₦airaland Forum

MaxInDHouse:
Who are CHRISTIANS?

People who believe in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.

Yep

Sapasenator:
No. I get paid to watch videos.

Oh. I see

Sapasenator:
Why not? Use better toothpick self after eating the Sallah Meat.

Did you watch the video?

LordIsaac:
Yes, if they are hungry. All there is to it is sanctifying it in the name of Jesus and giving thanks to the Father for delivering us from the sacrifices of rams!

Yep

Cesarr1:
Sebi you get option na

Abi o... lol

It is a question many Christians ponder, as their Muslim neighbours invite them to feast. Deji Yesufu speaks on the subject in this video:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWfTHNNlRX4?si=5dpVXB9tvMl18-3P

A Comment from a Reader:


Atiang Jonathan sent me to this note with regards to my article on my family:

Good day sir. I hope you and the family are doing well?

I read your article yesterday and the writing was very smooth and the story telling even more captivating. Very interesting and useful was your short interjection of the WWII’s D-Day scene and pointing to impact the judge’s mindset and worldview. Co-incidentally I had started a historical tv mini-series “Band of Brothers”; a good retelling of the war through the eyes of “Easy Company,” the 101st division of the US Allied fighters. I have watched the series slowly (In fact I have not seen it in almost two months), partly because of time and partly because of its impact on me emotionally. It often leaves me contemplating such profound themes as death, the brevity of life, friendship, comradeship, brotherhood and sacrifice.

The interesting thing, however, is that I had not realised the relationship between your brief story and the TV series. It excited me greatly to have discovered that reading a short blogpost this morning whose excerpt I shall post shortly. I must say your article has gone beyond what you intended, concretized this piece of history in my mind.

However, some discrepancy (if its anything as such. Since it may just be a matter of judgement) with the blogpost on the outcome of the war, made me decide to share this with you while taking the chance to share my gratitude. You supposed on your article that the allied forces were too confident in their victory not to have realized the danger Hitler’s forces would still pose, and hence, lost a lot of men. The death poll really supporting your view. However, the history expert in the blogpost I read seems to suggest that the allied lost fewer men than they anticipated and had a good win. Here’s the short statement, partly on the tv series and partly on D-Day:

“This is one of the great scenes, I think, in television history. They’ve gone through enormous lengths to make sure it’s pretty accurate, they’ve put the cast through the type of tactical training these men would have gone through, the sound design, the weapons are accurate. They fired World War II weapons to create an accurate soundscape, and it shows the importance of small units of well trained, well led men, each playing their part on D-Day and it’s the sum total of all those small actions that meant that D-Day was a success and the Allies suffered less casualties than they’d feared when they hit those beaches.”

Band of Brothers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKRBAFlN5ww?si=Sy95poleN60WAdIe

The Story Behind a 24-Year-Old Photo

By: Deji Yesufu

I will begin to tell this story from a courtroom in the United States of America. My mother, Henrietta Temilola Yesufu (nee Williams), stands before a judge. My baby sister, Adewumi Yesufu, is about eight years old and standing beside her mother. The prosecuting team, acting on behalf of the State, are threatening to deport my mother back to Nigeria because she had overstayed her study visa to the USA. The Judge, a particularly mean man (mother said that his handicap might have contributed to his mean spirit), explains that there is no reason why he would not grant the prosecution their wish to send mother back to Nigeria. The year would be around 1993.

Mother tells the judge that she has been a good citizen, and contributes immensely to the community as a teacher, handling a particularly difficult aspect of the State of California – Compton (those who know that this is where Dr. Dre came from, understand mother’s point). My mother then goes ahead to add that she even wishes that her four sons, who are still in Nigeria, join her in the USA. The judge was not going to have this line of thinking. He shot back: “… if war were to break out in Nigeria today, those boys should be fighting to preserve their country…” Mother told me later that she replied to the man under her breath: “My sons would not fight Nigerian wars”. Mother was wrong.

Facebook has this thing where people try to recreate photos of themselves after many years. When my brothers and I took this photo yesterday, nobody was thinking of recreating anything. My sister-in-law, Comfort Yesufu, was the person who continued to press us to take photographs. The truth of the matter was that I was not in the mood for taking photographs, and if ever one has taken a photo reluctantly, this is one. My niece, Divine Yesufu, had to plead with us to smile after the first shot she took appeared like men heading to a mourning house. But one should thank God for family. Everybody is wired differently in a family setting. While the men are thinking about preserving and providing, the women are thinking of feeding and merry-making. That was the mood that we all were in when we visited my father in his house, here in Ibadan.

My elder brother, Toro Yesufu, had come in from Abuja with his wife, Comfort, and two daughters: Divine and Davina. My brother’s son, Daniel, is in the university, writing his final exams, and trying to graduate as an Accountant. He could not join the party. I brought my two kids, Adesola and Iseoluwa, to see their grandfather: Disu Adeyemi Yesufu. My immediate younger brother, Adebowale Yesufu, standing to my right, also had his wife, Kemi, and children, Dapo and Dolapo, around. Then there is our youngest brother, Adeoye Yesufu, at the extreme left of the photo – he is the brain behind putting together the 24-year-old photograph. Adeoye was in town from Lagos with his wife, Halima, and two children: William and Abigail.

The real heroine of these photos, my mother, is not in the picture. I have no doubt however that she is with us in the spirit. Mother died in April 2006, after years of battle with breast cancer. Before she passed away, she had completed a doctoral study and she was awarded the degree posthumously. My mother is not just a hero to us, and her children, she has also been a hero to hundreds of other people. My elder brother, Toro, tells the story of how he went to Ikom, Cross River State. While working at the Federal Government School there for his National Youth Service, he met one of mother’s colleagues at the Unity Schools where mother taught French before she left Nigeria in 1988 for a Master’s degree in photography. When the man heard that my brother was “Yesufu”, he immediately asked to know whether he was in any way related to one Mrs Yesufu who taught at FGGC Bakori between 1983 and 1988. My brother told him proudly that that woman was his mother.

I cannot remember how many times people have stopped me and asked to know if I am the son of one Mrs. Yesufu, I also always reply proudly that she was my mother. It is instructive to know that Mother spent only five years in the Nigerian Unity Schools system, but she is still remembered by everyone whose life she touched. I once attended a book presentation by Ayisha Osori (“Love Does not Win Elections”). Ayisha mentioned that she went to Bakori, and then during the Q and A, I asked her if she knew my mother – Mrs. Yesufu. Aisha was elated – we nearly derailed the whole program with our banters following this. In these days of social media, my mother’s former acquaintances keep reaching me. But our mother’s best achievements must be reserved for the lives she touched out there in the United States, particularly in the State of California, before she passed at the very young age of 54.

Every one of us grieves differently, and besides grieving the loss of a mother, I also grieve the loss of a nation. When Mother told me the story of that judge, I always wondered what exactly was wrong with that man – denying my brothers and me the opportunity to go to America. I began to however understand that judge’s mind as I read history. Once upon a time, a madman invaded our world. His parents named him Adolf Hitler, and for whatever this information is worth, no one today bears “Hitler” in Europe anymore. Hitler possessed a grand plan: he felt that he alone had the idea to rule the world. Germans are the greatest of human species, and only Germans, of pure Germanic blood, must rule nations, he argued. Hitler held contempt for the idea of taking colonies in Africa (I am learning from reading Obafemi Awolowo’s autobiography that Britain offered Hitler Nigeria in 1938 as a colony).

