₦airaland Forum

Religion, Ethics, and Nation Building

By: Deji Yesufu

At the time of penning this article, the United States of America is weighing its options with regard to regime change in Iran. The people of Iran have been involved in violent protests all around the country, calling for an end to the oppressive theocratic government that has been their lot for the past 47 years. This is not the first time Iranians have demonstrated against the Ayatollah; however, it is the first time such a demonstration is being held under the oversight of a government in the United States that is sympathetic to them. The Ayatollah came to power in 1979 during the government of Jimmy Carter – a sit-duck liberal government – that looked the other way as the constitutional monarch in Iran at that time called for help and was overthrown. Other demonstrations have held under Barack Obama and Joe Biden, who also looked the other way. Iranians are lucky to have Donald Trump in government, and Trump sees that regime change in Iran, the primary sponsor of jihadist doctrines around the world, particularly in the Middle East, is something that is inevitable. Removing Ali Khamenei from the overall governance of Iran would do the world great good.

These world events lead me to think deeper about the subject of religion, ethics, and nation-building. I used to hold to the concept that a country should be a secular state, while religion should be the private practice of every man’s conscience within his home. I no longer hold that view. There is no such thing as secularism. In fact, secularism is a religion in itself. Every country is governed by fundamental principles and ideas. The state of that country, the prosperity and progress of its people, and the future that country envisages for itself and its neighbors hinge on what those fundamental principles are. Somebody said that a country is either governed by the Ten Commandments or by Shariah Law, and I agree with him. The Ten Commandments are Judeo/Christian ethics that emanate from within the Bible. They teach essentially two things: love for God and love of neighbor. Love for neighbor means the sanctity of human life (thou shalt not kill); right to private property (thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shall not steal, thou shalt not covet); and justice for all (thou shall not bear false witness). These laws form a people’s ethics, and they are further encapsulated in the laws of the land. In other words, the laws of God, religion, must dictate the actions of a people – ethics. On the flip side, where a country is governed or influenced by Shariah Law, that country is governed by the dictates of Allah, the Muslim’s god. A good example of what Shariah Law can make a country become in modern times is Iran, a net exporter of terrorism to other countries.

Now, if I have succeeded in showing you that religion (the Christian religion) is fundamental to how a nation works, and ultimately to nation-building, I wish to now return to the subject of ethics. How should citizens of a country live? The biggest challenge that people have is the fact that most people love the sound of their own voices; most people talk, and they do not do the things they espouse. The biggest challenge with religion is not that we do not have enough preachers or churches; our biggest problem is that many people have not learnt to live out the fundamental tenets of what they espouse as belief. The modern world talks about liberty to practice one’s religion not because the plurality of religion is necessarily a good thing, but because true religion should birth sound ethics. Also, a man’s way of life becomes commendable and something people will emulate when they have seen him carry his doctrine to a necessary fruition – ethics. The best preaching of religion is not what people say; it is essentially what people do. We wonder at the success of Christian missionaries in the late 19th century and early 20th century in Nigeria. But there was really no secret to their success. Those men practiced what they preached! They were not just glib talkers. They educated the young of the populace. They fed the poor. They built hospitals that provided free medical care to people. The locals saw that their communities got better because of the white missionary who functioned among them, and they came to his church. They let go of their animist pasts and imbibed Christianity. While it is impossible to preach religion without using words, the words we use to explain our religion begin to carry meaning and power when those who espouse religion live out truth, justice, and love to their neighbors.

Obafemi Awolowo said that the British were “first-rate imperialists” – his exact words. When you consider how an Island country in Europe would colonize almost half of the world, you begin to agree with Awo. But as powerful a colonizer as the British were, India found an answer to defeating British colonialism. They discovered that the British people had a moral compass that could be touched. They saw that if you raised an army against the British and went to war with them, you were likely to return defeated. But they saw that the British had some fundamental tenets they lived by – the Bible: love for neighbor; do unto others as you will have them do unto you. Mahatma Ghandi discovered the doctrine of peaceful protests. The idea of using the media to push public opinion. He even saw how effective hunger strikes were and utilized them. Now, with the coming of the two great wars at the beginning of the century, coupled with a weak British economy, having lost one million men in the wars, colonialism was no longer a profitable endeavor around the world. And as many countries as sought to be free through peaceful means got their independence from the British. But at the heart of the agitation was the belief that peaceful means could move the minds of the British public to compel their government to match their words with action.

Is there a lesson in all these for modern Nigeria? Plenty.

First, there must be a reformation of Christianity in Nigeria. The state of a country is the state of its predominant religion. The state of northern Nigeria is Islam. The state of Nigeria as a whole is the false gospel that pervades most of our public space. Christians must challenge their pastors to preach the gospel – and the gospel alone. Not a false message of health and wealth. Social media has helped in this project, but it is still not enough. Christian churches must lead the effort for societal reformation and development. Where the government has failed, churches must take the space. Churches must offer affordable health care and sound education to people. The Roman Catholic Church and the Anglicans have been foremost in this in present-day Nigeria. But a lot more can be done. If we are genuinely salt of the earth, our words must translate to genuine charity for our neighbors.

Second, the people of this country must find the right political ideas and implement them. Politics is a science. It is a science because it requires study, experimentation, observation, and inferences that would yield certain likely results that will be beneficial to society. It will require studying the lives of people and seeing what could be implemented to benefit the people. If one must succeed in politics in Nigeria, for example, one must know how to marry the two predominant religions in the country – Islam and Christianity. A political view that will appeal to the whole country cannot be critical of one religion (I admit that I cannot be a politician in Nigeria because I will always criticize Islam). And it is not enough to import a political view into Nigeria; one must see that it is practicable and beneficial. This will require studying, testing, and implementation. The Nigerian politics of bigmanism will not do it.

Third, we must find able men to lead. When we have succeeded at finding a political theory that is most practicable in Nigeria, we must then find able men to implement it. I am convinced that the people who will save Nigeria are our young people. The fathers may develop the political theories, but our young men must be given the opportunity to put these theories to work. It will be a difficult task, because Nigerian politicians are generally selfish. But hopefully one day, we will find such persons that can do the hard work. I believe that there should be a resurgence of a political group that is akin to the Nigerian Youth Movement of the 1930s. Where young men gather together, who are not limited by religion or ethnic bias, but who are committed to a better Nigeria. These young men should proffer political theories and debate them until they reach workable ideas that are fitting for the country. Then they must build a financial chest that is central to the organization, and not the donations of one man. Then these young men must make the leap and run for office. They must be altruistic, disciplined, and driven by a common vision. They must endeavor to translate their political ideas into action. This is what Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group did in the 1950s, proving to the British that Nigerians could govern themselves. Unfortunately, since that time, this country has not had such visionary leadership.

Conclusion

I am a pastor, but I wonder what good Christian ministry is if the people we are preaching to do not have food to eat. What good is religion when the children of the people we are preaching to have no education, no skill, and no future? What good is religion when the people under the sound of our voice do not have access to affordable medical care? When Jesus ministered in first century Palestine, he healed the sick and fed the hungry. While we do not have miraculous powers to do as Jesus did, we could still imbibe the heart and spirit of Jesus that had love for people. You cannot separate religion from a functional society. Those who are Christian preachers insist that a sound gospel message must be preached in our churches. We insist that Christian pastors and laymen must translate their words into action. We insist on being a light to our world. If religion is true, it should affect the ethics of a people. When the overall spirit of a land is deception, corruption, and theft, then the pervading religion of those people is false – it does not matter what the religion is. We, however, maintain that the Christian message is true, and we hope that by our preaching and our living, we can be a light to our nation. Thereby contributing to nation-building.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

MufasaLion:
Science trumps any other field of study!

Why do you say that? I like to have a bit more reasoning.

Science or Art Class – My Daughter’s Experience

By: Deji Yesufu

My daughter resumed her first year in senior secondary school last year. While her mother and I rejoiced over the much progress she had made in school this far, we also agonised over what class she should belong to – arts or sciences. My thinking was that she would do better in the art classes because her arithmetic skills are not very strong, but she excels with words and spoken English. We spoke with the guidance and counselling personnel in her and they recommended she should go to the art classes. Now, while a lot of the things I do in life today are in the humanities (art), I am always thankful that I went through the rigour of the sciences, and I thought I should do the same with my daughter. At last, we allowed her to do art, as she was more inclined to those subjects than the sciences.

The morning she was to resume school and report to her art class, I called her and counselled her. I told her that the students doing “science” will look down on her and her colleagues in the art classes. I know this because we also did the same thing in the 1990s, when I entered senior secondary school. I told her that she should never be disturbed by this. I told her that in my senior secondary school class of 1991 to 1993, Demonstration Secondary, ABU, Zaria, the most accomplished person among all of us is an art student, a lady, Hadiza Bala Usman. I told that Hadiza is so well placed today that she cannot even join our secondary school WhatsApp group! My daughter claimed she had heard but probably never knew how important that counsel will serve her. This second term, a parent of her best friend counselled the daughter to no longer walk or associate with my daughter. His argument was that his daughter did not do well in Physics in the first term, so why should she be walking around with an art student? Perhaps, if she had had a science student as best friend, she might have done better. When I heard that, I told my girl, “Keep your distance from that girl”. While the argument behind that parents’ thoughts may sound mundane, everyone has different purposes for sending their children to school, and I do not want my child to be the reason someone will blame their own children’s failure on.

A few years ago, I saw a post on Nairaland. A young man said that he does not think he would be studying engineering at any Nigerian university. He explained that throughout his stay in secondary school, all his Maths, Physics, and Chemistry teachers were engineering graduates. He then posed this question: “Is it that engineering graduates don’t get jobs in Nigeria?” When I saw the article, I shared it with people in my university WhatsApp group and asked them to answer the “WAEC” question. Here are the facts of life: what you read in the university may give you an initial impetus towards succeeding in life, but what eventually brings lasting success is what you make of what you have learnt on campus. So, one of the most profitable jobs in Nigeria today is medical courses because people will always be sick and they will need a doctor. The problem, however, is that many doctors and other medical professionals may never go beyond average in life. They will graduate, get a job, work thirty to forty years on that job, retire and die. The people who will make it big in this life are those who take what they have learnt and build something out of it. Many of those people are usually not the “science” graduates, but the arts graduates.

Here is another interesting fact: scientists are the people who work in the system. They are the technocrats and the professionals, etc. The art students, the lawyers, the journalists, musicians, etc, are the ones who run the system. The art students employ science students. The people who go on to lead countries as politicians are usually lawyers and journalists. The scientists: the doctors, pharmacists, etc, work for these people. One day, somebody found out that I went to school with Hadiza Usman. The guy sent me a message asking me to link him up with her so she could get a job for him. That is the reality of life. It is the so-called “art” student that all of us are now looking at to give us jobs.

There is no doubt that the sciences offer a lot of opportunities for people. Mastering Physics, Chemistry, and Biology will open you up to so many disciplines that one can specialise in. The fact, however, is that not every person will become a scientist. Some people will thrive more in the literary disciplines and others in the humanities. If you force them to read science, they will simply be frustrated. I know of a guy whose parents insisted he must do engineering. He managed to graduate with a third class. Handed his certificate to his parents and went on to do music. How parents will today, in the twenty-first century, be forcing down “science” into the throat of their child, is something I will never understand. Is it that this parent thinks that “art” students cannot make it in life? Or, are they hoping that their own children’s success will be their means of pension in the days to come? I cannot understand it.

Here is the final thought that I wish to challenge my readers with: our children today should be challenged to do everything. If it is possible for a child to read both the sciences and the arts, they should do it. When they get to the university, they can now specialize into something they may wish to do. But their learning in school will never leave them. Today, I spend all my time reading History. I write literature. I am heavily critical of the government. And I preach religion. Those are the art courses. If I had done History, Literature, Government, and CRK in senior secondary school, it would have helped me more in what I do with my blogs and social media content. I have had to learn all these things all by myself. It has not been a waste, though.

Let me end by saying this: We are blessed indeed to have life and to live in a time when learning has exploded. There is no discipline anyone takes from the university that they cannot make a success of. Also, there is no discipline that you cannot learn all by yourself. Even sitting with YouTube, you can learn a discipline. So, rather than espousing this whole idea that “science” is better than the “arts” or art students are better than scientists, let us be thankful that we have these opportunities in life. And then let us use these opportunities to better the lot of people all around us.

I hope you found this helpful. Thank you for reading.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

The article is posted with author's permission.

huptin:
I have refused to comment on this issue till Anthony Joshua recovers. GOD WILLING.

It is a good decision. Let's see him get better

The Anthony Joshua’s Road Accident

By: Deji Yesufu

Yesterday, 30th December 2025, Anthony Joshua, a two-time heavyweight champion of the world, was involved in a ghastly motor accident on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway. Reports emerging from the accident are still sketchy, but apparently, he was travelling in a Lexus SUV when the car collided with a stationary truck in the Makun area of Ogun State around 8am. Some people are blaming the incident on overspeeding. Others think that while overtaking a vehicle, a tyre on the car burst and this was what led to the driver losing control of the car and colliding with the stationary vehicle. Joshua was with his personal trainer and coach, whose names are given as Latz and Sina – both of whom may have lost their lives in the accident.

