ABU when they started the Christian Religious section in the Faculty of Education. The Bishop permitted me to go for the interview and that’s how I got the job.

At 60 and with the experiences you have had, what are three things you would say life has taught you?
The first is to learn to trust God absolutely. The other is not to have any malice against anybody. You travel light if you don’t go to bed with a grudge. Relate with people as you find them not as you expect them to be. I’ve found this very helpful to me.
The third is to be patient. If you hurry life, life will hurry you. I’ve always learnt to be patient and always believed that whatever God has destined for me, will come to me. All along, regarding my professorship there was always one hurdle or another. But I kept saying God’s will, will be done.

In this light, were you aiming to be professor?
No, it was never in my thoughts.  

So what was your drive to keep working?
If I had that ambition I would have been a professor long before now. My main preoccupation was the parish. My pastoral work was of utmost importance to me and because of that the academics suffered. If I wanted any promotion, I had to do what others did to get it. I felt I had to do my work because I was in it not because I was ambitious to become professor. It didn’t mean much to me whether or not I became one.

Could you describe those first few moments when you were told you had been made professor?
The news was first broken to me verbally but the excitement was long gone because it was long overdue. I presented my papers 2010 and it took four years before it came out. When I was told, I said, ‘at last, it has come. Thank God for it.’ I had given up because the rule is that after three months if the papers don’t come, the University should write you to re-present.
But two three years past and the University said nothing to me. I had to go back to them and ask what is happening. I left it alone after a while and simply let God take control. This is why I consider patience a real virtue because whatever will come to you will come to you.

You were parish priest of Our Lady Queen of Peace on campus for about 20 years. What’s the most nostalgic feeling not being in the community anymore?
I just love that community. I absolutely loved my time there and miss the cooperation.

Are you looking to go back?
No (laughter) because it would not even be right for me to go back there.

Why?
What will I be saying? Is it that the place can’t survive without me? Maybe in the next world, I’ll go back. Even if the people want me to go back, I don’t think the bishop will. I miss the excitement. I had good cooperation and the people were really very good to me and we did everything together. I miss them all.

What’s the toughest part of your job being a teacher?
Marking papers! There’s no excitement in reading answer sheets of a lot of students. What you get isn’t what you expect, having given students lectures and notes. And this goes almost across board. In dealing with it, I have to try to make sense of what they’ve written. For the most part of my time as a teacher, it’s been a battle. Even when you add up their CA scores to their examinations, it comes to barely a scale through.

How do you think you would have turned out if you hadn’t gone into the priesthood?
My God… I don’t know. My ambition was to be a pilot.

Did you give it a shot?
(Laughter) I had this desire but wasn’t good in the sciences.

You would have crashed us all…
That’s what would have happened. I was impressed to see the pilots and was mesmerized by their skills. There are people who have become priests because they admired the cassock. My first attraction to pilots was their attire.

What kind of a husband or father would you have been?
Hmm, tough one. Maybe my wife would have taken advantage of me. I would not be hard on her or my children and they would probably misunderstand that.

What works have you done asides pastoral and academics?
Our work as lecturers depends a lot on publications for our promotion. I’ve written four books. My PhD thesis on unity in the church which Jesus spoke about, was published into a book. Also one with Monsignor Professor Cletus Gotang on the New Testament introduction for the courses we teach. A third, ‘The light’ which is a spiritual book and then another which is what I teach, the life and letters of St. Paul.

Which part of your life is most fun; priesthood or academics?
Priesthood! I cherish my priesthood.

With all the religious challenges in Zaria, how have you been able to foster oneness in the community?
We have a leaders’/elders’ forum where we discuss religious matters especially on conflicts and on better ways to handle and avoid them. In the university, they call the religious elders to marshal out the problem or find solutions.
The major difficulty is that in every religion you find fanatics and everybody wants to stand by his beliefs. Even when you point out wrong, people won’t budge and this is even with academics whom I think should know better and stand up for the truth.  

The Catholic Church has been known to have a strong voice especially in the light of issues which besiege our country at the moment. Would you say this voice is still strong and effective as it were?
What we get as a voice is what the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria (CBN) give as communiqué. It’s rare to see them come together to speak out. They do so in their different dioceses.

I know you’re not a bishop, but with the situation in Maiduguri and Yola, I’ve not seen that they’ve come together as a group identifying specifically with these states…
This is the point I’m making; that you hardly see them come out… except for the communiqué when they meet twice a year. Outside this, I hardly see anything where they take a stand and say out publicly what their stance is. I’d prefer to see them more outspoken than they are.

How well would you say Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has fared?
CAN is more a political than religious body. Their motto is ‘That they may be one’. That would mean that Christians should be one and speak with one voice. But you find that most of what they do is more political than religious.
Only raring it’s face when there is problem. When there’s no problem you don’t hear them. They never meet for any religious gathering as far as I know. Like say discuss our differences in our churches like an ecumenical dialogue that would help us understand and appreciate ourselves better.

Who is Fr. Mamman, outside the cassock and academic gown?
A quiet man who isn’t a philosopher.  My interests are mixed. I love the company of friends, reading and watching good films.

Who’s had the most impact on you?
That would be my father. He taught me discipline, generosity and friendliness and most of the virtues I have. My religious experience is from him even though he was of the Cherubuim and Seraphim fold where I was a drummer and had dreadlocks (laughter).