Instead, Hitler felt he must rule the whole of Europe. World War 2 began with Germany taking nation after nation in Europe. They only avoided conquering Britain because of the English Channel, the large swathe of water separating continental Europe from Britain. But Britain suffered the Blitz. Then one day, Hitler had another idea. Rather than fighting Britain, he could conquer Joseph Stalin’s Russia, win over the Soviet people’s oil, and use those resources to conquer the rest of the world. Somehow, Hitler had never read the story of Napoleon’s wars well. Napoleon began to suffer defeats only after he had tried to conquer Russia. Napoleon did conquer Russia but the sheer number of men and resources he expended in doing it, led to his Waterloo eventually. Hitler may have believed that by invading Russia with three million men, he would not have a Napoleonic experience. Unlike Napoleon, about a century before that time, Hitler failed to take Moscow. As his men withdrew in defeat, returning with their tails between their legs to Berlin, the Allied forces invaded France in 1944 (which at this time was under German rule).

D-Day landings is what I believe that judge was talking about. As the Allied Forces brought a total of 850,000 men to the shores of Normandy, France, it was certain that a wounded Hitler was only about facing defeat. But there is a problem with a wounded man – he fights to stay alive. The first swathe of young men that invaded Normandy that day on June 6, 1944, were mostly boys between the ages of 16 and 22. These boys did not have cover from enemy shooting and the Allied had wrongly believed that the aerial bombing that went before them would have hit most of the German snipers on the beach. They did not. The story of D-Day is this: the first set of soldiers that hit the beach, all young men, paid the ultimate price. The Allied forces then had to rely mainly on human shields and the fact that the German snipers would continue to shoot and kill until they ran out of ammunition. The D-Day landings owe its success to the sheer number of men that invaded France that day. The Germans killed and killed until they could kill no more. 4,414 Allied men died on D-Day alone. The remaining forces that kept moving on the shores, took Normandy and brought the second world war to an end. This is what was behind the thinking of that judge when he denied my mother bringing her four boys to America. “Your boys will fight the wars when it breaks out in your land…”, just as some boys fought the war, and paid the price, for the liberty that many Nigerians go abroad to enjoy through japa.

My elder brother, Adetoro, would be fifty in December 2024. His first son, Daniel, would be graduating that same month – by the grace of God. While we have not fought physical wars, my brothers and I have waged economic wars throughout our stay in Nigeria. Mother’s dream to bring us to the USA never materialized, and at some point, we had the good sense of facing our lives here in Nigeria and making the best of it. It is the thoughts of some unrealized potential within my family, which had been wasted by evil men that left me depressed throughout the family reunion yesterday. Whatever the case might be, the wisdom behind these photos and the story in them should be told. The wisdom is this: despite all the challenges, God has been extremely kind to my family. We have enjoyed good health; everyone has their children; our children are well and are doing well in their education; our homes are together; our father is still alive at seventy-five; and God has been very good. It is a big deal that a photo was taken at Ahamdu Bello University Zaria’s first gate, and that picture can be recreated twenty-four years later, with all the persons involved still alive and well in it. We will not always have it this way but while it lasts, we have every reason to thank God.

That, my readers, is a bit of the story behind these pictures.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY.

Source

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CC: Seun, Mynd44, Lalasticlala

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Something like this...

Blessedpalms:
This is a Lie

Discuss

In this video, Pastor Deji Yesufu explains how Nigerian graduates can make the best of what is available in the country in these difficult times.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnJU6tKzUT0?si=H4m_Hjb07aNSSDGP

NNTR:
James 1:20
for the [resentful, deep-seated] anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God
[that standard of behavior which He requires from us].

Anger has it justifiable place and time, holy anger the more.

Our Lord and Saviour of the whole wide world, Yahshua HaMashiach was hurt by seeing the temple being heavily commercialised, (i.e. turned the house of prayer into a den of robbers) but controlled His anger by shooing them all out

I for one, believe that no one should be taught never to be or never get angry, but be better taught, how to be angry, learn not how to react, but learn how to respond, as anger in the wrong hands, with it being one letter short of danger, can spell bad news

When a mosquito lands on the testicles, no need for advising, that there is always a way to solve certain problems without using anger and violence.

_{Personal text: Jesus is not a theologian. He is God who told stories.}

Always fun reading you

𝗔𝗩𝗢𝗜𝗗 𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗥𝗬 𝗣𝗔𝗦𝗦𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦

By: 𝑫𝒆𝒋𝒊 𝒀𝒆𝒔𝒖𝒇𝒖

A duel is a situation where two men come to settle their disagreement with a fight. Most times the fight do not end in death, but in some extreme cases it does. In a duel, each man comes to the fight with a weapon. It could be a knife, a sword, a gun, or just their fist. In a regulated environment, with an arbiter and witnesses, both men enter into the fight and they settle their grievances this way. In occasions when the duel ends in fatality, there is a prior agreement signed by the two parties that the other person would not be prosecuted. The People’s Profile, a YouTube channel that tells the history of much of the West, has just published a video on a former American President – Andrew Jackson. When Jackson ran for President in the middle of the 19th century, one thing that his opponents brought against him was his love for duelling. On two or three occasions, Jackson had been involved in duels and a few of them had resulted in fatalities.

On one occasion, Andrew Jackson came face to face with a man he had a grouse with. They agreed to settle the matter in a duel. In 19th-century America, duels had begun to experience a decline and respectable men were not expected to fight in that manner. Yet, a few of them engaged in the old-fashioned thing. Jackson and his duelling partner faced each other on this particular day with their pistols. Usually, it is agreed that each person pulls his gun and shoots one time. You are not to fire a second time – no matter what. Jackson, on this day, did not realize that his pistol had not been properly serviced. So, when the guns were drawn, his opponent shot Jackson just a little above his heart and shattered his collarbone. Jackson also shot at his opponent, but his gun was jammed. As Jackson, struggled on the floor, he pulled at the gun’s safety, re-engaged the pistol, and shot the man. The shot was fatal and the man died. The real argument used against Jackson by his opponents during the election was that Jackson did not keep the agreement of the duel: he shot twice, rather than once.

These thoughts occupied much of my mind as I listened to the People’s Profile video. I came to the conclusion that there was something about the Ten Commandments that human beings were losing greatly from. The sixth commandment says: thou shall not kill. My children’s catechism adds: “What does the sixth commandment teach us?” Answer: “To avoid angry passions”. I cannot fathom what kind of anger will lead grown, intelligent, and respectable men to engage in duels except for this thing: angry passions. Jesus likened anger to murder (Matthew 5:21-22), and in a practical sense that is what it is.