Social media has been flooded with videos of Joshua being pulled out of the wreck; he is clearly in pain, and he is being transferred to another vehicle to be taken to the hospital. The incident is made worse with the usual Nigerian factor of onlookers spending more time and effort capturing the accident on video than helping the wounded. Many times, the poor judgment that people exercise when accidents happen is the cause of many deaths. Accidents are emergencies, and what you do in a space of two to five minutes after the incident happens might determine whether someone lives or dies.

Two weeks ago, I was a guest of Abimbola Adelakun, a columnist with Punch newspapers. She was celebrating twenty-five years since the death of her mother, Mojisola Ajoke Adelakun. The woman was returning to Ibadan from Oyo town, where she worked, when she had this ghastly motor accident and died. She was 40 years old. My own mother, Dr. Henritetta Temilola Yesufu, also had a ghastly motor accident on the Oyo-Ibadan Road in 1981. Everyone in that vehicle perished. My mother was saved because an ambulance was passing by just at about that time, and she was resuscitated and taken to UCH. She was saved mainly by the grace of God and by the country’s working health system at the time. I took the Lagos-Ibadan expressway just last week, and the experience I had, particularly with my children with me in the car, led me to make the decision of returning from Lagos by train.

Nigerian roads are not just bad; the drivers are reckless. But I would be returning to that theme in a moment. My children and I were waiting for the train to arrive when I saw the message that Joshua had been involved in the accident on that same road I was trying to avoid travelling on. The effort we had put into taking the train, notwithstanding the time wasted doing it, was probably worth it after all. Now, I am beginning to read commentaries from government apologists. Some are telling us that accidents happen in foreign countries also. Somebody has suggested that Diego Jota was travelling in Europe when he lost his life in a similar ghastly motor accident. All in a bid to tell us not to castigate the Nigerian system: “…our country is sha trying…” – to use the modern colloquialism our young people use (I have told my children that they should never use “sha” when they are speaking to me. It is a bastardization of the English language). Back to the matter.

First, a response to government apologists. While I understand that there are a few people who earn their living from castigating the government, a few of us do not. In fact, we put our means of livelihood in peril when we speak these truths to power. Nigeria is not a one-party state; we are not running a military government where all kinds of criticism of the government is censored. This country is a democracy, and it behooves men of sound thinking to speak truth when the social fabric of the country is threatened. Once upon a time, this country had opposition. The government has silenced all kinds of opposition. They appear to have bought everybody up, and everyone is singing the praises of the government. There is no society that thrives that way.

A working democracy will always have two arms: the people in government – they are the winners who are enjoying their time in office, along with the resources they earn while doing this. There are also those who lost in the last election, who must compose themselves as an opposing force, and who never tire at criticizing the government. They put the people in office on their toes, shedding light on systemic failures and calling attention to their fixing. The result is that eventually, society benefits from these two systems. A second point I must quickly make is that the Nigerian government must be commended on some infrastructures they have put in place in the past few years. The Lagos-Ibadan expressway, having now been completed, has made travelling easy for Nigerians, and obviously, many people are coming into the country to enjoy these dividends of democracy. But these should not obfuscate the need for certain important things to be put in place as far as road safety is concerned.

The first thing that comes to mind is the state of mind of Nigerian drivers. When I take public transport, I observe the average Nigerian driver. I discovered that they usually use the seat belt only when they see “Road Safety”. The moment “Road Safety” is out of sight, they remove the seat belt. I have come to realize that many drivers in Nigeria, including those we will call elite among them, either have no education or are poorly educated. Now, the things that the Nigerian Road Safety Corp make demands of drivers are just simple, basic, commonsensical things. A driver of a vehicle is holding the safety of everyone in that vehicle in his hands. A driver must be an individual who is temperate and of sound judgement. He must be patient and considerate. An angry and impulsive person will bring the same tendencies to their driving, and in some cases could end up causing accidents on the road.

My study of our past leaders, particularly those in Yoruba land (Obafemi Awolowo and Bola Ige readily come to mind), showed me that those men were particular in choosing their drivers and their cooks. These two people are not ordinary domestic staff. They hold your life in their hands. In the heat of the 1962 crisis in the Western Region, Awolowo’s cooks were paid to poison him. The cooks reported the matter to him themselves. Awo had sent all the children of his domestic staff to the same schools he sent his own children to. They had no choice but to return the favour. The result was that these men kept their cooks and drivers for life. Unfortunately, many Nigerian drivers are not just poorly educated; they are also abrasive, rash, argumentative, insulting, and uncouth. This shows in their driving, and it is a miracle of God’s mercies that we do not have more accidents on our roads. Something must be done to the minds of the average Nigerian driver. The Nigerian Road Safety Corps must work on this. I have written on the Nigerian Road Safety before, how I met a splendid young man there who was doing his job. Well, I hate to report to you that that young man has japa. So, besides the fact that the country is suffering from a lack of drivers, our best minds, in many fields, just keep leaving the country.

The second defect that Anthony Joshua’s accident revealed is the poor state of the health system in Nigeria. As I write this, the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU) have entered their second month of strike. This body consists of all health workers in the hospitals in Nigeria, besides doctors and nurses. They have complained for years that the Nigerian government has not given them their due. JOHESU went on strike following the strike action that Resident Doctors had called. Frequent strike actions in Nigerian public hospitals have led to an increase in private medical institutions all around the country. But because the owners of these institutions must make a profit, they do not employ the best hands to manage patients, and these hospitals cannot be used by the poor. In the final analysis, if health care is to be effective and accessible to Nigerians, it must be run by the government. So, Joshua’s accident revealed our poor emergency system and our lack of medical professionals.

Nigeria happened to Joshua yesterday, and he is very lucky that he did not lose his life in the process. It will take a while for him to recover from the loss of his friends and fitness coaches – he might never even recover from it. Anthony Joshua is officially a British boxer, but in recent times, he has been identifying more and more with his Nigerian roots. You see him spending time training in Nigerian gyms and even jogging on the streets of Lagos. The young man loves this country, and it is obvious that he would be investing a lot of the fortune that he has made from boxing in Nigeria. This is not the way to pay him back.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/the-anthony-joshuas-road-accident/

illicit:
The Leader and The Led

Nice one

Unfortunately I wrote all I discussed with him from memory, left out a lot we discussed about

Three Hours with Niyi Osundare

By: Deji Yesufu

Today, I attended the 25th anniversary of the death of Mrs. Mojisola Ajoke Adelakun, mother of Abimbola Adelakun, that fiery Thursday back-page writer for Punch newspapers. I had looked forward to the event because I knew that I was almost certainly going to meet some leading media person, writer, or social commentator there. I was not disappointed. At the church, where the memorial service was held, I saw Prof. Niyi Osundare. He was seated to my right. I kept a close watch on him; I planned to “ambush” him and glean some words of wisdom from his hoary head. Niyi Osundare is a seventy-eight-year-old university don, writer, social critic, etc. Osundare is known most for his poems and the manner with which he crafts them to speak to societal decay.

The moment the service was done, I approached the Prof. and introduced myself as a great follower of his literary work. I told him I may have listened to all the interviews he had ever granted Splash FM. I told him the story of his classmate, whom he met in a hotel, who was working as a hotel assistant, while he was already a senior lecturer at the university. I told him the moment he spoke about breaking down in tears on sighting a friend who could not further his education because he did not have anyone to send him to school, that I also was moved to tears by that story. Prof. then took his time to tell me more about that story. About that time, Abimbola approached us to thank us for coming. She asked to know whether we knew the venue of the event center where the reception was to be held. I told her that I knew it – I actually did not, but there is nothing Google Maps cannot do these days. I volunteered to lead Prof to the place. In the process of doing this, I got a free ride, a three-hour discussion with the erudite scholar, and a great deal of wisdom, also. I would be sharing a bit of it here.

Prof. wanted to know what I do for a living. I told him I was a blogger, an electrical engineer, and a pastor. He said, “Ah…, bloggers are the most feared people on earth these days.” He told me that in those days, for him to have his article published in the papers, he would have to drive to Lagos from Ibadan and submit them to the newspaper house. He said even then, editors would butcher your piece, you would almost never recognize it when it emerges in print. He said today, however, you can publish your article from your bedroom. He warned, however, that what he fears is that this has allowed for the proliferation of fake news, and fake news might be the ultimate undoing of our world today.

As we drove to the venue of the reception, our conversation strayed to the question of Nigeria. The matter of the country’s want of formidable leadership came up, and the unrelenting scourge of corruption in our national life was all we lamented. I then told Prof. of my reading of all the written works of Obafemi Awolowo. His face lit up: “…now that was when Nigeria had leadership…” He regrets that we may never see those times again in Nigeria. I explained that I think that there is a welter of young politicians who are coming up in Nigeria today, and who may find the Awolowo story and example as something to imitate. Prof. Osundare said that he once had some people ask him about politicians nowadays who wear Obafemi Awolowo caps from place to place. He said he told them that formidable leadership is not in the cap you wear, but in the manner you think. Until our leaders begin to think like Awolowo, it does not matter the cap they wear or the gown they put on, or the name they bear; they will not produce the kind of leadership Awolowo produced.

Then I reminded Prof of his poem: “My Lord, Tell Me Where to Keep Your Bribe?” and I told him how much it influenced my thinking. He then took his time to tell me about how he came to write that poem. He said just about the time Buhari came to power, he ordered a raid on the homes of some judges in Abuja. Lo and behold, many of them had money stashed away in their houses. A lot of the monies were in dollars, pounds, and other foreign currencies. He wondered what exactly a nation’s judges would be doing with the money kept in their bedrooms. He surmised that it could only be a product of bribes. He said for three days he could not sleep over the matter. That his wife even told him not to kill himself over Nigeria. Eventually, he found some ease when he penned that poem. Prof. told me that he was taken to court over that poem, and the case is still pending. I was aghast. Our discussion then drifted to the matter of lawlessness in Nigeria, the inability of courts to uphold justice, Dele Farotimi, etc. We concluded that at the foundation of society must be truth, and where the people who ought to uphold the law do not do so, such a society can only deteriorate. It will not improve.

Prof. told me that he is largely retired now. He spends his time sometimes in America, where his family still resides, and Nigeria, where his root is. He said nothing can keep him from leaving Nigeria. He explained that Nigeria has given him so much, and that it is his duty to continue to look for ways to make the country better. He regretted the actions of the Seyi Makinde government that cleared out the greenery close to Agodi Garden, all in the name of building an estate. He explained that his latest studies are on the environment and that there is a simple equation to all these: human beings consume oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Plants and trees consume carbon dioxide and produce oxygen. When you cut down all the greenery and trees in the city, you are depriving the city of a fresh supply of oxygen. It will be a lose-lose for us at the end.

As we concluded our discussion, Prof. encouraged me to keep writing. He explained that he has found out that outside the humanities, medical doctors and engineers are best the best writers we have. He says that he believes that our training, which has taught us to pay attention to details, is usually brought to bear when we write on social issues, too.

Prof. was going my direction in town, and so he dropped me very close to where I could find a vehicle close to my home. I enjoyed my time speaking with this great educationist, humanist, octogenarian, and Nigerian. Prof. Niyi Osundare is a great Nigerian, and we must both celebrate persons like him today, and uphold him as individuals our youths should imitate. Dr. Ropo Ewenla, who was one of the MCs of the event today, ensured that Prof. Osundare was the first person to be introduced to the guests. The professor was very uncomfortable with the announcement, but he sure deserves it. May his days on earth be long, and may this country be filled with more of such good men.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

So, the interview proceeded...

Source

otipoju:
Her life. Her choices.

I listened to the entire thing and got to know her background and therefore inserstand the mindset behind her actions in relation to her charging very high for performing in church programs.


She does not see herself as an evangelist of the gospel whose primary focus spreading is spreading the good news sof Jesus Christ.

Insteqd, she sees herself as a folk singer who sings songs to comfort and inspire broken people...and therefore her momey must be complete before she can come a and perform.



Thirdly , she sees Jesus and Christianity differently from a disciples Christian. For her Christ is not THE WAY to salvation, but is just one of many ways " cultural interpretations and expressions of man's relationship with the creator.

So nothing special about Jesus other than he was a prophet like the rest of them.

I've never been a fan of hers. Her mindset an d mine about Christianity are opposite...even though I now understand why she acts the way she does.

Well, perhaps the liberty we must all give ourselves to be ourselves. We don't have to conform to people’s mould of who we should be.

Sola Allyson and Irresponsible Journalism

By: Deji Yesufu

I saw a link online by the Nigerian Tribune that bore the caption “Marriage hasn’t given me joy”. It was a caption quoting Nigerian musician Sola Allyson. The link included a thumbnail prominently featuring Allyson’s husband, Toyin Obaniyi. I know Toyin and Sola a little and was a bit taken aback by the caption on that thread. I immediately checked the link, and the report had it that Sola Allyson had appeared on a Oyinmomo TV, where she shared a little about her life, marriage, and music career. They quoted Sola as saying she was not happy in her marriage; that she lived in a separate house from her husband, etc. In summary, they concluded that Sola Allyson’s marriage was on the rocks – and the interview was something of a tell-all to the press. When I read the story, I was sad. I immediately spoke with a friend with whom I attended an Ibadan church some years back, a church that Sola and her family also attended at the time. We both mourned the challenges that marriages have to endure in these times, explaining that even leaving Nigeria has not made marriages less prone to breakups.

