As the tenure of the incumbent Conference President, Anioma Delta Baptist Conference, Rev. Dr. Paul Friday Anyasi, draws near, a search committee has been constituted with the mandate to diligently search, interview and recommend to the Conference a new Conference President to replace the incumbent at the expiration of his final team in office.
The tenure of the Incumbent Conference President, Dr. Paul Anyasi who assumed the leadership of the Conference 9 years ago, ends in June, 2024.
CP, Dr. Paul Anyasi, on Thursday August 18, 2023, inaugurated the 11-Man Conference President Search Committee, in a brief, but solemn ceremony at the Conference Secretariat, Alihame, Agbor, Delta State.
Former Conference Chairman, Anioma Delta Baptist Conference, Rev. Sunday Ossai is the Chairman of the Committee with Rev. Dr. Dike Uti serving as the secretary, with the Conference Publicity Secretary, Deacon Chijioke Williams Ugbolue functioning as the assistant secretary.
Other members of the committee includes; Rev. Atas Johnbull, Rev. Moses Ekene Okolie, Rev. Dr. Samkennedy Onyenekwe, Rev. Onyeka Uweh and Pastor Wisdom Utagba.
Deaconess Dr. Grace Omoni, Deaconess Felicia Igboorgbo, and Mr. J.O. Nwokoloh were also inaugurated as members of the committee.
Inaugurating the committee, the Conference President, Anioma Delta Baptist Conference, Rev. Dr. Paul Anyasi emphasized the importance of the assignment given to the committee and charged them to take the assignment with all amount of seriousness, saying that the conference is in a critical moment in its life existence.
“We don’t need to remind ourselves that this is a very critical moment in the life of our conference and what we are doing today is a very critical assignment that we must necessarily do in the life of the conference.
“We know that by June next year, there must be a change of guide; Somebody else will have to come in to take leadership from where we have been. What we doing today is a tradition of the Baptist where we bring together a search committee and then allow them do the work on behalf of members of the Conference to get a new leadership.
“Traditionally, it is expected that we raise this committee on behalf of the Conference and allow them to continue to do the work. I choose to perform this inauguration today because I know that next week we will be having our annual session and also by the grace of God, we will be reporting that on behalf of the Conference, the EC has selected a search committee and that they will work to produce who will be the next conference President,” Rev. Dr. Anyasi said.
While urging them to make the word of God in Psalm 78:72 as their scriptural watchword in the discharge of their responsibilities, the Conference President, hedged on the indispensable qualities of a Leader, explaining that the qualities needed from members of the committee to be able to produce a suitable person, for the highly exulted office of the President of the Anioma Delta Baptist Conference, is integrity and skills.
“Anytime you come for your meetings, in the dark or in the night, you must not deviate from this particular scripture from Psalms 78:72, that we must do this work with integrity of heart and with all the skills that we have; the wisdom that God gives us in making sure that at the end of the day, we will bring out a President that every one will accept and be willing to work with,”
He admonished them to do the work diligently and to avoid unhealthy sentiment, warning that sentiment will not in any way give the Conference the best President they are looking for, even as he maintained that the search is for a competent person who will meet the criteria being put in place by the Conference.
“The goal of this search is to get a conference President, ready with the right frame of mind to do the work, the president that will have the Mental capacity to stand the pressure of this kind of office for a period of five or ten years.
“That frame of mind, that readiness, that experience, that denominational understanding, that President that will be able to stand and defend the Baptist heritage and policies,’ Dr. Anyasi emphasized and further affirmed that the search is not for the novice, neither is it for a job seeker.
In his acceptance speech, the Chairman of the Committee, Rev. Sunday Ossai appreciated the Conference President, the Executive Committee and the Conference in general for the confidence reposed in them and pledged that the committee, through the leadership of the holy Spirit, will discharge its mandate diligently and with all amount of seriousness.
Highpoint of the brief ceremony, witnessed by the Conference Chairman, Rev. Dr. Monday Opone, was commissioning of the Committee and administration of inaugural prayers by the Conference President, Rev. Dr. Paul Anyasi.