The Bible gives us an indication that anger can be positive and negative. There are numerous scriptures that speak of God’s anger. Jesus experienced anger on some occasions. Ephesians 4:26 instructs believers “…be ye angry but sin not…” – in other words, there is a place for anger but we must avoid allowing our anger to result in sin. We understand from biblical studies that God requires us to be angry at sin: both within ourselves and in others. Anything that will occasion sin to thrive anywhere should occasion our displeasure. The Bible also gives us the impression that as God’s people, we should love what God loves, and hate what God hates. If God is angry at something, we must also be angry at it. However, the way and manner we display this anger matters. Anger must be directed at sin and we must pursue to eradicate it both in us and in others. There is no justification to permit sin to reign in us – particularly in the church of God. Having said this, it is safe to say that the majority of the anger men manifest is a negative one and every time we see anger welling up in us, we must remember the children’s catechism: avoid angry passions.

I think the first step towards dealing with anger is understanding that it is a sin and that most angry passions within us do not originate from the Holy Spirit. It means that the moment we feel a fit of anger welling up, we want to bring it to God in prayers immediately. Then, maybe we do not want to talk. Most words spoken in fits of anger are usually not rational and godly words, so you do not want to talk much. Then we must realize that seething anger manifests in many ways – the least of which is in character assassination. When we understand that anger and murder are first cousins, we realize that unrepented resentment is the root of character assassinations. You may comfort yourself with “speaking your mind”, but you have actually done this by misrepresenting that person both wrongly and unfairly, destroying his character and reputation, so that although the person may be alive, in the eyes of those you have narrated these things to, that person is dead. A lot more people have been killed this way than through actual murders.

There is a phenomenon that is rampant in churches: it is the process of cancelling people we do not agree with. This person may be within your own group, shares most of your position on the Bible, etc. But because you disagreed on one point of doctrine or practice, you go to the full length of misrepresenting that person to others. You destroy his character and reputation. The man may be alive, but before the eyes of those you spoke, he is dead. The Bible is telling us that through your own resentment, hate, and anger, you have actually murdered a Christian brother. I have seen occasions where it took decades before the true picture was unveiled. In some cases, all parties go to their grave with a wrong perception of the other person. We owe ourselves a duty to close our ears to gossip; and when we do hear about a brother, we should hear his side first before we reach a conclusion on issues.

When anger is nursed for a long time, the result is a desire to kill. One woman told me that on one occasion, she had actually purchased rat poison potent enough to kill a human being. She brought the product home and intended to put it in her husband’s food. Somehow conscience dissuaded her from doing it. Somebody told me that there is an area in Ibadan where all the people living there are female landlords – the story goes that all of them have taught each other to kill off their husbands. When you live with a spouse and you do not have control over your passions, it is very easy to allow a little resentment to grow into murderous thoughts and actions.

In a similar manner, duels are men taking angry passions to a logical conclusion. Wikipedia explains that with public opinion against duels becoming increasingly negative, the practice has dwindled in modern society. But in the days when duels were practised, even women engaged in the dastardly act. What we see in Western cowboy movies, with two men drawing their guns and shooting at each other, is a duel. The only thing is that in real-life duels, the fatalities were usually not often. But in some cases, people are killed. When anger is unbridled, men lose their sense of rationality and they can go to any extent to settle scores with the object of their anger. It is understandable that people who are not regenerated will do things like this. But for Christians, it must be different.

We must admit that we can be angry; we must also agree that on some occasions we have allowed our anger to result in sin; and most of all, we must submit every resentment and angry passion to the feet of God the Holy Spirit, and request that he help bring them under control. With time, a raging bull of a man, under the power of the Holy Spirit, becomes a lamb of a saint. Nothing is impossible with God. We should understand that a man without Christ and without God has no resources within him to bear fruit pleasing to God. One constant denominator of the unregenerate is that they are always angry. We see it with the road rages all around our streets; we see it in wars – kingdoms fighting kingdoms; we see it in broken homes; etc. The man who has however come under the power of the Holy Spirit has his sinful passions under control. One of them is his tendency towards anger. The Holy Spirit tames and redirects it. So that if the saint would be angry at all, he reserves his passions for righteous indignation alone.

Andrew Jackson’s time in the presidency of the United States of America was not one characterized by the rash decision of an angry man with a history of engaging in duels. Rather he quite uncharacteristically emerged from his time in government as a thoughtful and successful ruler. Jackson was simply a man of his time and the duel thing was something that men engaged in to preserve their honour. Jackson became a military general before eventually running for presidency and ruling America for one term. By the time he was in Washington, Jackson was nearing his seventies and age had tempered most of his youthful temper. This situation, however, cannot be equated with modern governments. The unending wars between Russia and Ukraine is fuelled by the angry passions of one man – Vladmir Putin. The Second World War was sustained by the irascible Adolf Hitler. And America is at the verge of electing Donald Trump – a man known for his unpredictability and also unreserved tempers.

I end this essay by making the point that just as it is important for Christians to have their angry passions tamed, it is also equally important that leaders of nations tame their angry passions. Our world is today a nuclear one. Countries are distinguished by whether or not they own nuclear war heads. Since America detonated a nuclear bomb on Japan in the closing days of the Second World War, no other country has ventured on that idea. It will only take one man, who cannot bridle his angry passion, to plunge our world into a nuclear holocaust. When God said “…thou shall not kill…” and the fathers advised that we all should curb our angry passions, this is what the makers of the heavens and earth had in mind.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY.

Source

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgRYWeEyaYE?si=nal57Ef4CK8DHJSR

“Breath of Life”: A Review by Deji Yesufu

I am on holidays and visiting a friend at his putsch condo, somewhere in Ikorodu, Lagos. I have had lots to eat, a lot to drink, and a three-day freedom from my children’s troubles. Despite being on holidays, I ensure my morning hours are used for my discipline of reading, writing, and a bit of work too. But I use the evening to watch internet TV. Having seen quite a number of reviews of recent Nigerian movies, and with “Breath of Life” starring Wale Ojo enjoying some positive feedbacks, I thought I should see it on my friend’s internet TV – let me add that I do not own internet TV and might never own one because despite not being Deeper Life, I agree with Pastor W. F. Kumuyi that Television (and all kinds internet useless browsing) are thieves of time; and we all can make better use of our time than watching TV – a digression.

I would begin my review of the movie with the positives. I was entirely enthralled by the use of the various sceneries from Ibadan. Whoever came up with that concept has all my blessings and prayers because I live in Ibadan and I love my city. The producers could have used more sites in Ibadan beyond University of Ibadan, but the mere fact that they showcased a few parts Ibadan is sufficient for me. I am not sure how much The Chapel of the Resurrection charged them for using their church for the movie, but I think it is fine. My wife and I were married at those altars in December 2009, and the Chapel, which is the official local assembly of the University of Ibadan, is fast becoming am iconic site in the city. So, the producers scored very high with me for coming to Ibadan for the shoots.

Another positive in the movie was the overall good acting put forward by the actors. Different people see different things in movies. I see facial expressions. Are the actors able to translate into the reality the stories and bring expression to their characters that reflect the essence of the movie? Acting is story telling but via moving pictures. Too many times, I see great actors fail at producing the right facial expressions in their scenes – probably because they have not entered the skin of their characters. Too many times, the only way Nigerian actors skirt around this challenge is by acting only one role in all movies: there is that actress that knows to act only the wicked mother-in-law; there is that actor that can only act the role of the bad street lover boy; and there are those who can not be anything but grandmothers or grandfathers. Those are the only facial expression they can demonstrate. It would be hard to judge the actors of “Breath of Life” on their facial roles though, since I have not seen any other works they have done. It is however safe to say they lived out their characters well in the movie. I should add quickly that the asthma line was just perfect!