This morning, I had the good sense of listening to that interview myself, and I could not believe what I was hearing. Sola Allyson said nothing about her marriage breaking up; she did not say she and her husband were living in separate houses. She was completely misquoted. After watching the interview, I immediately tried to check the Tribune link again, and I discovered that it had been pulled down. Somebody in the editorial team of that reputable media house had noticed the error and removed the story completely. While I celebrated this, I noticed that many other blogs had picked up the original story that the Tribune published and had run away with it. They, on the other hand, have not pulled down their articles. The height of irresponsible journalism is listening to a person and totally misconstruing what they have said. If the statement had been made privately and the report was then misconstrued, one could understand. But how do journalists today listen to an interview that the whole world has the opportunity to listen to and reach a different conclusion from everyone? It beats me completely. The quest for clickbait should not reduce the high standard that journalism should come with. Thankfully, Tribune has redeemed itself. I hope that these blogs will do the same. While on the matter of Sola Allyson and her interview, it might be beneficial to examine what Sola Allyson actually said in that interview.

Sola Allyson spoke about her marriage. This is what she said essentially: “…I have married a man… I am not in a man’s house… He is in my house… and I am in his house…” She said essentially that a woman should not be subordinated to her husband – there should be a sense of equality in marriage. That a man does not own the woman; a woman is her own self, who has come into a marriage to help the man. She made it clear that a woman should not compete with a man. Rather, the two should complement each other.

One must understand Allyson and where she is coming from. The generation of many of our parents in Nigeria came from a culture where women are only seen but are not heard. In some places, the woman is almost treated like cattle – a thing to be used. A lot of such people do not even think that women should be educated. I will regard it as one extreme. Now, the challenge with life is that in the process of running from one extreme, we flee to the other extreme. It takes understanding and wisdom to reach a healthy balance. It is this other extreme that I discerned in Allyson’s words – the world of feminism. The idea of the independent woman. The woman who is equal to her husband. The woman who questions the whole idea of submission. Allyson actually said that the man and woman should submit to each other (ignoring the fact that the Ephesians 5:21-24 scripture that says man and wife should submit to each other, had verse 21 speaking to the overall context of fellowship in church, while verses 22-24 was speaking about authority in the home).

Here is the healthy balance to it all: the home, the church, and the society must be led by men. Women are able helpers to these men. The husband and the wife are not equals; the husband is lord to the wife (1Peter3:6). A responsible man (in this context, a Christian man) must earn the respect of his wife by ordering his home in the wisdom of God: providing for them, protecting them, and giving them leadership. In such a context, after years of offering such leadership, the question of equality in the home never comes up. The father leads – period. When men sell their rights of leadership to irresponsible living and sin, women have to step into the gap. And this is where you begin to have the kind of commentaries you get from Sola Allyson. Allyson has spoken based on what she knows, and it is just fine. The higher ground I am inviting my readers to is to understand that men can offer their homes such leadership that cannot be disputed by any kind of feminism.

Sola Allyson also spoke about the fact that marriage is difficult and that if any couple wants to make a success of their marriage, they will need to work at it. She explained that many people give false impressions of what marriage is to younger people, where they make people believe that marriage is bed of roses. She responded to some questions from the anchor by saying that while her husband is still at home with her, things could change tomorrow. It was comments like these that the bloggers saw and concluded that her marriage was on the rocks. But the woman was being dreadfully honest. I have written two articles explaining this very thing: marriage is difficult. There is no point telling the world that one’s marriage is a bed of roses – it is simply not the case. On this particular point, I am 100% with Allyson. I hope that young people entering marriage will have their minds well prepared. I think that, like anything in life, if couples use the time of courtship to agree on how to handle difficult moments that can arise in marriage, they are likely to rise above those things when they happen. There are some marriages where one spouse spends all the time saying that no challenge will befall their marriage, all in the name of positive confessions. Unfortunately, they enter into marriage and realize that there is no amount of positive confession that can evade challenges in a home.

On the whole, I enjoyed the interview Sola Allyson granted Oyinmomo. It revealed some aspects of the lady that I did not know at all. She explained that her rise in life and through the music industry was both fortuitous and the blessings of God. She spoke about those who influenced her singing – men like Pasuma, Obesere, KWAM1, etc. She spoke about how she always knew she was a queen, despite growing up in so much destitution. She is clearly very independent-minded and also very intelligent. She revealed to me something I have always suspected about the human being, which is that God has put gifting in all of us. These gifts are honed through education and providence. She spoke of how one man led her to study music, rather than English or Law, which she originally intended to study. And she spoke about how she has known growth both in life, career, and family. She said she never actually planned anything in her life; her life simply panned out through the grace of God. She wishes she did not have to work as hard as she does to get things in life, but she also realizes that nothing good comes to us in life without hard work.

Sola Allyson concluded by saying that she fears granting interviews because she is almost always quoted out of context by journalists. The interview was barely out before bloggers began to reach very irresponsible conclusions about what she said. I have written about where I disagreed with Madam Sola in this article. This is quite different from misquoting her and reaching conclusions that she never intended. One can understand why Sola Allyson will not grant another interview to a Nigerian media again. She did not deserve this kind of press coverage; our journalism can do a lot better than this.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/sola-allyson-and-irresponsible-journalism/

I Visited Obafemi Awolowo’s Grave

By: Deji Yesufu

I had a traumatic experience at the market recently. The Seyi Makinde government has been carrying out a number of building projects all around the Bodija market here in Ibadan, which has reduced parking spaces throughout the market. I drove into a space where I was hoping to leave my car to do my business in the market. When I parked, no one told me that it was also my duty to patronize the women in that square. When I returned, one of the women selling accosted me. Her point was that I parked my car in their space, and went elsewhere in the market to buy the same things they were selling – I ought to have patronized them. The argument was logical, and at first glance, I would normally have apologized and let the matter be. But there was something in the way she spoke: it was the attitude that I owed her and others something; that I did not have the liberty to go anywhere I wished in a market where I pay money to have my car parked. Immediately, I rebelled against that spirit and made it clear to her that I did not have to patronize her. The matter degenerated into a shouting match, where she began threatening to raise a mob against me, and even said I must never park my car in that square again. I was a bit shaken by that incident because there appears to be this anger in Nigerians that they are seeking to pour on people around them. That simple altercation could have turned out to be something worse.

Every time I visit the market, or anywhere I see Yoruba people, especially women and children congregate, I think of Obafemi Awolowo. Oyo State is called the Pacesetter State. She is “pacesetter” because when Obafemi Awolowo and others led government in Ibadan between 1952 and 1959, they came up with so many firsts in the annals of governments in Nigeria. They established the first television station in Africa – ahead of many countries in Eastern Europe, including France and Spain. They also built the first football stadium, now called the Obafemi Awolowo Stadium. They built the first skyscraper in West Africa – the Cocoa House. The first modern housing estate in Nigeria – the Bodija Housing Estate. First free universal primary education policy in Africa. First free medical service scheme in Nigeria. First regionally implemented minimum wage scheme in the civil service in Nigeria. And many other “firsts” like those. When you read Obafemi Awolowo’s essays, you do not hear him write about “projects” or “firsts”. I read all the written works of Obafemi Awolowo, and there was nowhere he mentioned “Cocoa House” or “Liberty Stadium”. The man concentrated on principles of government, and quite naturally, the outworking of those principles brings all the “firsts” we see. It is sad that immediately after his time in government, there were the locust years of the Akintola administration and the coming of the military. So, when I see these women in the market, and I see load carriers (alabaru), and all these menial workers doing things beneath them, I mourn. Obafemi Awolowo never planned this sort of thing for the Yoruba people, nor did he think that Nigeria would be in the sorry state that it is in right now. Towards the end of his life, Awo saw that he needed to document his ideas so that people in the future could find them and help realize them. It was by reading those ideas that I became an avowed espouser of “Awoism,” and it is the reason why I visited his grave site on the 5th of November, 2025, at Ikenne.

5th November is the birthdate of Yeye Oduduwa – late Mama HID Awolowo, Obafemi Awolowo’s beloved wife in his lifetime. Ambassador Olatokunbo Awolowo Dosunmu leads two foundations in her parents’ name – the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation and the HID Awolowo Foundation. The first foundation focuses on realizing the visions and principles of Obafemi Awolowo, which he espoused in his lifetime and then documented in his books. The foundation in his wife’s name is concerned mostly with helping the girl child realize her God-given potentials, and also helping women to rise above the male stereotypes that many women have been caged in within the Nigerian space, and to help them fulfill their God-given potentials. The program was themed “Breaking Barriers on Standing Still? Nigerian Women in Politics 30 Years After Beijing”. It was held within the Obafemi Awolowo family compound in Ikenne, at the Efunyela Hall – a hall that the sage built to host political gatherings at his home. The Chairman of the occasion was Senator Daisy Danjuma, with the Deputy Governor of Ogun State, Engr. Noimot Salako-Oyedele, appearing as a guest of honor. Speakers at the event were Dr. Chantal Fanny (from the Ivory Coast), Prof. Olabisis Aina, Senator Uche Ekwunife, Barrister Hanatu Musawa, and Moremi Ojudu. Honorable Abike Dabiri and Prof. Adedoyin Aguoru were the moderators for the event. The discussions centered essentially on encouraging women to realize their potential as future nation builders and to help them evade the usual pitfalls that women fall into when they enter politics. Dr. Awolowo Dosunmu, the host of the event, made the point that her mother, whom the foundation is named after, actually ran for political office in 1965. She stood in for her husband, who was in prison at the time, and campaigned to be elected the Premier of Nigeria. Save for the rigging and the commotion of those days, she could easily have won.

While I soaked in the talks and events of the day, my mind was actually on Obafemi Awolowo. I drank in all the ambience of the Ikenne township. Ikenne is a very small town, and whatever development it enjoys today is owing largely to the person of Obafemi Awolowo. I stayed at the Soname Hotel. It is a guest facility that shares space with the Remo Stars’ stadium and training ground. From my room, I could actually see the players training. When I asked a woman by the road how I could get to Awolowo's house, she said “… just take a bike, and they will get you there…” The house is an address on its own – “Awolowo House”. I felt rebuked. Why would anyone not know Awolowo’s house in the whole of Ikenne? The man’s face is literally on one of Nigeria’s currencies – our one-hundred-naira note!

The Awolowo compound is a modest space. The main house where the sage lived was built sometimes in the mid-1970s – that is, a good five years after he had left the Gowon administration. It is a one-storey building that has a winding staircase situated in the living room that leads up to rooms upstairs. Awolowo also built the Efunyela Hall inside that compound – A building named after his mother, and there is a library in the compound, the Sopolu Library, which is named after his father. I believe after his death, the Mausoleum that houses his remains was built, and the museum, where many of the sage's personal items are housed, is also in the compound. The Mercedes car he used is carefully preserved there too. I also noticed that Awolowo may have had a detestation for living in GRAs. His Ikenne and Ibadan homes are situated right in the middle of where ordinary people live. All the houses that were neighbors to the Ikenne house had no fencing around them. In fact, quite a number of them had shops right in front of them where petty trading was being carried out. Awolowo grew up in very humble beginnings, and he never lost touch with his roots. He always knew that God raised him up to do these things in his lifetime, and he ensured that his connection to his roots remained. I will not hesitate to visit Ikenne again, and I do implore anyone reading this who has not visited the sage’s home to find time to do so. It is an experience worth having. Finally, I gathered some courage, and I visited Papa's burial site. Let me summarize that visit by saying that it was a spiritual encounter.

The Obafemi Awolowo Foundation has a leadership prize that it gives to worthy Nigerians every two years. There have been some years when the committee involved in selecting those nominated for it has ended up not choosing any winner. Here are the past winners: Wole Soyinka (2013), Thabo Mbeki (2015), Afe Babalola (2018), and Akinwumi Adesina (2023). There was no winner for 2016. It is also interesting to note that since the inception of this award in 2013, no Nigerian Governor or President has won it. This speaks volumes to the kind of political leadership we have in this country today.

The anger I encountered at the Bodija market, where that woman accosted me for not patronizing her despite parking my car in front of her shop, is a symptom of the bottled-up frustration that many Nigerians have with this country. There is no need to enumerate these things; they are obvious for everyone to see. The point that I hope my visit to Obafemi Awolowo's grave would wish to emphasize is this: once upon a time, Nigeria had visionary, quality, purposeful, altruistic, selfless, hardworking, and result-oriented leadership. Today, all that is history. The country appears to be on autopilot. Our best minds are fleeing the country and going to help develop other people’s lands. Obafemi Awolowo would never have japa even if things were as bad as they are today in his time (And things were bad at some point too. In 1962, there was ample opportunity for Awo to flee Nigeria and evade political persecution, but he did not). He would have remained behind and helped to fix things. We totally underestimate what it took to drive the British out of our land. I am convinced that the same spirit, focus, and vision that led the nationalists to show the British that Nigerians can govern themselves is still with us today. Bad, incompetent, and “anyhow” government can be replaced with sound leadership in our country. Obafemi Awolowo documented those ideas in his books. And a visit to his home and grave could give inspiration towards those ends.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

This article was written to commemorate the 110th posthoumous birthday of HID Awolowo.

U

dawnomike:
A good Samaritan should read and summarize the content to people like us that attended evening school at Feyingbolè grammer school/Adifase high school.

You can make the effort to read it. It will be worth the while

Nyesom Wike and Lieutenant Yerima: Concerning Chains of Command (CCC)

By: Deji Yesufu

One does not need a prophet or a doctor to reach the conclusion that all is not well with public service in Nigeria. If you get sick in this country, the first port of call for most Nigerians is private hospitals. If you need anything done expressly, productively, and intelligently, you do not go to public institutions in Nigeria; rather, you employ private hands. Many public institutions now operate something they call a “PPP” – Public-Private Partnership. In these contracts, private entities invest in public institutions, and reach an agreement that the private company will recover its investments with profit, while the public institutions have the opportunity to function and provide services to people. This article will not attempt to examine the problems with public institutions in Nigeria. Rather, I hope to extricate one element within the Nigerian civil service and show that as long as there is no working chain of command in public life, there can be no country.

What occasioned all these was the spectacle that greeted the whole world a few days ago. Nyesom Wike, the minister for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, is seen in a video confronting Lieutenant Yerima of the Nigerian Navy over the ownership of a land in Abuja. It is obvious that this land belongs to a senior naval officer, who has only recently been retired by the Bola Tinubu government. But this officer might have acquired this land, and also instructed his “boys” to ensure that no one trespasses on the land. There has obviously been an earlier encounter on that same land between officials of the Federal Capital City and the Navy. Minister Wike had believed that if he came to the land with the full force of his personality and the weight of officials from his office, the soldiers on that site would be intimidated and would give in. On the other hand, it was obvious that the soldiers were ready for a fight. Wike is seen confronting the young man, calling him a fool, and demanding that he get his way immediately. The boy is unmoved. And his response, “… I am not a fool, sir…” has since made him a hero before many Nigerians. Minister Wike is clearly portrayed as the villain in this matter. But things are not always black and white – especially for those of us who have history etched on our minds.

A few weeks before he was assassinated, Lt. Col. Victor Banjo wrote his boss, Major General Johnson Aguiyi Ironsi, a letter, where he reminded his superior of the reason why the chain of command is sacred in the military, and why it must not be desecrated. Banjo had been arrested on the 16th of January, 1966, as part of those who planned the coup that had eliminated the leaders of Nigeria the previous day. Banjo was arrested by two officers in the military while he waited in the ante-room to Ironsi’s office. He had come to see his boss. The officers who arrested Banjo were his juniors. But they arrested him merely by wielding weapons at him.

Banjo said in that letter that the chain of command in the military was not a divine instruction, but rather something founded on years of tested tradition. He then predicted that if he could very easily be arrested by junior officers, there was nothing stopping another junior officer from arresting Ironsi himself with a gun. Banjo was trying to show that authority should not be wielded merely with weapons (or uniform, as the case was with Lieutenant Yerima), but through the chain of command. That is why, a few days after Ironsi’s death, when Brigadier Ogundipe ordered a junior officer of northern extraction, and the latter ignored him, Ogundipe went into hiding immediately. The authority of a man emanates from his office and not from weapons. What then is the chain of command within Nigerian public office?

One of the biggest problems with the average Nigerian mind is the fact that we have lived for too long under the oppressive rule of the military, and very few Nigerians understand the role of the military in the Nigerian national life anymore. It appears that Nigerians think the military is doing us a favor by staying away from government. In fact, there are metrics that show that the Nigerian military is practically untouchable. This is why, after that unfortunate squabble between Wike and Yerima, retired Gen. Tukur Burutai issued a statement lampooning Wike and saying that his actions threaten national security. It is no longer news that people in the Nigerian military are kept at bay, and kept from returning to ruling Nigeria by a political class that “settles” them. One of these means of settlement is giving many people in the military unfettered access to landed property. To the extent that no one questions ownership of those lands, as long as the owner is “an officer”. If we manage to remove Wike’s rumbustiousness from that scene, what happened that day is a clear violation of the chain of command.

The Nigerian military is a group of men, although possessing arms and ammunition, who are themselves servants of the civil populace. The civil populace has elected men and women into government, and also invested these people with constituted authority. It means that people in public office have authority over every person within that public space, including the military. Minister Wike does not need the endorsement and approval of President Tinubu to access a landed property within Abuja, where he is the Minister. As Minister of the FCT, Wike is practically the governing authority in Abuja. The only person his authority does not cover is the president who appointed him to office. What I saw in that video was not a bold, handsome, and young military officer; what I saw was Brigadier Ogundipe of 1966 being replayed again.

What I saw was a northern military hegemony that is bent on clipping the wings of a constitutionally appointed government official. What I saw was disdain for authority and a silent protest against the way and manner persons of southern extraction were using power in the North. It is not surprising that a thing like this will happen only weeks after news of a potential coup against the Tinubu government had just reached Nigerians. When the names of those being investigated in the coup were listed, all of them were from the core north of this country. If Nigerians think that July 29th, 1966, cannot repeat itself again, they should think again. Regardless of who Minister Wike is, the fact remains that his office allows him access to any space within the FCT. That he needed to storm that land with the weight of his office, and in person, was already a detraction to his authority. And that a young officer, a mere lieutenant, will disobey his orders and nothing happens, is not a good sign at all.

Let me conclude with a balance: Minister Wike has been in the news for all the wrong reasons lately. It is no longer a secret what he did in Rivers State to secure Bola Tinubu’s win in the presidential elections of 2023. It is also not a secret that his appointment as Minister of the FCT is a kind of “settlement” for what he did for the APC in that year’s election. In fact, Wike has become the means of not just helping the APC win elections but also destabilizing other political groups – like the PDP, where he is still a member. I make this point to show that authority or command does not always stand on constitutional pronouncements; they also hinge on moral standing.

The Bola Tinubu government cannot run roughshod over constitutional provisions in this country and then turn back to stand on the same constitution to derive its authority from it. A man’s moral strength, the fact that he has done everything well, many times, stands as the basis for his command or authority. When a man has no morality, he will require the whole weight of his office to implement a command, and he will be humbled by a mere junior officer in the military. All is not well with Nigeria, and those who have the ability to pray should ask God for help. If the government of Bola Tinubu is overthrown by unhappy northern military officers, this country may never recover from the confusion that will follow. We have managed to keep the military in the barracks for 26 years. We should do everything to ensure they never return to government.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/nyesom-wike-and-lieutenant-yerima-concerning-chains-of-command-ccc/

olaiya2007:
I wonder why the antagonist by the northern forces... It's obvious they're happy with the religious killings and ethnic cleansing by their fulani jihadist

I agree completely. These things have carried on this long bc of tacit support from those that call themselves peaceful Muslims.

Yobabad:
Good write up @Deji, the truth is that most of us Yoruba Muslims knew about the Christians genocide going on in the country But could not say anything due to the Muslim Muslim ticket

It has long been occurring. Even b4 Tinubu came to office

The Wrath of America

By: Deji Yesufu

The day is the 2nd of May, 2011. American Navy Seals flew into Pakistan on the order of the United States of America’s president, Barack Obama. Their target? Osama Bin Laden. For ten years, Bin Laden had been America’s most wanted criminal for being the mastermind of the September 11th, 2001, bombing of the World Trade Center in the United States, the bombing of the Pentagon, and the simultaneous killing of no less than three thousand American lives on that infamous day, now known worldwide as September 11. The person who authorized the invasion of Pakistan that day was Barack Obama, a Democrat leader, and one who was not too open to using the full force of American might. In this case, he had no choice but to employ it.

For months, American secret services had been tracking Bin Laden, and their investigations had led them to a building a few hundred meters from a prominent military establishment in Pakistan. Obama, then Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, Vice President Joe Biden, and a host of other American leading government officials and military men, sat in Washington, as they watched in real time the invasion of a sovereign state – Pakistan. The Navy Seals entered Bin Laden’s building unnoticed in the dead of the night and quietly killed all his guards. Then a few of them headed to the section of the house where Bin Laden was supposed to be living. They find him. Immediately, they radioed Washington. “Kill or capture alive?” The reply was decisive: kill him. All this was done in a matter of seconds. The soldier opened fire on Bin Laden, shooting him directly in the forehead. His body was gathered up, and he was buried in the Mediterranean Sea, where no one could turn his burial site into some holy place. That is an example of America exacting its full wrath on a nation.

A few days ago, the United States of America, through POTUS, Donald Trump, announced that Nigeria has been redesignated a country of particular concern, especially with regard to religious freedom. The Trump administration, since coming to office, has been uncomfortable with reports of widespread systematic killing of Nigerian Christians by Islamic insurgents in the country. The Nigerian government has denied this report. They have continually stated that Islamic insurgency in the land has affected both Muslim and Christian communities, and that Christians are not particular targets for these insurgents. Unfortunately, a different report has been emerging from within the country. There are tens of confirmed reports that these Islamic insurgents target Christian communities in Northern Nigeria for extermination. There are videos of mass burials; large-scale destruction of houses and churches; and these insurgents making incursions into communities that are secluded and undefended.

The killings have continued unabated, particularly under the administration of Muhammadu Buhari. And it appears that either the law enforcement is aware of these killings and is looking away, or they are actively supporting the activities of these insurgents. It is these reports that Donald Trump and his men received, and have now announced that the United States will be forced to move into Nigeria and engage these insurgents head-on. As I write this, Leah Sharibu is still within the den of Boko Haram. In spite of the cries for help by the family of this dear girl, the Nigerian government has been totally unable to rescue her from the den of those animals. It is these situations that make the announcement by Trump music to the ears of many Christians in Nigeria.

As we examine the subject of the wrath of the United States of America, we also want to examine the situation on the ground in Nigeria. Why does it appear that the Nigerian military is unable to defeat Islamic insurgency in northern Nigeria? Why do the same Nigerian military personnel go to Darfur, or Senegal, or even Liberia, and restore peace to those places, but are totally ill-equipped to shut down an insurgency by a few rag-tag individuals in the north of the country? The answer lies in the worldview of the average Nigerian northerner. An average Northerner is first of all Muslim before he is Nigerian. Islam for Northerners is not what many in southern Nigeria practice. Islam, for a Northerner, is fundamentally a political system. It is the reason the Sharia Law is central to the way Northern states operate. The people in Northern Nigeria consider this country an afterthought. The only reason they are still in Nigeria is that they receive monthly derivations from the Federal Government. The day this stops, northern states will “araba” from Nigeria. Within this worldview is also the relation of the average Muslim to a Christian in the north. Christians are “Kufaar” – infidels, and they are as good as nothing. The average northerner is still a human being and will usually not kill an infidel if unprovoked.

But when occasions warrant it, they have no qualms doing it. Many times, these killings are the product of inflammatory preaching from some Islamic scholar. At other times, it might be a mob action that was occasioned by somebody claiming that a Christian had blasphemed the Prophet. At such times, northerners do not wait to hear the other side of the story. They simply step out and kill the person alleged. In recent times, however, these killings have increased more and more because certain Islamic insurgents have been coming into the country, taking advantage of our porous borders, and waging wars on Christian communities. It is these killings that have caught the attention of the international community and have also occasioned the wrath of the United States of America.

The question that has arisen since Donald Trump made his announcement yesterday has been: Does the United States of America have the right to invade a sovereign nation to kill terrorists? The answer is simple: no. But the reality is that the USA has done this over and over again in the past, and no country can stop it from doing it. This is how Osama Bin Laden was killed, and despite Pakistan’s protestation to the international world, nothing happened. The situation is a matter of interest: America is concerned about protecting Christian communities in northern Nigeria. If the Nigerian government will not do it, Donald Trump is saying they will do it on our behalf. One will think that a country like Nigeria will rejoice at such an announcement. One would think that after 26 years of failing to put down Islamic insurgency in the country, Nigeria would be rejoicing that it has found the help it needs. Rather, the Nigerian government is protesting that its sovereignty must not be invaded. Islamic clerics like Gumi are saying that America must not be allowed within the Nigerian borders. Etc. They are saying all these things because on paper, many in government talk about fighting insurgency in Northern Nigeria, but in reality, they allow this thing to fester.

Recently, the United States of America renamed its military the “Department of War” from the initial “The Department of Defense”. Trump’s presidency explained that “defense” connotes waiting for the enemy’s aggression, but war means “peace through strength”. Too many times, all the United States needs to do to bring order to societies around the world is to simply issue a threat, and peace is restored in those places. It is not likely that the United States will invade Nigeria and kill terrorists. But Trump means what he said: if the Nigerian government is unable to quell Islamic insurgency within the borders of the country, they will come and help us. And they will do it with or without our permission. America’s interest is not in Nigeria’s oil, lithium, or any natural resource we have. Trump’s presidency wishes that all men have the liberty to practice their religion unhindered. This is also what the constitution of our country guarantees for every citizen of this country. This is the reality on paper, and we should be thankful that we have people who will not only say things on paper will also follow those things with action.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

TextandPublishing's Documentary on Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group

TextandPublishing.com has embarked on an ambitious project: to tell the story of Obafemi Awolowo in a five-part series.

The first part covers his early life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlwiMVfryag?si=Wuz0YYMETw2HXg0Z

The second part looks at his time in government, with his team in the Action Group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cN6Hf2A1eg?si=oBZt1vJD_Pem0hfI

The third part will cover the Western Region crisis of the 1960s. The fourth part will look at the civil war. While the fifth and concluding part will look at his twilight years. The 3rd to the 5th part are yet to be published.

Every Nigerian must watch these series, especially modern Awoists.

meobizy:
Did not read. He is gone and that is the final conclusion.

Like everyone of us one day... that's why you should read.