Other positives of the movie were that the cameras used were very good. The use of numerous camera angles, drone shot, etc, was excellent. I could also discern the wise use of resources, not unnecessarily wasting money on high tech productions but ensuring best production from limited equipment which they could afford. The producers of the movie also did well in discovering the young lead actor and actress – Chimezie Imo and Genoveva Umeh. While I consider that Wale Ojo and Ademola Adedoyin were already known actors, the duo of Imo and Umeh was an experiment that was worth taking in the movie. Besides the fact that employing young actors and actresses reduces the budget of a film, when they deliver, it launches them into higher realms in the movie industry. The producers scored a very great high by employing these two. And, in summary the story line was original and very moving. It was a captivating story. Having established the positives, I move to a few negative and this would explain the reason I am giving the movie a generally low grading – see the final paragraphs for the movie’s score.

My first criticism of the movie is the simplistic ending that was provided to it. Whoever wrote the story line of Anna (Umeh) coming into the room of Elijah (Imo) did an excellent job. That situation triggering his asthma and then leading him into the hospital was well thought out. I however do not think that it is realistic for a hardened atheist (Timi) to suddenly give up his philosophy of life and then lay down his life for another to live. It is something a Christian may do; but I do not see a hardened atheist doing such. That line was rather simplistic. I think if the screenwriters had taken their time, they would have successfully provided a link between the young man’s health challenge and recovery without employing those simplistic lines.

Second. I think the kissing scenes were totally unnecessary. Now, I understand that Nigerian movie makers are trying to break into a Western market and would need to sell some eroticism to a community that is depraved in thinking already. I however think that the story line did not need those kissing scenes. Yes, boy and girl meet; and they fall in love, but how many of such love scenes result in such passionate kisses – especially between a “sister” and an aspiring pastor. Now, if that is how pastors treat the young ladies in their churches today, I pity the state of religion in our day.

Having said all these, I should then provide my scoreline to the movie. I give “Breath of Life” a 53%. I think that the negatives took a lot off the movie and made it lose quite some marks on my part. Although, sincerely, I usually would not award more than 47% to most Nigerian movies and so for this one to get 53%, they have done very well as far as I am concerned. The positive part of seeing a movie like this is that movie making in Nigeria is getting better and would get better with time. I should also say that my blog is not a movie review one; it is a place where I express my thoughts on various issues of life, especially religion. I am happy to provide the review, however, and I hope that it adds to the overall success of the movie. I think you should see “Breadth of Life”.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is the author of the book [/i]HUMANITY.

Source.

[i]Edited by Mod

Breath of Life Won The Highest Awards At 2024 AMVCA

Best Supporting Actress: Genoveva Umeh (“Breath of Life”)

Best Supporting Actor: Demola Adedoyin (“Breath of Life”)

Trailblazer Award: Chimezie Imo (“Breath of Life”)

Best Lead Actor: Wale Ojo (“Breath of Life”)

Best Director: BB Sasore (“Breath of Life”)

Best Movie: “Breath of Life”

CC: Seun, Lalasticlala, Mynd44

DavSagacity:
Thank you very much for this write up. It's so amusing that some people actually paid to attend the show in the name of Miracles...!!! How gullible can some People be. ? Any body that announces a crusade or program and is selling seat space is a business man not a Pastor. SSuch a person was NEVER CALLED. His stomach ministry and intestinal worms called him, Not God

Precisely

ODUMEJE

By: Deji Yesufu

On the 11th of March, 2024, a popular gospel musician in Nigeria, Dunsin Oyekan, wrote the following on his Instagram page: “Been seeing videos and people writing ‘abidoshaker’ and the rest… BELIEVERS, the things we find funny are a mockery of our faith. We should shut things like these down! No, it’s not funny! You would be shocked how gullible some people are!” The individual Oyekan is referring to is Prophet Chukwuemeka Ohanamere – popularly known as Odumeje. For most of the last three weeks, Odumeje and his promoters have taken over the social media space, advertising his proposed visit to the United Kingdom. To spice it up, Odumeje and his promoters got Flavour, a popular secular musician (known for his erotic and suggestive music), to publish a song where Odumeje’s clichés – citadel, santus sanatorias, ribadu, gandu gagandusa, dabush kabash, lebadushe lemande, indaboske bahose – were used freely.

It should be noted that though Odumeje claims to be a preacher of the gospel, the song was not a gospel song – to say the least. It was a rehash of words aimed mainly at promoting one man – Odumeje. The only thing that Flavor said in that song was to keep stretching the name “o-d-u-m-e-d-u-m-e-d-u-m-e-je….” The music is self-glorification at the highest level and they reflect the concerns that Dunsin Oyekan had earlier in the year expressed. The story did not end there. Odumeje was in London and carried out ministry as proposed. His promoters made a good show of the whole matter and the impression the public got was that Odumeje had a successful venture into the United Kingdom, not until this publication by the Punch of 28th April, 2024, that read in part:

“A UK-based Nigerian, Agu Chigekwu, identified on Instagram as richjoelng, recently called out popular Nigerian Pastor, Chukwuemeka Ohanaemere, better known as Odumeje, for failing to pray for members of the congregation at a recent event in London. Chigekwu stated that he attended the event expecting to see Odumeje perform miracles and pray. He said he was, however, left disappointed after Odumeje only sang and then left without praying for anyone. He said, ‘When he came, he was already advertising powers, abidoshaker , citadel, he will release powers and the one he has not touched. Na so people take come o, filled the place. People came out!’”

The man reported that there were no miracles. He said the prophet arrived at the venue of the event five hours late, with people waiting for him; some having travelled for the event from all over the United Kingdom and others buying front seats for as much as a thousand pounds. That video was widely distributed on social media, so I went in search of Agu Chikegwu’s Instagram handle to see the video myself.

When I arrived there, apparently Agu had begun to sing a new song. He claimed that after his video went viral, that Odumeje found him and explained matters to him. That he, Odumeje, had not come to the UK for crusade but to promote some personal business – maybe his music. He said that was why he did not carry out the said miracles as advertised by his promoters and him. He said in the future, he would be returning to the UK for crusades and then Nigerians in the UK will see “powers”.

The sad part of this commentary is this: Agu, who had earlier made a perfectly rational video, explaining the duplicity of Odumeje, now returns and backtracks on his own words. He began to call on blogs to retell the story he had earlier published. Unfortunately, the deed had been done. Remember how I began this essay: Dunsin Oyekan had warned believers about a tendency towards gullibility.