"If you are bullish, wicked, and domineering by nature, your chess will reveal it. If you are kind, loving, understanding, and concessional, your chess will reveal it."

Saturnalia:
Whether Nigeria works or not is not the issue, Nnamdi Kanu and his people (that believed the hogwash) should produce “Jubril El-Sufani” if he ever wants to be released.

You cannot just be running your mouth like a faulty tap without consequences.

Don't run your mouth... another point

Daniel Naroditsky: How the Internet Killed a Chess Grandmaster

By: Deji Yesufu

Two days ago, it was reported that Daniel Naroditsky had died. Naroditsky was an American Chess Grandmaster. Chess and those who play the game are in a different world. There is a deep rivalry among players, and a constant appeal to climb the Elo rating. The Elo rating is a rating system that was developed to determine your level of playing performance. Your Elo increases as you win more and more games, and it drops as you lose more and more games. If an individual is rated 2600 and is beaten by someone who is 2100, he could lose as many as 50 Elo ratings. The fight to increase and maintain one’s Elo rating is actually a fight for life among chess players worldwide. There is a lot of suspicion that Daniel Naroditsky killed himself because he came under the burden of these Elo ratings, and because of the pressure that many people put on “performance” in one’s chess games. In recent times, Naroditsky came under attack from Vladimir Kramnik (former world champion from Russia), who claimed that Daniel had been cheating during online games (which were not true). From interviews that Daniel granted online, it was clear that those comments hurt him badly. It is possible that comments like those of Kramnik and other people online could have affected Daniel and possibly led him to take his life.

I no longer judge people who come under suicidal thoughts ever since I survived my own. In this life, we all depend on community. Some people find strength from family members – wife and children; others get theirs from church people; and others get theirs from internet support. But community is the essence of living. Having people constantly encouraging you and constructively criticizing your work because they want you to be better is a blessed thing. It becomes a curse when the same people you depend on for support turn out to be the people trying to pull you down. Such persons smile in your faces, but they do something else behind your back. My support system has been church people. One day, in March 2022, a leading church in this country, people whom I considered friends in ministry, stood on their pulpits and tore my ministry down. They practically used the announcement time during a Sunday morning worship to destroy everything I had been building. It was worse when I discovered that these “pastors” practically lied to make their point. That occasion was the second time I considered suicide in my life. The first time also had to do with church people. When I saw the pattern, I quickly changed my association with “believers” like those. And, yes, I am very suspicious of persons like them to date. My life is important to me.

In fact, I entered into the wild world of chess because I was mentally trying to separate myself from these “church” people. I consider myself a super active person. And when my day is done, and I no longer have an article to write, a piece to edit, or some work to do, I look up recent happenings in the world of chess. That is where I found Daniel Naroditsky. Danya, as his friend called him, was different from the whole lot. He was genuinely kind, sensitive, gracious, and pedagogical. Daniel’s greatest strength was his ability to teach chess to viewers. He had a way of making people comfortable under the sound of his voice. Like every other thing in life, chess brings out the real you. If you are bullish, wicked, and domineering by nature, your chess will reveal it. If you are kind, loving, understanding, and concessional, your chess will reveal it. Daniel was the latter. One commentator online said that he was convinced that Vladimir Kramnik went after Danya because he knew his sensitivity. It is not likely that it is Kramnik’s comments that led Daniel to take his life. It is, however, clear that Daniel had reached his tipping point, and one comment online might have just led him to end it all.

Let me end by making this point: the internet is full of spirits. Most people are not what they are online in real life. The internet, even when people appear with their real names, still offers anonymity that gives people the liberty to say things that they would naturally not say in real life. The spirit that possesses a lot of people online is a demonic spirit. And I include myself in this. We all tend to be something else online, other than what we would be in real life. In the process, we say things to people that can damage them. One missionary was in a faraway country in Africa when I left a comment on his timeline. He reported that comment to a mutual friend, and while I thought it was an innocuous comment, it became clear to me that it was damaging to him, impeding a great work he was doing for God in a faraway village in a distant nation. Since then, I have tried to curb my comments online. If I know someone, and I strongly disagree with a point of view they express online, I wait till I see them in person, and then I share it with them. Some other time, I use the inbox. But I am more and more careful with my comments now.

TextandPublishing.com is in the middle of a series on Obafemi Awolowo, a foremost Nigerian nationalist and politician. Awolowo was a public commentator in his early years in the 1930s. He wrote an article once where he criticized the building of a public library in Ibadan. The white men decided to close down that library because of what he wrote in that article. When Awolowo began to suffer political persecution at the hands of those in power in the early 1960s, he turned his attention to the public. Rather than making his case at the court, he made his case to the public. Awolowo’s comments influenced the young men who overthrew the First Republic in Nigeria. When Obafemi Awolowo realized that his words could make or mar Nigeria, he became more circumspect with the things he said in public. Words carry power.
I did not know Daniel Naroditsky, but I watched him enough online to know him to some extent. He was the best of the lot, and it is sad that it appears that it is the best of us that leave this world first. Danya was only 29 years old. I pray that God will comfort his family and strengthen his mother at this time. He was never married. Daniel would be greatly missed in the world of chess.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

Yobabad:
Personally I don't think Nigeria will work, we are just desceiving our self's with one Nigeria

oh, sad, ... really

"It was in a quest to get answers that Omoyele Sowore led a group of protesters in Abuja to demand the release of Nnamdi Kanu from detention. Kanu is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and has been in detention since 2019."

"In other words, what will save this country is a scientific exploration of the humanities, especially with regard to how different people groups should live together."

Nnamdi Kanu – Nigeria’s Quagmire

By: Deji Yesufu

Yesterday, 20th October, 2025, was exactly five years since Nigeria sinned against its young people, with the dastardly act of mowing down peaceful protesters at Lekki Toll-Gate in Lagos. All kinds of cover-ups have followed that unfortunate event, but the blood of those young people continues to hunt those in power. Until the question is answered: who authorized the dispatching of soldiers to Lekki, who then oversaw the killing of tens of peaceful protesters, it is safe to say that their killers will not have peace, both in this life and in the life to come. Already, a number of the men who were in power then are already dead – all men will receive the reward for their ways in the life to come. Let us be clear about this matter: nobody kills a nation’s young people, especially when they were protesting peacefully, and goes scot-free. And when such a thing happens, those in authority owe the people of this country answers.

It was in a quest to get answers that Omoyele Sowore led a group of protesters in Abuja to demand the release of Nnamdi Kanu from detention. Kanu is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and has been in detention since 2019. He has been in and out of court, and on a few occasions, he has been granted bail by the judges, but the Nigerian government has decided not to release him. Nnamdi Kanu poses too great a security risk to Nigeria, and those in power believe it is better that he is clamped in jail than allowed freedom, given his potential to destabilize parts of the country. Every country reaches a position in its national life where it must weigh its options. Do we obey the courts and release an individual to the public, and then risk his raising an uprising against the government? Or, do we clamp him in detention, and retain the peace – regardless of whether the peace is one of the graveyards? This is the reason why Wole Soyinka was placed in detention throughout the period of the Nigerian civil war, and this is the reason why El-Zakzaky is still in detention to date. The question remains, however, what does Nigeria do with the Nnamdi Kanu quagmire?

EndSARS, IPOB, Boko Haram, Bandits, Fulani Herdsmen, Niger Delta Youth, etc., are all products of a failing state. A few months ago, Reno Omokri said that the sciences are better than the arts. He argued that people who major in science as a discipline make more money than those in the arts. Now, such puerile thinking is the reason why Nigeria is where it is today. When a people reduce life to only pecuniary gain, you will end up with a failing state. I should remind my readers that Reno Omokri has today been nominated as an ambassador for Nigeria by the Tinubu government – that is if that nomination is not scuttled by his recent gaffe, where he invited an American politician for fact-finding on the question of killing of Christians in northern Nigeria, and this man ended up making the point that there is indeed genocide against Christians in northern Nigeria. I have totally digressed.

My point in bringing Reno Omokri to this essay is to make the argument that society is divided along two major disciplines: the sciences and the humanities. The humanities are what some people call the arts. The long-debated question of all time has never been how much money people can make in life. There are many people who are content with just enough through life; it is not everyone who has it as a goal to be rich. But most of us want to live in peace, some prosperity, and to enjoy health. We look up to countries in the West, and we hope to imitate their systems of government. Most people in the USA and Europe, including Russia, are living in peace and prosperity because they have learnt the art of the humanities. They recognize problems that are peculiar to their countries, and they offer practical solutions to solve them. Nigeria has forever been beleaguered by the North/South dichotomy. Northern Nigeria, even in the time of the British, was fundamentally Muslim, and they were not open to much Western civilization. The opposite was the case with the South. Today, we have Boko Haram breathing down the nation’s neck. A working society should look into this question. Our fathers suggested a federal system of government. Are we practicing true federalism, or are we just doing what we like? In a truly federal state, each state in the country will have a level of autonomy, while at the same time contributing to the center for the development of the whole country. If all the federalism we practice as a country is to only divide and share gains from oil sales, we have not started to practice true federalism.

The question of Nnamdi Kanu’s continual detention brings us face to face with two realities. First, every person in our nation today is striving to survive, and we all make up theories that will aid this survival process. Nnamdi Kanu’s theory of dividing Nigeria and extricating Eastern Nigeria is a doctrine he has sold to the people of Eastern Nigeria, and he is earning good money in the process. This doctrine thrives in that region of the country because the people there have reasons to feel marginalized. Despite efforts by the federal government to invest in the East, its state governors have not helped matters. The evil of corruption has eaten deep into that region and thus renders many of its people poor. The side effects of all these are that the people turn around to blame the Nigerian government for lack of development. In the same vein, many terrorist cells are growing among the youth of that region. Recently, Simon Ekpa, the young man leading terrorist activities in that region but who lives in Finland, was arrested and jailed for this by the Finnish authorities. Kanu continues to claim that these terrorist activities are going on outside his purview – a story that only the gods should believe. What is the way forward?

The founders of Nigeria believe that this country will thrive more as a united entity than a splintered one. By the sheer providence of God, the British saw wisdom in bringing the northern and southern parts of this country together as one whole. Our fathers suggested federalism as a means of welding the desperate parts of this country together. The way forward for this country will lie with how we practice federalism in this country. Federalism suggests two things: first, equal representation of each part of this country within any political establishment in the nation. Secondly, it also suggests the rapid development of individual units of the country at their own rate. It means that the Nigerian government would need to encourage states to become increasingly self-sustaining. It might require that these states have their own security. Because of the increase in the population of Nigeria, there is a need for the creation of more states; but this time with a de-emphasis on collecting resources from the center, and more and more states utilizing agriculture to develop their states and regions. It will mean that states in Nigeria that are oil-producing will get a larger share of the resources that come from their land, and those states that do not produce oil will have to find other resources to depend on. For example, Lithium is quite abundant in Northern Nigeria, and the people there might want to invest more in exploring those resources. If this country can find a leadership that will radically change the process of revenue division in this country, the over-dependence on the center will reduce, and the clamor for secession will be a thing of the past. Because each people group will now look to their state governors. The Federal government will get its resources from the states to fund defense and federal infrastructure developments.

In other words, what will save this country is a scientific exploration of the humanities, especially with regard to how different people groups should live together. Obafemi Awolowo made it clear in his book “Thoughts on the Nigerian Constitution” that only a federal system of government can serve Nigeria. He also made it clear that the vision for a united Nigeria must not stop on our shores alone. We must begin to look at bringing the different parts of Africa, at least black Africa, together through a federal system of government. If Africa manages to unite under a working government and then takes advantage of the vast expanse of land it sits on, there will be no continent in this world that can stand up to us.

When protests line the streets of a country, and people begin to agitate either peacefully or violently, thinking government must bring out the carrot and the stick. The stick is law enforcement – clamping down on unruly behaviors, arrests, jailing, etc. All these are what functioning governments do to keep the peace of the land. There is also the carrot. We must suggest ways forward. We must find a middle ground with these agitators. We must appreciate the fact that Nnamdi Kanu today has a cult following in Eastern Nigeria, and we must do everything to appease them. Governance is not child’s play. Those who seek elective offices should understand that they are there to solve problems, not to line their pockets with stolen funds or feed their ego. It is when the latter abounds more in government that the agitators possess moral high ground to make noise on the streets. A word, they say, is enough for the wise.

Deji Yesufu is a pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

"Awolowo" on YouTube by TextandPublishing

"Nigeria's problems are surmountable." That's the summary of my thoughts as I read the life and times of late Chief Obafemi Awolowo in his books.

Tonight, at 8 pm, TextandPublishing.com YouTube channel will be premiering our long-awaited announcement on Obafemi Awolowo. We would like you to join us to watch the six minute video. You can also watch it afterwards in case you see this later.

Please subscribe to our channel on YouTube as we aim to grow a channel that narrates stories on Nigerian historical figures with the sole aim of bringing solutions to the myriad of this country's problems. See you at 8 pm.

Kindly also share the link. Thank you.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHKoeTnPhQM?si=uR3QrVNstiH4dsKL

October 7 – Two Years Following a Genocide

By: Deji Yesufu

Three days ago, the United States of America, led by President Donald Trump, invited Israel and Hamas to sign a cease-fire agreement that will bring back forty-six Israeli hostages (of that number, twenty are presumed to still be alive). The agreement will enable a foreign agency to lead the government in the Gaza Strip and will aid in the reconstruction of the entire war-torn area. Trump has gotten the help of the Saudis, the Qataris, the Egyptians, and other leading Arab nations to speak with the leadership of Hamas to agree to the terms of the agreement. Israel will not be governing Gaza, and Israel will be returning hundreds of Hamas prisoners of war in the deal. Hamas has agreed to 95% of the terms of the deal. There is one little line, however, that they insist on: Hamas wants to continue to be part of the rebuilding process of Gaza. When Israel learnt, two days ago, that Hamas was still giving conditions, they moved into Gaza and began to pummel the terrorist group. Trump had to call Benjamin Netanyahu and ask him to hold fire. Hamas has only a day or two left to agree fully to the conditions of this ceasefire; if they do not, Israel will be moving into the Gaza Strip with a “final solution”. The cry of “genocide” that the world has come to characterize the activities of the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) in Gaza will not deter them. Every trace of terrorism will be rooted out of Gaza – the only problem is that the twenty or more Israeli hostages left may have to be sacrificed in the process. How did our world get to this point?

Jews and Christians have not always been good neighbors historically. Many Christians regard the Jews as the killers of Jesus, and thus must be held suspect. This is what gave rise to the word “antisemitic”, and it led to an increasing desire among European and American Jews in the 19th century to return to the holy Land and reclaim the land of their fathers. This movement was generally called Zionist, and they began to return to the Holy Land little by little. But it was a typical case of moving from frying pan to fire. What the Jews called “The Holy Land”, the European colonizers called “Palestine”. Palestine will therefore encapsulate the Holy Land, which will include Jerusalem and Nazareth, where Jesus grew up. While the Jews were exiled from the holy land, a number of Arab communities had sprung up there. It is these Arabian people who are regarded as Palestinians today.

At the turn of the 20th century, antisemitic fervor was so rife in Europe that the Jews began to move everywhere they could find safety. America shut its borders against them at some point, and so they had no choice but to head to the holy land. By the early 1940s, it was clear that there was going to be a religious clash between the Jews and their Arab neighbors in the holy land. The Second World War ended in 1945, and the United Nations was put together at about that time. The first duty of the United Nations was to settle the Jews in their homeland in a peaceful manner. In September 1947, the UN suggested a two-state solution, where the Palestinians would occupy Gaza and parts of East Jerusalem; they would also live in the West Bank, and they would also have some parts of Nazareth too. The UN divided the territory in a most even manner. The Arabs rejected this plan. Instead, in May 1948, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon went to war with Israel, and by a stroke of what could only have been called divine intervention, Israel defeated all six nations at the same time. The aftermath of the war left Egypt in control of Gaza, while Jordan had control of the West Bank. The Palestinian communities were then moved into Gaza and the West Bank. Since that time, Israel has held control over the whole region that used to be called Palestine, and the Palestinians who live in Gaza and the West Bank have continued to constitute themselves as terrorists against the nation of Israel.

October 7th, 2023, is now regarded as the new 9/11. On September 11th, 2001, a number of men hijacked four American local airplanes. Two of them were flown into the World Trade Center in New York, killing all passengers on board and another three thousand persons on the ground. A third plane was flown into the Pentagon – America’s seat of military defense. A fourth plane was heading for the White House, but passengers on board that plane overcame the hijackers and crashed the plane in an open field, killing everyone on board. Al-Qaeda, a Middle Eastern terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the dastardly act. The head of Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, became a wanted man. He was killed by American special forces in Pakistan in 2011. 9/11 introduced the Western world to militant Islam. What very few people did not know is that militant Islam is what Israel has been battling from its inception.

When the Palestinians rejected the two-state solution that was proposed by the United Nations in 1947, they did so simply on the fact of the rabid antisemitism that the Quran teaches. Just as every action of militant Islam is founded on bigotry against every other religion besides their own. It has taken close to 1,000 years for Christians to learn tolerance – the ability to co-exist with differing religious beliefs. Many Muslims are yet to learn this. Therefore, when October 7th happened, the whole world was again awoken to the extremism of militant Islam. An extremism that many people all around the world experience on a daily basis, but may not have the media power to cover. For example, Nigeria has been under extreme militant Islamic domination since 2009. Some have suggested that both Christians and Muslims are victims of Boko Haram. This is not an entirely correct narrative. While indeed both Christians and Muslims are victims of Boko Haram, the fundamental ideals of Boko Haram are to wipe out Christianity from Nigeria and end Western civilization in the country. Christians are their primary target, while Muslims may be collateral damage.

The real battle with militant Islam is the concept of a clash of civilizations. Many extreme Muslim adherents are still living in the seventh century, where debates are ended with the use of the sword. The blessing of modern times is that there can be a proliferation of ideas, such that independent ideas can coexist for the overall betterment of society. It is true that there are many ideas today that are anti-religious. It is, however, the duty of theologians and religious people to persuade society against such ideas. Now, if society rejects theological theories for modern theories, we must have the good sense to allow people to do whatever they wish to do. Life has a way of teaching men the right path, after they may have followed some destructive paths. Governments must also endeavor to lead society in such a way that beneficial ideas can coexist. Where such ideas are inimical to society, the government can lead an effort to ban them through legislation. The real challenge with Islam is that many people who profess the religion have simply refused to grow up. While many progressive ideas are very bad, we cannot reject other beneficial ones. For example, Israel today has become the sole military might in the Middle East because it is the most progressive of all the countries there. While other countries in the Middle East were struggling to come out of their seventh-century worldview, Israel has built a military capacity that can take on the whole of the Middle East at the same time. Iran can testify to this fact.

Today, exactly two years ago, 1,200 Israeli civilians were killed on the border they share with Gaza. They were killed not because they were combatants at war; rather, they were killed solely because of their race and religion – Israelites and Judaism. That is genocide and if anyone wishes to know who committed genocide in the Middle East in recent times, it was Hamas on October 7th, 2023. What Israel is doing in Gaza is a just war that is necessary to flush out terrorist activities on its borders. It is sad that there has been a colossal loss of lives in the process. This loss was clearly envisaged by Hamas, and they were confident that Israel’s rage against the Gaza people would lead to many losses of lives and world outcry against Israel. Israel is today almost blacklisted in the comity of nations, but those who know the lessons of history know that what is happening in the Middle East is a necessary conflict of good against evil – and good is triumphing. Israel’s war against militant Islam will spill over to other countries, like Nigeria, and with time, Islam will need to outgrow its 7th-century worldview.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

Source

Dr. Paul Adoyi is the Chief Executive Officer of FarmerGiant Nigeria – which he started in the year 2013 in Lagos. He has since transported the company to the city of Ibadan to take advantage of the agrarian space we have here. Perhaps what was most encouraging for me about the program was that the company decided to unveil its new face on the day of the 65th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence from British rule. Paul Adoyi is a strong believer in Nigeria. He is convinced that Nigeria of today can work, and that the various encouragement that the Tinubu government is giving the private sector will ultimately benefit Nigerians themselves. Dr. Paul told the guests that since it became increasingly difficult to access forex for business, FarmerGiant has diversified its production – so that 87% of the raw materials they need for producing their equipment are sourced locally. The result is that the company hardly import anything today, while job opportunities are opening up for Nigerian skilled workers.

The day was filled with fun: eating, merriment and even games.

Dr. Paul took guests all around the company facility and showed us the things that they produce. So, FarmerGiant, has two main arms: they are into agricultural consultancy. Where they help people set up farms, they help to equip these farms, and ensure that these farms are running and profitable. To prove that they are adept in farm management, they have quite a number of plant and animal farms all around Ibadan. On the flip side, they have also diversified into agricultural equipment production. So, they make incubators to hatch chicks and various poultry equipment; they manufacture various equipment for producing Garri in large scale; they have different milling machines, and all kinds of agricultural farm devices. Dr. Paul informed the guests that he had been working closely with graduates of the Agricultural Engineering department of the University of Ibadan to produce these devices. FarmerGiant is the first agricultural company in Nigeria to go digital. They promote their equipment online, and they can be reached easily on farmergiant.ng.

Dr. Paul Adoyi’s vision is that Nigeria can take advantage of agriculture to be successful. He believes that the large agrarian land in Nigeria can very easily be cultivated by Nigerians themselves to make good money. This way, the country becomes increasingly less dependent on import goods, and Nigerian can patronize locally made good and services. This will make jobs available for the teaming unemployed youths in our country, and at the same time give strength to the economy. When Dr. Adoyi chose to celebrate his company’s new face with the birth of Nigeria at independence, he was making a strong statement that he believes in Nigeria and that agriculture is one of those sectors that can make this country great.

Website: www.farmergiant.ng
Tel: +2348132530775


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47DlEmR_zZY?si=ZWiYGOsQfIGsk2pr

LagosOrigin:
Enough of this Olubadan noise please , he's inconsequential in the scheme of things. He's a local oba appointed by Seyi makinde

Did you read the article? Because if you did, you probably will realize that there is no mention of Seyi Makinde in the whole piece.

Obafemi Awolowo and the Olubadan of Ibadan

By: Deji Yesufu

My background in Pentecostal Christianity gave me a faulty conception of the culture of the Nigerian people. I used to hold the opinion that many things in our culture were fetish and that no genuine Christian should be associated with them. Even adopting titles like “Chief” appeared like an anathema to me. I am not sure where I might have picked those ideas from, but the almost unanimous belief of many of us in the Pentecostal religion was that those who take up traditional title roles in many communities in Nigeria have sold their souls to the devil. They are men and women who engage in sacrifices to demons, and they cannot be regarded as Christians in the true sense of the word. Obafemi Awolowo changed all of that.

When you read books, you encounter spirits. Books written by dead people carry a certain authority because readers come to the work of these people with a benefit of hindsight, something that even the writer never had. So, a few years ago, the Obafemi Awolowo Foundation published all the written works of the sage again – including a book written on HID Awolowo by Wale Adebanwi. Then I had the good fortune of finding the resources to purchase these books. I then found the time to read all the books, numbering about thirteen, and Obafemi Awolowo became unraveled before my very eyes. The stories we heard about Awolowo were that he was something of a mystic. Awolowo’s writing revealed that the man was just like every one of us. There is no doubt he was very cerebral and possessed something that is near the prophetic, but reading him, you get the inclination that anybody can become an Awolowo. Awolowo properly documented his thinking in such a way that later generations could pick up where he left off and build on his work. I believe that Obafemi Awolowo understood that many people in his own generation would not see the vision he had for Nigeria. Awolowo wrote of an “educated reformer”; he said that such people are the people who will come and change Nigeria. But this is what the sage said about Nigeria as a nation – it is his most quoted statement, yet many people who quote him do not necessarily succeed at bringing out the point he was trying to make. In his first book, written in 1946, “Path to Nigerian Freedom”, Awolowo wrote:

“If rapid political progress is to be made in Nigeria, it is high time that we were realistic in tackling its constitutional problems. Nigeria is not a nation. It is a mere geographical expression. There are no ‘Nigerians’ in the same sense as there are ‘English’, ‘Welsh’, or ‘French’. The word ‘Nigerian’ is merely a distinctive appellation to distinguish those who live within the boundaries of Nigeria and those who do not. There are various national or ethnic groups in the country. Ten such groups were recorded during the 1931 census as follows: Hausa, Ibo, Yoruba, Fulani, Kanuri, Ibibio, Tiv, Edo, Nupe, and Ijaw. According to the Nigerian Handbook, eleventh edition, ‘there are also a great number of other small tribes too numerous to enumerate separately…”

When people quote the sage here, they give the impression that Awolowo was saying Nigeria was not a nation but only a mere geographical expression. While he did write that statement, that is not what he meant. Awolowo was writing a book with the British, the white man, as his first audience. He was arguing in that book on a number of reasons why Nigeria should be given independence as soon as possible. He was helping his white readers understand that the country they refer to as Nigeria is not a nation “yet” in the strict sense of the word – at that time, it was still largely a mere geographical expression. His main point was this: Nigeria is a conglomerate of nations. Because one of the main defining elements of nationhood is that the people speak the same language and have the same historical origin. This is why he mentioned the English, Welsh, or French. One could also add: German, Swiss, or Polish. Language is the most important defining characteristic of a nation. Therefore, when you come to this “geographical expression”, you encounter many languages, with people from many historical origins. Therefore, that kind of place is not a nation per se – but a conglomerate of nations. Awolowo made this point to argue for the concept of federalism – a political theory that allowed for hundreds of nations to associate together in a harmonious manner. Nigeria will later adopt federalism as a political structure, even though we are yet to perfect the spirit and character of federalism as a country.

Now, when you understand the point that Nigeria is a conglomerate of nations, then you can appreciate why there is such a thing as a nation of the Yoruba in Nigeria. And even within the Yoruba nation, you have other nations that are defined by their peculiar dialect: the Oyo-Yoruba, Egba, Ibadan, Ekiti, Ondo, etc. In the 1930s, Nigeria’s population was approximately 40 million people. In the 1960s, our population was nearing 60 million. Today, Nigeria has approximately 220 million living within this geographical expression. Our population may have grown about four times what it was in the 1960s. My point here is this: the population of the Yoruba nation today may even be more than the population of the whole of Nigeria in the 1960s. Therefore, it is important that as time goes on, and as the country increases in population size, certain nations within the country must be recognized. The Ibadan people are a historically significant group, and having an Olubadan today rule over them is akin to having a distinct nation within the overall federal nationhood of Nigeria. This is the reason why celebrating the coronation of an Olubadan, as was done today, 26th September 2025, is something that is worth the time.