But it is not only Dunsin who warned us against false preachers and false gospel. The whole of the Bible is replete with warnings like these (Deuteronomy 18:20-22; Jeremiah23:14ff, Matthew 24:4ff, 1Timothy4:1-2, 2Peter2:1ff). In this essay, I will not be spending time to exposit the Bible and its warning against false prophets; I simply want to warn Nigerian Christians against a phenomenon I choose to call “stupid churches”. I will endeavour to dissect this matter and help us to have a little discernment and avoid future “abodishakers” because the Nigerian religious scene is only going to get worse.

While one sympathizes with Dunsin Oyekan’s sentiments in his tweet, you cannot run away from the idea that a certain kind of culture and atmosphere has been fostered in the Nigerian Christian community that will make it easy for an “Odumeje” to gain prominence in our religious communities. That culture, in my estimation, is a certain anti-intellectualism that pervades much of Nigerian Christendom. Once upon a time, there arose a culture within Nigerian Christendom that frowned at the idea of being studious; of being knowledgeable of biblical doctrines; and, one where ideas could easily be shared and challenged within the Nigerian Church.

Instead, we were told that all that mattered was for an individual to be “anointed”. When we confronted such views and made them understand that there was a part of the Bible that challenged our thinking and that godliness is a fruit of man’s collective thoughts, we were waved aside. Instead, Christians were told to seek “power” at all costs through prayer, fasting, and any other available means. The Pentecostal-Charismatic culture played down thinking and exalted the supernatural. It is this atmosphere that has produced the likes of Odumeje. In his own words, Odumeje has made it clear that he has no formal education. And the kind of ministry that he runs does not need an enlightened man to lead it. All that Odumeje and those like him need in ministry is “powers”. It is the reason why they go to London and unfortunately are unable to manifest their vaunted power.

Another atmosphere that has produced an “Odumeje” is the prosperity gospel that pervades most of Nigerian Christendom. When the gospel ceases to be about the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ, for the express purpose of saving sinners; the gospel has become a means to get rich quickly. Or, a means to find healing and health for the body, the likes of Odumeje will emerge and become the popular face of Nigerian Christendom. They will go to London and do gbajue ministry there. In these days when money is hard to find, anyone putting a thousand pounds to buy a front seat at a so-called crusade is desperate to find solution to a life challenge. And this is the bread and butter of prosperity gospel preachers: they take advantage of those who are desperate to find solutions to their life challenges and they reap them off of their hard-earned resources.

I would not have written this article until I discovered that Nigerians, living abroad, exposed to the white man’s way of thinking, are still this gullible to fall for the likes of Odumeje. And even when it is clear to them that the man is a charlatan, they still find it quite hard to exercise basic discernment. If our people abroad cannot know what is true from false, what do you expect from those back in the country? The politicians will reap them off, and the religious houses will slap their faces – and you will still find many Nigerians making excuses for these charlatans. If this is not a perfect example of what stupidity is, I do not know what else to call it.

When the missionaries brought the gospel to Nigeria, the first thing they sought to do was to educate the young minds they had access to. The white missionaries understood that a thinking mind, one that could make logical arguments, would ultimately come to grasp the gospel message. They also knew that such people would realize that life is incredibly short and the most well-lived life is the one spent in the service of others. There is no way we can look at world civilization and not realize that the nations that make the most progress are those that allow for a system where people build upon the past achievements of others.

One person discovers arithmetic; another person uses these numbers to build the theories of sciences; another person, from a later generation, uses all of these to create discoveries that better the health of others; etc. The developed world we know today reached the point they reached because their societies paid premium to thinking and ideas. When a society loves stupidity; when ideas are frowned upon; when the churches are at the forefront of discarding knowledge to obtain “powers”; foolish men become the leading faces of our religion and our politics. And for those who think I have used too strong a language in this article, understand that sometimes extreme measures are required to slap some of us back to reality (Galatians 3:1).

Deji Yesufu pastors Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan. He is the author of HUMANITY.

Source

What God Told Me About My First Crush

By: Deji Yesufu

The year would have been 1990. I was just entering into my teenage years, and here was I encountering a challenge that I would today say remains a life-long problem: I had a crush on a girl in my neighbourhood. The real problem was not that I was in love. The real challenge was that it was about this time that I was also encountering the Christian faith in its pristine form. By profession, I regarded myself as born-again, and sincerely, there was nothing dubious about my profession then. I took my religion seriously: I attended church when I could; I studied the Bible diligently; I prayed and fasted – yet I was madly in love with the girl next door. Long before I read Paul’s words of despair in Romans 7, I had also agonised:

“…Romans 7:22 For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: 7:23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. 7:24 O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

As I battled my heart and wondered if I would ever be rid of this sinful nature of mine, God spoke to me. It was one faithful day – I can not remember the events around it, but I remember what God said. I was reading 1 Timothy 5, and stumbled on these words: “… 1 Timothy 5:1 Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; 5:2 The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.” God’s words were clear: treat the younger women as your blood sisters. The girl I was crushing on was younger than me, and I understood what God was saying: treat that young woman as your sister – nothing more. I did not immediately end the relationship. I still battled God on the matter: questioning God like the devil did Eve – “…did God really say…?” If I would be honest with myself, I knew what God was saying and what he wanted.

One day, I summoned courage, and I brought an end to the relationship. I can still remember the puzzle on the girl’s face. It was not like we were dating or married; but there was a heart condition I believe God wanted me to deal with, and with his help, it was done. Let me state straight away that that situation was only the first of many kinds of relationships that have arisen between me and the opposite sex. There have been hundreds of other crushes, but God’s word to all of them has always been: 1 Timothy 5:2 – treat the older women as mothers and treat the younger women as your sisters. As I grow older, and now that I have a daughter too, many of the younger women are no longer my sisters but my daughters; some others, due to age, remain sisters; while the older women are my mother. The only woman I have legitimate rights to crush on is my wife.

I tell this story today as a response to a pastoral concern I am handling presently. I used to think only men crushed on women. I didn’t know that women also crushed on men. And it makes sense because men and women are human beings with inert sexual desires implanted within them by their creator with the express purpose of such desires materialising in holy matrimony. In fact, the biblical solution to “crushing” is not prayer and fasting. It is simply to MARRY. God gave us our sexual appetite so that we can procreate and populate this earth with offspring and so that humanity does not go into extinction. And when the desire for companionship and sex hits a teenager, like I got stung years ago, the solution is to find a lady, marry her, and then find all my desires met in her. Unfortunately, as a 13 year old, I couldn’t afford to keep a wife. So I had to finish secondary school, grab a university degree, get a job, and then marry. In my case, it took another twenty years for this to occur. For others, and in places where things work, such teenagers could be married as early as nineteen/twenty.

Now besides God’s instructing us to treat women with dignity, let me hurry to add in this essay that when I say God spoke to me, I was able to point to the chapter and the verse in the Bible. It would do my charismatic friends a lot of good if they realize that God’s objective words are stated in the Bible alone. What God told me in 1990 is what he has been saying to every man crushing on women since Adam. It is also what he has been saying to the women in the converse. God’s objective word, as stated in the Bible, is relevant for all time. The Holy Spirit is able to take this objective, sufficient, inerrant, and authoritative word and make them relevant to our day. In the sense that God’s word in scripture can be illuminated and adapted to act both as instruction and/or direction for God’s people today.

To close my thoughts on this subject, let me draw my readers to the supreme need of men today, which is obeying 1 Timothy 5:2. That need can be seen via the sexual revolution that has taken over our world. The result is the birth of unwanted children, abortion, broken homes, divorce, etc. If men understand that women are not sex items but our mothers, sisters, and daughters, they will treat them differently. You only need to imagine another man treating your mother, sister, or daughter the way you are treating that young girl for you to change your ways. The sexual revolution of our time has become so rampant and defiant that homosexuality, paedophilia, and bestiality are the latest campaigns of the progressive man. Very few things define a man than sex does, and the moment a person becomes sexually debased, such a person becomes incapacitated in many areas of life.

I look back now, some 34 years, and I am thankful that the Holy Spirit instructed me to end that relationship, and I obeyed. I do not even consider my “obedience” in this matter an achievement; I think God simply had mercy upon me. And I pray that as many as are finding challenges obeying God in this matter of sex, God will empower you and ensure that your obedience is complete. No one ever gets over crushing at the opposite sex. We simply develop a disciplined mindset at these things, and we find grace in God in finding all our pleasures in our spouses. As for those who are single, well, get an education, get a job, and then get a spouse. Then thank me later.

Let me add something as a postscript: it is one thing to know what God demands of you. It is another thing to have the resources or ability to do it. If you are a person who does not believe in Jesus Christ; if you have never repented of your sins and trusted Christ for salvation; then you have no resources within you to obey God. So, repent today, trust Jesus as your Lord and Saviour, and then God will give you his Holy Spirit. It is the Spirit that empowers and gives us grace to obey God’s commands, as stated in the Bible. If you have done this, send me an email at newdejix@gmail.com, and I’ll share some thoughts with you on continuing in your newfound faith.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan. He is also the author of HUMANITY.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/what-god-told-me-about-my-first-crush/

Steep:
I pray for your quick recovery in Jesus name

Author expresses gratitude

LilMissFavvy:
Sell this off and buy a scooter bike. Power bikes are risky.

It is an option

It Takes One Second to Die: The Story of my Bike Accident

By: Deji Yesufu

It has been my desire to take Christian missions a notch higher in Ibadan, and transportation is obviously a vital aspect of this pursuit. So, after making enquiries on the type of bike to buy, I got myself a Honda CBR – 250CC. I was told it is a good beginner’s bike: it will serve the purpose of covering long distances, lower fuel consumption, and riding at a faster rate. The challenge, however, is that I have never ridden a motorbike before and thus must learn the art. My instructor ensured I got all my riding gears – helmet, boots, and body armour. Saturday, 13th April, was to be my first day riding a motorbike. That day, I covered paddling the bike: balancing it under my weight without power. Then I rode the bike around on gear one – concluding the day with balancing myself on the bike, after powering the machine and gaining some speed.

The following day, a Sunday, the assignment was to build on my previous day speed, still riding on gear one but working on making turns with the bike, both to the left and to the right. I had driven an hour into the day when the accident happened. Before the accident, my younger brother, who had introduced me to power bikes, had told me that I needed to have all my gears on. It was a bit cumbersome transporting all the gears from one end of Ibadan where I lived to the Challenge area where the training was to hold. To solve this problem, my instructor told me to come with only my gloves and helmet. I brought along a boot, too.

After an hour of riding, my instructor told me that bikes become increasingly stable as they gain speed. My assignment now was to build up some speed but still operate at gear one. Prior to telling me this, I noticed I had challenges making turns – particularly to my left. I sort to solve these problems of speed and left turning in another round of riding. Off I went. I rode for a little while and then gained some speed. Then, I tried to make the left turn on that speed level. Unfortunately for me, I was nearing an obstacle that I became fixated at avoiding. These two conflicting thoughts were on my mind when, while turning to the left, I pulled the front brake to the full. The next moment, I saw myself screeching to the floor. The first thing that hit the ground was my head – but thankfully, since I wore helmet, all I heard was the sound of the impact to the concrete floor. Then I think the bike fell on my left leg. As I struggled to lie flat, awaiting my instructor’s rescue, I discovered a terrible pain shooting out from my lower left leg.

My instructor and two other gentlemen picked me up, but I couldn’t walk. The pain in my leg was fantastic. I requested to sit down while they sorted out first aid on my leg – pulling it but only making the pain worse. Eventually, I found a Bolt cab that took me to UCH’s accident and emergency.

At UCH

At UCH and with the help of a colleague, I was placed on a stretcher and taken for X-rays. As many of the doctors had guessed, I had a fracture. My fibula bone in my left leg was fractured and slightly displaced. I would eventually get a cast on the leg and was discharged from the hospital Tuesday afternoon. But that is not all my experience at UCH.

About the time I came into the emergency department of the hospital, a boy was rolled in. He could not have been more than 22 years old. He was unconscious. The answers I could glean from the discussions the family was having with the doctors was that the boy was riding okada and had an accident in front of IITA. He had no helmet on. As they rolled him into an inner room for more intensive care, I saw blood streaming from his head down. About the same point, I had hit my own head on the ground. The doctors were telling the family that he would be fine, except that it would require a great deal of money to care for him.

As I thought on this young man’s plight, I could not help but think that if I had no helmet on, that first impact my head had to the ground could have been my end. It takes only a second for a man to die. My instructor said that our heads are like water melons. Riding a bike without a helmet on is high risk for sure.

What Will Happen to My Quest to Ride a Bike?

My instructor told me that bike riding is extremely risk free, if you follow the guidelines. As a first-time rider, the possibility of falling is 100%. It means that I should have followed my brother’s instruction to be fully geared up. The twist to my leg, which resulted in fracture, was because I was wearing oversized boots. A more fitted boot would have prevented the turning of the leg and subsequent fracture. Thankfully, I had my helmet on. If not, I would have been sending this article to you from the land of the dead.

My quest to ride a bike remains. As soon as I get better, I return to my lessons. Except that this time, I would have my gears all on, and I would get better fitted shoes. Every endeavour in life comes with risks and setbacks, and only quitters lose the fight. Riding a lower powered bike on the streets of Ibadan will solve for me the challenges of cost of fuel, ease of accessing rural communities, and promptness. It will be “gospel on okada”, a reality show I am already thinking of in the same guise with Itchy Boots, except that I will not be traveling from Holland to Nigeria; but taking the good-news to inner communities of our society. My accident is a small setback at achieving this great ideal. Join me in thanking God for a great deliverance while praying God’s mercies on my trips as I seek to reach the nations on two wheels.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan. He is also the author of HUMANITY.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/it-takes-one-second-to-die-the-story-of-my-bike-accident/

ThothHermes:
I read your blog on Selman and I think like his other detractors, you are driven by envy and not any desire to advance the Gospel. I am willing to discuss all the "points" you raised against him if you are.
Criticizing Joshua Selman is one of the fastest ways to gain traction it seems. Even you admitted that your piece on him is the most read on your blog.
There's is a preacher Takim on YouTube whose only claim to relevance is talking against Joshua Selman.
Na envy dey worry all of Una. You just don't know it.