Now that Chief Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja, one-time governor of Oyo State, has been successfully coronated as the new Olubadan of Ibadan, it is time people like him and others in this “nation” begin to consider lifting Ibadan to nationhood status in the real sense of the word. Obafemi Awolowo also argued that with time, Nigeria should create more states. Many have championed the idea of an Ibadan State. Unfortunately, when they do this, they forget a very important prerequisite for actualizing this vision. When Awolowo wrote about creating more states in Nigeria, he never envisioned the time when states would go cap-in-hand to Abuja to collect monthly revenue. Rather, he wrote about “viability” – that a state is ready to be created when such a state is viable – that it can stand alone. A viable state will use the resources within her to build her nation up, while at the same time contributing to the center. Ibadan can become a viable state if she rediscovers agriculture. In the 1950s, Obafemi Awolowo and the Action Group built the foundation of the Western region on two agricultural products: cocoa and palm kernel. Ibadan can do the same thing today.

As we celebrate a new Olubadan, and as the discussion around the creation of states increases, the people of Ibadan should look closely at the point of making Ibadan a nation-state. Agriculture can be so modernized in this place that we can become a net exporter of goods, so much so that one day, Oyo State would even forget to collect its state monthly allocation because it is making a lot more than it is collecting from the center. This is what it means to become a nation in the true sense of the word.

As I went around the city today, I saw people who were really happy to have Ladoja on the traditional seat of their forefathers. I hope that Ladoja will bring his wealth of experience as a former Governor to bear on making Ibadan such a prosperous hub that the Nigerian nation will have no qualms granting Ibadan a state status in the days to come. If this happens, Obafemi Awolowo could smile from the great beyond as he sees one of his greatest visions for Nigeria come to pass. A vision where all ethnic groups, all nation states within this country, become self-sufficient, viable, prosperous, and beneficial to their people. If such a thing were to happen in Nigeria, it should only be fitting that it begins in Ibadan, the Pacesetter, the same town the sage operated in years ago – showing Nigerians that Africans can do great things if they set their minds to it.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

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Brig. Alabi-Isama, Maitasine, and Boko Haram

By: Deji Yesufu

A few days ago, the internet reminded us of the life and bravery of Lt. Col. Abu Ali. He was killed on the 4th of November, 2016 by Boko Haram. For a number of months before his death, Col. Ali had become a thorn in the flesh of the terrorist group. He almost singlehandedly recovered communities after communities from Boko Haram, after the insurgents had taken over those places in Borno State. With the help of his armored tank, Col. Ali would enter into the den of those animals, mow them down, and other soldiers will come from behind to mop up what he had done. It is said that the attack that took his life was specifically designed to kill him. Boko Haram had had enough of him and they ensured that he was eliminated. It is important that Nigeria keeps remembering the men that have paid the ultimate price to keep this country going, and it is the reason why those of us who mold public opinion with our writing, have a duty to share ideas in a responsible manner. We must do everything to build this country up and not to tear it down. It is in the bid to do this that my attention was drawn to a comment by Brig. Godwin Alabi-Isama (ret’d).

Brig. Alabi-Isama was speaking with Edmund Obilo on his internet broadcast, State Affairs. Among other things, he mentioned that he was part of the Nigerian army effort to quell the Maitasine riots of the 1970s. When he was asked how he did it, Alabi-Isama explained that he would be sharing those experiences in his next book. He then made the point that informed this essay: he said he is eighty-five years old. That during his youth, he did his bit to bring peace to the social fabric called Nigeria. He fought a civil war; he helped to quell riots in the north; and for all these, he was dismissed unceremoniously from the Nigerian Army. He then explains that it is the duty of young men to ensure that peace reign in the country they live in. He would not be coming out of retirement to fight Boko Haram at his age.

For those who may not know, the Maitasine riots were a series of events in the 1970s and 1980s in Nigeria that revolved around the preaching of an Islamic cleric called Muhammad Marwa. Marwa taught an unorthodox form of Islamic doctrine, where he raged against the Nigerian state and roused public sentiments against the government – especially the police. Marwa instigated young men through his preaching, who then began to fight the police and the soldiers. In the process, thousands of people were killed. Marwa himself was killed in 1980, but an element within that sect tried to resuscitate itself in the early 1980s but was forcefully put down by the Nigerian military. The Maitasine riots are the precursor to Boko Haram. Boko Haram was founded on the teaching of another Islamic cleric called Muhammad Yusuf. Yusuf also taught violence against the Nigerian state and, in the same fashion with Marwa, began to kill policemen and burn government institutions. The Nigerian police eliminated Yusuf in 2009, but his doctrine had spread far and wide. Other things that helped to spread his teaching were the coming of international terrorists’ groups like ISIS, who have since teamed up with Boko Haram to make the Nigerian state ungovernable. The simple question remains: Why has Nigeria not succeeded in bringing an end to insurgency on its territory? I will use the rest of this essay to suggest a few reasons.

First. The first would be a lack of professionalism within Nigerian law enforcements. Alabi-Isama mentioned that he and his team were able to round up quite a number of Maitasine faithful without killing any of them. The cold-hearted manner with which Muhammad Yusuf was murdered in 2009 still remains a stain on the conscience of this country. While, understandably, his followers had killed many law enforcement agents, at the same time, the Nigerian police should have been professional enough to bring that young man to justice. Unfortunately, he was summarily executed by some trigger-happy policeman, at the point where he had already been apprehended and was in police custody. How this country has managed to populate the rank and file of its police with men who can not think is something that is beyond me. In fact, one word that characterizes so much in Nigeria is this same lack of professionalism in many of our public institutions. Everybody is seeking money; no one is concerned about doing a job well. It is sad.

Second. We can not avoid the question of militant Islam. Many Muslims take umbrage with me for including the word “Islam” with terrorist groups like Boko Haram and Maitasine. They say that those groups are fringe Muslim groups and should not be considered to be the same as mainstream Islam. This is true because there are fringe groups in Christianity, too, and many of us Christians would not wish to be associated with some of these people’s ideas. What I, however, continue to insist on is the fact that many people in northern Nigeria are yet to come to grasp with the sociological implication of identifying with a country called Nigeria. Probably because of ravaging poverty and very little education, many northerners see themselves first as Muslims before they see themselves as Nigerians. Their allegiance is first to the religion before they make a commitment to the state. In fact, the lack of education in Northern Nigeria leaves them vulnerable to radical preachers who bring ideas that are against the Nigerian state. And before one knows it, these people would have raised an army of unemployed young men and plunged communities into disarray. The whole idea of saying that Western civilization is haram is an idea that is still endemic in many parts of northern Nigeria. Boko Haram are only willing to back their ideas up with violence. Therefore, there will be no end to these kinds of violent groups in the North until northerners themselves make the commitment to the Nigerian state in the same manner that they are committed to their religion.

Third. I am not convinced that Muslims in the south of Nigeria are making as much effort at educating their northern counterparts as they should. The impression I get of many Muslim groups in the south of Nigeria is one of tacit support of the activities of their brethren in the North. If Muslims in the south have made the same effort at condemning the activities of Boko Haram, in the same forceful manner with which they campaign for the hijab to be introduced to secondary schools in Osun State and other south-west states, we might have seen the end of Boko Haram by now in our body polity. Sincerely, the matter still boils down to the question that even our northern brothers have failed to answer. Have Muslims in Nigeria made a commitment to this nation in the same level that they make to their religion? The impression that I get is that many educated Muslims in the south still see Nigeria as a “Christian” entity, and they will welcome any effort to change it. The constitution of this country regards this nation as a secular space. Nigeria is neither Christian nor Muslim, although it gives freedom to all religious and non-religious groups to associate in peace. This freedom should, however, not be at the expense of the well-being of our country.

In conclusion, it is important that we ask ourselves as a people: how much blood of innocent Nigerians will warrant a re-think on how we all have been doing things in this country? Who among us, particularly the elites, will allow our sons and daughters to join the Nigerian army or police? Is it not true that most of the people who join many of these government institutions are persons who do not know anyone and then join the military mainly so that they can survive? We owe it to the memory of the dead and to ensure that our young men and women are not brought to their early grave because of needless crisis in society. If it is true that Alabi-Isama helped quell the Maitasine riots in the 1970s without shooting a bullet, perhaps the Nigerian army will need to call that man out of retirement; apologize to him for his unceremonious discharge from the army; pay him his dues; and then ask him how he did it. Following this, they can then train men in intelligence who will help to bring this needless bloodshed to an end in Northern Nigeria.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached naijareformed@gmail.com

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Mosab Hassan Yousef – Son of Hamas

By: Deji Yesufu

On August 1, 2025, Mosab Hassan Yousef informed the public through several of his social media accounts that he had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Going by his records, his utterances, and what he stands for, it will almost seem impossible that the Nobel Prize committee will recognize an individual like him for such an exalted award. However, perhaps there is something that they are seeing about Mosab that the world has overlooked. If it is possible to understand the rationale behind this nomination (he has not won the prize yet), perhaps our world might be able to take the required step to see sustained peace come to the Middle East. Who is Mosab Hassan Yousef? Who is this Green Prince?

Mosab, as most people call him, was born on the 5th of May, 1978, in what is today known as Palestine. His father is Sheikh Hassan Yousef. Sheikh Yousef is one of the few individuals who founded the religious/political group that is known today as Hamas. Mosab grew up to regard Israel as the foremost enemy of the Palestinian people. His own family lived in the West Bank, not Gaza. Mosab explains that in his youth, two diametrically opposing worldviews were playing out before him. The first was the typical indoctrination that he was taught both at home and at school, which was that Israel had taken the land that belonged to his forefathers, and that it was his duty to destroy all Jews. Even as young as ten years old, Mosab joined up with other young Palestinian boys to stone Israeli soldiers who may be patrolling their neighborhood. He paid very little attention to his studies; his goal in life was to kill an Israeli soldier, and he worked very hard towards this goal. On the flip side, other things were happening within his life that would eventually come to have meaning when he was an adult.

Mosab tells the story of his first whipping. He did not explain what led to it, but he remembers that he was a little older than ten years old. He also says that his dear mother was also made to endure watching the scenario. An uncle had concluded that he had done something wrong and that he was going to be punished. He was tied up and beaten with a whip until he fell unconscious, blood pouring out all over his back. He has never been able to reconcile what he could have done as a ten-year-old that would warrant such brutality. In the same community that pays such a high premium to discipline and the eradication of lawlessness and sin, he was raped by a male relative. He did not mention who this person was, but Mosab explained that the psychological injury of being raped by a man was even worse than the one that led to his being caned as a child. All these, combined with watching how women were treated in his community, particularly the issue of honor killing, where a father would gladly kill a daughter all because she had chosen to take a position in the family that is against the father’s wish. This is besides the fact that women are treated like garbage, and the hypocrisy that follows the covering up of sin just because of the wealth of the individual is quite rampant, where he grew up. Mosab did not pay much attention to these problems in his community in the West Bank. His rage against Israel blinded him to these realities until…

At age eighteen, Mossab decided to take the law into his hands. He was finally going to kill an Israelite. He jumped over the barricade that separated his community from the Israelites and had his weapon hidden. He was just about preparing to take the shot when an eagle-eyed Israeli soldier spotted him and demanded his surrender. Young Mossab was arrested and slammed in an Israeli prison – along with thousands of other Palestinian youths. It was in prison that things began to be clearer for him. Mosab observed that even the Palestinians who were in prison with him did not trust him. There was a strong culture of mistrust among all of them, despite the fact that they all came from the same community. Besides this, there was the brutal practice of torturing fellow Palestinians by Palestinians themselves. Mosab explains that he can still hear the cry of horror coming from the lips of some of those young men as they are being tortured by their own countrymen. Usually, something would have happened in the West Bank, and the conclusion would be that a Palestinian had betrayed their cause and revealed secrets to the Israelites. They will then find an innocent person, torture him, and sometimes even kill him in the process. Mosab explained that the only way he was not tortured was because everyone knew he was the son of one of the founders of Hamas.

Mosab was in the middle of this dilemma when he approached Israeli operatives and told them that he wished to “rat” on his own country people. The Israelites did not believe him, but since they were short on sources, they were willing to give him a try. They, however, ensured that he had lots of cover and that his identity would not be revealed to his Palestinian people. The code name that was given to him for those operations was “The Green Prince”. Mosab took the time to weigh the two cultures he had lived in all his life and reached the conclusion that a culture of death reigned among the Palestinians, while a culture of life was prevalent among the Israelites. Mosab chose life over death. He was released from prison and was sent to the University to read History by the Israelites. While he was doing this, he used his network of connections within Hamas to learn about potential terrorist attacks on Israel. Then he would inform his Israeli friends about these, and they would go to those places and stop the suicide bombs before they went off. This way, both the lives of the Palestinians and the Israelites were saved. Mosab did this for close to a decade, before the Israelites decided to retire him. They whisked him out of Palestine and sent him to live in the United States of America. It was while in the USA that he wrote his bestseller “Son of Hamas”. The book shot him to the limelight, but at the same time brought his life into peril. Mosab has since left the USA and returned to Israel. He says his life in the USA is not safe, with many thousands of leftists and liberals who are championing the cause of Palestine in American universities, and many of them are threatening his life. Mosab was largely in abeyance until October 7th, 2023, when it happened. It was that incident that launched him out again. He had long argued with his Israeli friends that suicide attacks on Israel would not end. This is why it was never his wish to leave his earlier job of unveiling terrorist activities against Israel. But the Israeli authorities understood that his life was in danger if he continued to live in the West Bank.