When you reduce a weighty matter like this to mere issue of gaining traction, you lose me. If you wish to discuss points raised, good. But to read motives that are simply not there, is really a waste of my time engaging it

The Problem with Paul Eneche

By: Deji Yesufu

This past weekend, the Internet went agog with a matter of a “testimony” given at Paul Eneche’s church – Dunamis International Gospel Centre. One Veronica Anyim came forward to testify of what God has done in her life. With very limited spoken English, this dear woman talked about how she became a graduate of law – the first graduate in her lineage. She attributed her success to God and to, in the tradition of modern Pentecostals, the “commission” of Paul Eneche. She was, however, interrupted by the General Overseer, Eneche, who questioned the veracity of her testimony. According to him, graduates of law are not given BSc but LLB. Therefore, her testimony was a lie, and she was asked to leave the stage while other members of the church were warned against giving false testimonies. While it is true that graduates of law are not given BSC, the Foundations for Investigative Journalism (FIJ) discovered that Anyim is a true graduate of National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN). They wrote:

“To verify Enenche’s claim, FIJ reviewed NOUN’s Comprehensive Graduation List for the 2024 convocation. In this document, the newspaper found Anyim Veronica Nnenna, with Matric Number NOU133971176, listed as an LLB recipient. She bagged third-class honours… FIJ also found her project topic filed under NOUN’s Projects Administration System (PAS). Her topic was ‘The Legal Framework Regulating International Peace-Keeping, Building And The Role Of Nigeria Police Force’…”

The challenge with this matter is the spirit Paul Eneche brought with it. The discerning will discover many things to be wanting about the exchange at that church. First, what is a “testimony time” doing in a worship service? Second, would Eneche have questioned this woman’s claims if she was speaking impeccable English and exuded wealth? Why did it require social media uproar for Dunamis Church to respond to this matter? Where is charity in Eneche’s initial actions? Answers to these questions will show the discerning the problem with Paul Eneche and why those looking for church associations should stay from gatherings led by the likes of Paul Eneche.

Testimony Time. One wonders what “testimony time” is doing in a Sunday morning worship service. We are told that it gives opportunities for people to learn what God is doing in the “commission”. A church whose first principles are the working of miracles and the divine validation of God on the minister is forever looking for new miracle stories to bolster this position. The testimony time is a time to tell everyone that God is blessing the church and a reason for everyone to stay in the gathering. When you understand that God is both in the good, the bad, and the ugly situations that occur in the Christian’s life, you realize there is no need for any divine approbation. All we need is obedience to God, and we leave outcomes to him. The minister of a church should care for and celebrate the weak and needy even more than those experiencing so-called miracles. Testimony time is both unbiblical and unnecessary in church.

The Minister’s Authority. Another problem with Eneche is the authority he appears to exude in that local church. Eneche appears to be only next to God in that gathering, and since God can not be seen, Eneche is the all in all in that church. This is the perfect picture of the General Overseer in Pentecostal Churches in most places around the world. Even if we were to allow that a “testimony time” is permissible in a meeting, why will the minister suddenly interrupt a segment of worship? He is able to do this because he wields an authority in that church that is way beyond the authority God has given any man in a local church. The biblical position is for a number of men, not one man, to oversee a church – and a godly assembly must be constituted with mature members who love God and are committed to each other. A gathering like this should never have one man as the conspicuous face of the church, whose words are final and can even interrupt sessions during public worship. Those people are supposed to be worshipping Christ, not Paul Eneche.

Conclusion. My first essay on Paul Eneche was in 2018, where I criticised his building of a Dome, the opening of which coincided with the death of John Chau (that essay is now published in HUMANITY). Chau was killed by the natives of an unreached people group on an Indian island. Chau felt the need to bring the gospel to these people. I compared Chau heart with those of Eneche who appears to only revel in gathering more and more people under a roof – his dome. The moment his own uncharitable statement in church began to threaten the gathering under his dome, he released a statement talking about some supposed love and care they have for insignificant people like madam Anyim. I do hope that people will discover quickly that Paul Eneche and individuals like him are not leading churches with the hope of bringing their members to God’s kingdom. The gospel they preach, the prosperity gospel, is defective; they possess very little quality of life that lends itself to be Christian; and they are about the first to trample on the weak whom Christ has called the true pastor to feed (John 21:15-17). These are the problems with Paul Eneche and men like him, and people must possess discernment to stay away from them.

Deji Yesufu pastors Providence Reformed Baptist Church Ibadan, situated at the University of Ibadan.

Source

TGCML:
Where Can I get WAEC, NABTEB and NECO Scratch Card Online?

https://triplegltd.com.ng/

Not here. Certainly

CC: Seun

Chukwuka319:
95% of Nigerian pastors would end up in Hell and many sinners would end up in Heaven.

We can be less judgemental

Why Many Nigerian Pastors are False Teachers

By: Deji Yesufu

A lot of people underestimate the power of the media. You however get an inkling as to how powerful media, whether it be broadcast, social, or print, is when you remember how the military government utilized them years back in Nigeria. When a military coup occurs, the soldiers go to the media first. They invade a radio station and broadcast their message to the nation: “…we are not only in government, we are now in power…”, they used to say. And I remember those words with some nostalgia, especially as I recall my father huddled around a radio set in far-away Zaria the morning the government of Shehu Shagari was overthrown by soldiers loyal to Major General Muhammadu Buhari in December 1983.

One group of individuals who quickly realized the power of the media and used it to their advantage were Pentecostal Pastors in the 1980s/90s. The likes of Benson Idahosa, Ayo Oritsejafor, Tunde Bakare and others very quickly latched on to the ability of the television to bring their messages to Nigerians and they invested a lot into TV broadcasts of their messages. They reaped a fortune in the process because people could easily watch them from the comfort of their homes; find the churches in the locality; and then go on to become life-long members of these churches. The pastors invested in the media and they earned a fortune from members’ tithes and offerings.

That is how church became big business in Nigeria. If you follow this narrative, you then begin to understand why the same pastors became incredibly uncomfortable with the emergence of social media. Social media simply came to compete with their space. I remember when I gave a talk to Television Continental on tithing and the video went viral. One Ibadan pastor told his congregation that I was seeking cheap popularity via social media. The same pastor forgot that many of us know how much his church invested (and is still investing) in the local broadcasts of his messages to Ibadan via the NTA Ibadan – which was the avenue through which I found out about the church in the first place. Media is media – it could either be social, print, or broadcast. All of us are trying to reach men with a message; the sin is not the medium of broadcast but the substance being sent out. This is what brings me to Joshua Selman.

Selman is about five years younger than me but one might consider that we are of the same generation. We even went to the same school – Ahmadu Bello University. We attended the same faculty – engineering. Although he read Chemical and I read Electrical Engineering. I also suspect that I had long graduated from ABU before he came in. I write all these to say that despite whatever we share in common, I did not know who Selman was until some young people working with me at the University of Ibadan began to tell me that if I would succeed at reaching the Christian students on that campus with the gospel, I would have to be able to refute Joshua Selman. Sincerely, I did not know what to refute about him. It was enough to know that he is a false teacher since he regards David Oyedepo and Kenneth Hagin as examples in ministry. He was simply guilty by association.

I however took the time to listen to him via YouTube and I came to understand why he is a false teacher. He combines false doctrine with eloquence, suave, and false humility. All of these add up to bring listeners to him. And unlike his predecessors who used the broadcast/terrestrial media to reach their listeners, Selman has taken over the social media space among Nigerian Pentecostals. I still did not have enough in my arsenal to write on Selman, so I asked a young man to write the essay, while I edited and added a few important remarks. That essay has become the most-read article on my blog. And every time I publish it, people come to read it. If I wanted cheap popularity, I could spend all my time refuting these false teachers. But I have come to realize that showing what is false (apologetics) is just as important as teaching what is true. So, I do both. In this article, however, I want to show you why many Nigerian pastors are false teachers.

They teach false doctrine. Christianity stands and falls on doctrine, doctrine, and doctrine. What you teach, not how you look; not what you wear; not how much you own; but your doctrine is everything. It will determine whether you and your listeners will be saved at the end of life (1 Timothy 4:16). Teaching, teaching, and teaching, is all that Christianity is. Many Nigerian pastors are therefore false teachers because they teach a gospel of health and wealth – the prosperity gospel. The trouble with the gospel of prosperity is that it comes in many shades and it requires some discernment to know it. There are those pastors who teach full-blown prosperity – all they talk about is money. They tell you how God has blessed them because they now own houses abroad; they have churches abroad; their children school in foreign countries; etc. At the core of their message is money, money, and money.

These are full-blown prosperity gospelers and many Nigerians have become quite discerning of them now and they are beginning to lose market. Others are less subtle. Their own brand of the prosperity gospel comes in the guise of the Word of Faith teaching. They teach healing, prosperity, faith, positive confession, and that suffering is sin. These are the disciples of Kenneth Hagin. They tell you that Hagin wrote “Midas Touch” and condemned the first group, but they do not tell you that Hagin never repented of his own false gospel till he died. A third group are those who have succeeded in taking the Word of Faith doctrine into orthodox churches. So, you see these young men who used to be in Pentecostal churches, but who have now gone to mainstream seminaries. They have imbibed some orthodoxy but at the heart of their teaching is still Hagin. They bring the Pentecostal/Prosperity Gospel messages to the Orthodox churches and because no one can refute them successfully, they are running amok with these messages. It is this latter group that has the like of Joshua Selman as a colleague. In any rate, one thing all these men share is false doctrine. The reason why my article is read by many is because they find it surprising that anyone will call Selman a false teacher. Why? Because they all teach essentially what Selman teaches. Making all of them false teachers.

Their teachings are not reforming society. Societies are ruled by ideas. There is a big difference between the Western world and the Eastern parts of our world because the two parts of the world, despite increasing in modernity at an almost equal rate, have differing ideologies. The West developed on a Judeo-Christian worldview, coupled with a capitalist mentality founded upon biblical principles that the man who does not work, should not eat. Unfortunately, the eastern parts of the world were built on socialism – a Marxist/Lenin worldview that teaches that society can be run with every man on equal footing. Marxism despises religion and the guardrails that the laws of God bring to society are not inherent in a socialist system. The result is what we see in Vladmir Putin today – autocracy. This was the point George Orwell made in his evergreen book “The Animal Farm”. While the West believes in freedom of ideas, the East is run by the idea of the man in power.

Nigeria, on the other hand, claims to have a strong Christian population – with our pastors all over television preaching a gospel. Yet, the one single prevailing ideology in our society is gbajue. Gbajue is a Yoruba word for deception. It means literally to hit someone in the face, and while he is dazed to take away his possessions. The gbajue culture took root in Nigeria following the affluence that hit the nation after the oil boom of the early 1970s. Nigerians suddenly discovered that with very little effort and by knowing a few people in power, you can get your share of the national cake. Those who could not get rich via these means, sought to take advantage of those who had the money already. And since the rich themselves got money very easily, they did not mind losing the money. A culture of deception was entrenched by the military government and many of those who ruled the country following military rule were themselves military men in civilian garb.

If the gospel that these Pastors preached possessed any power at all, and with the wide influence that these men have over the minds of Nigerian churchgoers, who went to church every Sunday to listen to them, this culture of deception ought to have eased out of the country. Instead, the churches themselves perpetuated gbajue when it was discovered that those who possessed easy money would not mind parting with it through donations in the name of tithes and offerings. The churches have grown rich, the people’s moral outlook remains unchanged, the society is depraved, and the nation is known more for corruption than anything else in the comity of nations. If the gospel these men teach their people is the gospel of Jesus Christ, there should have been a marked difference in the moral temperature of the country. After listening to a gospel of health and wealth for half a century, Nigeria has only been worse off. There is no greater proof that the men who teach these messages are false teachers.

On the 13th of February, 1976, soldiers in civilian garb waylaid the man who was head of the Nigerian state at that time – Major General Muritala Mohammed. Mohammed was quite radical in thinking – he did not believe in much security. He drove in his 504 Peugeot car with his driver and aid-de-camp seated in the front seats. They stopped briefly to observe traffic light when these men who had waylaid him opened fire on his vehicle. They put enough bullets into the car to ensure that all three men were killed. The man who led that violence was Lt. Col. Buka Suwa Dimka. Immediately after they shot Muritala, they moved into the Federal Radio Station which was just some distance away from the place Muritala was felled. They announced the coup by stating that Muritala had been killed – they were not only in government, they were now in power. Olusegun Obasanjo, Muritala’s assistant, went into hiding immediately.

The man who saved the day that day was a relatively unknown colonel, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida. Babangida and many of the men who carried out the coup were course mates and the burden fell on him to go and talk to his colleagues to lay down their arms. The radio station was surrounded by soldiers still loyal to Muritala and there was no point fighting on, increasing the bloodshed. Despite knowing that the coup plotters had earmarked him for death, Babangida walked into the radio station unarmed. He said when he got there, the whole place was reeking with alcohol – the boys were as drunk as a skunk – they knew that the coup had failed and could only numb the pain with booze. Babangida told the boys to lay down their arms and they did. Whatever else Babangida’s name has become in the history of Nigeria, what he did that day to quell bloodshed should never be forgotten.

My point in telling that story is to remind us of the power of the media. The purpose of the media is to inform and educate the populace. It was the media that the new generation churches ceased – almost forcefully – and used to propagate their false messages. We know that those messages are false today because they have not changed the moral fabric of Nigeria. Social media is another medium where messages can be used to reach the populace. It is a lot cheaper to use – this is why that man said I was embarking on cheap publicity. I use all the social media handles that my time can afford me to broadcast on. Right now, I need to employ a webmaster – someone who will put my resources on all social media platforms. These things do not come cheap and those who can invest in it will reap the fruit of it in the future. If the gospel I preach is true, God will provide the resources I need to pass my message to my listeners and my testimony thus far is that God has been faithful. I do not need to solicit funds from my readers and listeners. What I need from you is to believe the gospel. To do this, you will first have to “unbelieve” the false gospel messages you have learnt from many of these Pastors – the leading purveyor of this false gospel message being no other person than Apostle Joshua Selman.

Thank you very much for reading.

Deji Yesufu is the Pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Ibadan. He is the author of the book HUMANITY.

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