Mosab’s theory about happenings in the Middle East was fundamentally altered when he met a Christian missionary in Israel and became a Christian. He was able to examine the fundamental root of his people’s hatred of the Jews, and he was able to trace it to the Quran. He saw that the writers of the Quran had made it clear that all Jews are the enemies of Muslims, and that there will be no end to our world except that the Jews are destroyed. Now, that section of the Muslim writ remained largely unnecessary for centuries until 1948, when the United Nations decided to allow the Jews to return to Palestine to live. The area that is today regarded as Israel, and also called Palestine for some people, was the geographical location of the people of Israel as recorded in the Bible. In AD 70, however, Jerusalem was destroyed and a large population of Jews was killed. Those who survived moved into other parts of the Middle East, but the religion and culture of the Jews were largely preserved because it is a religion that is founded on the Old Testament. So, for close to two thousand years, the geographical location called Palestine was largely uninhabited.

That area was called Palestine by the Romans. Mosab’s argument is that there is no such thing as “Palestine”. Instead, his own people are Arabs, who live in the Middle East. Many of them have come to become Muslims, but long before the coming of Prophet Mohammed in the seventh century, the people living in that region of the world were polytheists, like most other places in the world. Mosab argues that the people we call Palestinians today are persons who migrated from neighboring countries like Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon and came to live in the land of Israel. These people are Arabs, and the only link they have to that land is that they have also lived there, especially when the Jews were not around. Mosab then argues that what will make for peace is for the Arabs, or Palestinians if you like, to regard the Jews as friends, not enemies. He says that there are thousands of Arabs who live in Israel today and have come to adopt Israel as their nation of birth, while retaining their religion as Muslims. Mosab argues that Israel has brought light, life, education, and civilization to the Middle East. Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. And that this has made the country strong and prosperous. Rather than its Muslim neighbors fighting Israel, they will do well to work with Israel. Mosab believes that many Arabs living around Israel will not live in peace with Israel as long as they retain that ideological position that the Jews are their enemy. So, when Israel wages war against Hamas in Gaza, Mosab sees this as a necessary counter-offensive on an ideology that is evil at its root.

It is this thinking that the Nobel Prize committee has recognized and has thus accepted the nomination for Mosab to get the Nobel Prize for peace this year, 2025. They are giving him this award for the efforts he made to ensure that suicide attacks failed on the soil of Israel for close to a decade. It was something that went unnoticed for a long time, but after October 7th, 2023, many people in Israel have come to realize how much Mosab has done to save Israeli lives. Mosab’s greatest pain in life was being disowned by his own father. After his book, Son of Hamas, was published in 2010, his father spoke to him on the phone and told him that he would always love him, but Mosab knew what that meant. The following day, Sheikh Yousef disowned Mosab publicly. It was something he needed to do to preserve his family’s honor back in the West Bank. Mosab, however, grieves over the fact that his father chose an ideological position over his own son. It is this grief, and the fact that Israel represents light and life to the Middle East that drives him to do all that he does. If he wins the Nobel Prize for peace in 2025, Mosab’s lifelong work would have become globally recognized and could help bring permanent peace to the Middle East.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

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Charlie Kirk: Understanding White Evangelicalism

By: Deji Yesufu

Throughout my brief years in pastoral work, my greatest on-the-job learning experience was teaching my children the catechism. For them, it is pure head knowledge. They rattle off the answers to all 145 questions, and it is just a beauty to hear them mouth those healthy orthodoxies. It does not make them Christians, but it plants a seed of God’s word in their hearts that will one day grow into grace and knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. My children’s catechism, question 93, asks: “What is the sixth commandment?” The response they give to it is: “The sixth commandment is, thou shalt not kill”. The 94th question continue: “What does the sixth commandment teach us?” “To avoid angry passions,” is the appropriate reply by the children. That aspect of the catechism is called “The Ten Commandments,” and it has helped me to know the commandments off-hand, at least to some extent.

To kill a man is a grave thing indeed. Nobody can create a human being. The formation of the fetus in the womb of a woman is beyond sex between a man and a woman. It is the working of God’s grace that biology explains in a limited manner by showing that a sperm travels into the woman’s womb and fuses with an egg. In reality, it is beyond that. In Genesis 2, scripture tells us two things happened when man was formed: the man was made from the dust, but the man was not complete until God breathed the breath of life into him. Therefore, while Biology has succeeded in telling us how the flesh is formed, scripture tells us that God breathes into every fetus and that clump of cells becomes a human being the very moment the biological process of fertilization is complete. When a man is murdered (or even when a baby is aborted), a tragic end is brought not just to a physical form, but also to the breadth of life, which God alone put there, is suddenly snuffed out. So, a murderer is playing God. A murderer determines who lives and who dies. Besides this, the ground opens its mouth and receives the blood of the murdered. This is why it is biblical justice for the blood of the murderer to be shed for the one whom they killed. Crime increases in societies that treat murderers with kid gloves.

My concern in this essay is not so much about the killing of Charlie Kirk or what appropriate justice must be meted out to his killer. My concern here is to offer a response to a few people who may or may not have rightly criticized Charlie Kirk’s kind of ministry. I am not concerned with responding to the radical left, many of whom are rejoicing over the death of this man. I am rather concerned with a few people who think that white evangelicals of every form do not deserve our pity. I have heard the phrases “white supremacy” and “racism” used with reckless abandon since Kirk died. David Hundeyin, a brilliant independent Nigerian journalist, whose work in unearthing Nigeria’s president’s academic history has made him an international name in journalism, criticized those of us defending the death of Charlie Kirk. He said that we are ill-informed and we are the new Uncle Toms (not exactly his words, but clearly what he insinuated). There have been many criticisms of some of us who copy American-style evangelicalism and who say we simply parrot these people’s way of life without judging matters independently. We are told that we are practicing the white man’s religion, and we should begin to think for ourselves. I hope that my explanation of white evangelicals will help my readers understand the issues, and also help them realize that Charlie Kirk was a martyr in every sense of the word, and his death, like that of his Savior, will redeem America from its sorry state.

First, there is the white evangelicals’ sin.

While a lot of them may not admit it, many white evangelicals are aware of their sin – the historic sin of slavery their fathers perpetuated on the black population of Africa. Slavery is a very recent history in America, and it will take a complete idiot to deny it. Slavery was so bad that it occasioned a civil war in America, and as the war was coming to an end, it led to the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, the man who led the northern parts of America against the South. It is true that the South of America was mostly Christian. In fact, many of them were professing Calvinists – the Christian tradition I espouse today. Evangelical pastors stood on their pulpits and used the Bible to explain away man’s inhumanity to man by making his fellow man crawl under his table. I am very sure that this sin grieved the God of heaven, and it led to the judgment of the civil war that left thousands of Christian men dead on the battlefields all around the United States of America. Many white evangelicals have defended this question of slavery by claiming that it was their fathers who committed the sin, not them. As I will show in the next point, this sin flows in the veins of the children also. Those who say white evangelicals should not be pitied because of the sin of slavery may be stretching the matter too far, though. Because none of us would wish to be judged by the sins of our own forefathers.

Second, there is the white evangelicals’ Achilles’ heel.

The white evangelicals’ Achilles’ heel is their love of money. It is called capitalism. It was love of money that made the slave trade continue for that long. Even after slavery had been abolished, the love of money, enshrined in unbridled capitalism, leads many white evangelicals to follow the trail that leads to money. Modern economic and political ideals have reached the position that neither full-blown capitalism nor unhealthy socialism is healthy for a country. Wise governments seek a healthy balance between the two political theories. It is important to allow for free market and healthy competition that will lead to productivity in society, with employers paying for the best minds to work for them, while at the same time accruing healthy financial gains for greater investments. The government should allow smart and able-bodied men to engage in free enterprise. On the flip side, though, the government must do everything to protect the weak. Marx and Engels have taught the world that the workers are the goose that lays the golden egg. While the entrepreneur must earn a profit, the worker must also be given a living wage. Government must also provide social security for the weak; pensions for retirees; care for the old; health for the sick; schools for children; support for the disabled and infirm, etc. Obafemi Awolowo taught that if African nations were to speed up the process of meeting the First World countries, they should make health care and education free at all levels in their countries. This is healthy socialism that must be balanced with healthy capitalism. The Archille’s heel of white evangelicals is that they pay very little emphasis on socialist theories – demonizing these as Communism – and they extol all the virtues of capitalism without paying attention to possible dangers around it. This is why many white evangelicals in America turn Christian ministry into a means of making money. It is a sin they must understand is ingrained within them, and God alone can bring them to repentance in this matter. It is what has given us the Word of Faith theology. And even Reformed Christianity in America is not immune from the stranglehold of money.

Third, there is the gospel message that the white evangelical knows very well.

The advantage of living in America is that you have access to wealth like no other country in the world. Americans are super wealthy. The implication is that all their institutions are well funded – including their churches. Pastors are paid so well that they can afford to sit down and study. The result of extended study of books and history is that white evangelicals in America are the leading source of sound biblical knowledge in the world today. Their piety may not be as profound as their knowledge, but they have contributed to biblical knowledge in our world today like no other country has. In the past, it used to be England and the Netherlands. But America has today overtaken the two countries combined. There are hundreds of theological institutions all around America today that are ready to provide free tuition to students all around the world. American churches are the biggest sponsors of missions all around the world. Along with this money also comes a wealth of knowledge like no other. Many of us who are learning theology have benefited from American-run institutions and sponsorship, and for this, we are grateful. It is one reason many of us shy away from criticizing American religious institutions, because if truth must be told, it is the person who pays the piper that dictates the tune. This might be the reason why many black men defend white evangelicals.

Fourth, there must be a proper distilling of this gospel message for an African context.

If Africans learn well from the Americans, and we have eyes to see what the Holy Spirit is writing within scripture, we should be able to use the vast knowledge the Americans have given to us, and bring them to solve African problems. What I disagree with many Nigerians who are evangelicals like me is that I refuse to bring America to Nigeria. At seminary, I was taught contextualization. I was told that the gospel message is the same everywhere, but the context in which it would be disseminated would differ from country to country. How you will preach the same gospel that the Americans are preaching, while preserving the Nigerian context, is something only the Spirit of Jesus can teach. What many Nigerians do is just to imitate the Americans or their British teachers. But this might not be practical in an African context. So, the minister thinks through problems, prays about them, and then God gives him wisdom to solve those problems. For example, I understand that the people of Ilesha, my hometown in Osun State, rejected Christianity because the missionaries who came to preach to them insisted that polygamous men could not be accepted in the church. My forefathers simply turned to Islam because it permitted polygamy. On the other hand, the right answer to that matter was that a polygamous man can be accepted in church, but he would be required not to add to his wives, and he would not be able to hold any office in church. There are hundreds of other examples. The main thrust here is simple: gospel knowledge is not British or American knowledge. It is biblical knowledge that gives the man of God the initiative to solve day-to-day problems. The black African must be able to rise above the narrow mindset of his white evangelical counterpart.

Fifth, there is a Savior who saves all men in spite of their sin.

The biggest lesson of the gospel is that all men are sinners. What those who criticize Charlie Kirk and other white evangelicals fail to see is that they also are sinners. The history of slavery in Africa is worse than anything ever recorded in American slave history books. In fact, the white men succeeded at enslaving other black men because the blacks were already enslaving themselves, and the whites only offered better financial rewards. The kind of sin in the hearts and minds of black men is not any worse than the sin in the hearts of white men. We are all sinners, and the gospel teaches that Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins. It is a glorious day when the Holy Spirit helps you and me to look beyond the sin of others and to recognize sin within our own hearts. When men realize that they have sinned, the debates end, and there is humble contrition. There is usually forgiveness that follows, and a healthy erasing of wrongs done in the past. The social justice people lost me when they claimed that the white evangelical must bear the sins that his fathers committed. If the black African does not bear the sin of his own fathers, why should we demand the same standard from other people? Christ is able to save men to the uttermost, and the Christian message is neither a British nor an American message. It is wisdom from above; it is God’s means of saving men from sin and then reconciling all men together beyond skin coloration.

Conclusion

As I sat down to write this essay, it was reported in the news that the killer of Charlie Kirk has been found. The murderer is 22-year-old Tyler Robinson. He is a radical left young man whose father handed him over to law enforcement. I hope the state of Utah brings the fullest wrath of the law against him. The biblical counsel is that when a man kills another man, justice demands that he also must be killed. It is all these silly leftists who have encouraged the abolishing of the death sentence. When people understand that when they commit a crime, they can go off the hook, they continue in it. This idea is not a white evangelical one; this is what scripture teaches. And this is where I part ways with white evangelicals: it is possible for many leading white evangelicals to teach doctrines that will preserve their sins in society. It is, however, our duty to point out their errors to them. Now, the fact that they do these things does not mean that biblical wisdom is wrong. The truth of the Bible far exceeds all the wisdom that white evangelicals can know or teach. When you know God and can be taught by the Holy Spirit, you have something that many white evangelicals cannot have.

Deji Yesufu is the pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANTY. He can be reached at naijareformed@gmail.com

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