The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the June 10, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
Good morning to you once again. It is Wednesday, the 10th of June 2026, and this is On the Lord’s Side — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
This month — this June 2026 — the words bandit and banditry are once again on every tongue. They have become a mainstay of conversation in Nigeria. My wife reminded me recently that when we were much younger, words like these felt like far-flung concepts, the stuff of stories and fictional films. But lo and behold, for many Nigerians this is now the reality of the lives they live, and for the rest of us it is the reality that fills the minds of many with fear and anxiety.
You would expect all of us to view bandits with unqualified disdain — to file them, without any doubt and without any qualms, in the column of evil: people doing the work of the devil, whose mission is to kill, to steal, and to destroy.
ON THE BANDITS’ TIKTOK “GIVEAWAYS”
Early this month, suspected bandits went live on TikTok. That, in itself, is one of the most concerning features of the lawlessness in our land — that these terrorists have social media accounts, broadcast freely, flaunt the wealth they have looted, taunt us, threaten us, and even release videos of their captives. It has left many wondering why people with the audacity to open accounts and broadcast from them have not been arrested, and why those activities leave no credible clues for our law enforcement agencies. But that is not the story for today.
Recently they went live, flaunted large sums of cash widely believed to be ransom money from kidnapped victims, and then hosted public giveaways. You know what giveaways are in social-media parlance: an influencer, or someone hungry to build a following, announces that at a certain hour he will go live, and that if you answer a question, dial in, or send something, he will give you money or some other thing of value.
People do giveaways for different reasons — some out of genuine generosity, some to build a following, some simply to be known. Only God knows the heart. On the surface, a giveaway looks like the fruit of a generous spirit, something to celebrate. But here, even bandits are doing giveaways.
And I always make the point — following Paul’s discourse in 1 Corinthians 13 — that generosity is no proof of godliness. A person may be the farthest thing from God and yet be the most generous man you know. That is why Paul said: though I give all I have to the poor, though I give my body to be burned, if I have not love, I am a sounding brass, a clanging cymbal. So we should not be surprised. The Bible teaches us that the most generous person you ever meet can also be the vilest, most ungodly person alive. You cannot know that and not have peace, as they say on the street. Giveaways and generosity do not prove godliness — and if you need any validation of that, go and engage with the story of bandits in Nigeria, men who kill, who kidnap, who collect ransoms, and who now “show their generosity” in a manner of speaking.
The shocking part is what happened next. Viewers — including many desperate Nigerians — eagerly dropped their bank account numbers in the comments, hoping for a share. Some reportedly received instant alerts of one hundred thousand naira or more.
So what, exactly, is the news here? Is it that men who must be categorized as evil went live to give out their loot? Is it the seeming coexistence of generosity and evil in the same heart? Is it that they broadcast openly and law enforcement cannot — or will not — track them down? Or is it that the beleaguered citizens being terrorized by these very bandits queued up, dropped their account numbers, and said, in effect, I want part of the booty?
Many have said that the right response to evil is for it to be roundly condemned by all and sundry. If every evil person knew that being found out meant being ostracized by every well-meaning person in society, that would be a powerful and effective form of social deterrence. People should know that wrongdoing carries a social price. But lo and behold, the trajectory of morality in Nigeria is now such that you struggle to name the act so wrong that the majority would ostracize the man who commits it.
There is age-long wisdom here. The Yoruba of the south-west have a saying — and forgive me, I cannot render it as fluently as I would like — but the wisdom of it is this: the most kind and benevolent person in society will still have enemies, and the most vile person will still have friends. So let us not be shocked that even bandits have people who will associate with them without scruple.
That bandits go live on TikTok is, sadly, no longer news. That they have stupendous sums to flaunt is no longer news — and let us pray it does not become so normal that in three months’ time we are no longer moved by it. What is news, what should make us pause, is that citizens actively participated, wanting a piece of the booty. That should force us to ask what has happened to the moral fabric of this society. It is one thing for bandits to exist; it is another thing entirely for them to host giveaways; and it is yet another for terrorized citizens to encourage them by partaking, rather than roundly condemning them.
Listen to how Arise News reported it: suspected bandits going live on TikTok, openly flaunting ransom cash — one boasting of spending over fifty million naira in a single session, another claiming close to one hundred million, all confirmed ransom proceeds. And the most disturbing part: rather than reporting the streams to security agencies, viewers were dropping their bank details, hoping for a share of the blood money. One user — identified in the report as Odumayo Olufemi — is now crying out for help, having dropped his details to claim a one-hundred-thousand-naira giveaway, only for the bandits to turn around and demand one hundred million naira from him.
The man’s own voice, in the clip, was speaking Yoruba; for those who do not understand it, Arise News gave the background. He participated in the giveaway, gave his bank details, received one hundred thousand naira by his own admission — and soon began receiving threats and messages demanding that he deposit one hundred million naira into the bandits’ account.
So many aspects of this story. First, these bandits use the internet freely — there must be a way to track them; they are not ghosts. We should be talking about that, because we already know it. But look at it from a Christian perspective, and be reminded of a salient truth: you do not get free gifts from Satan. His mission is to steal, to kill, and to destroy — and we have this not from any lesser authority than our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. There is no way he gives you something freely. If he gives you something, he is taking something far more valuable from you. Let that be a reminder.
Many people are reacting to this man’s calamity. One wrote that a man who sees an ambulance leave another’s house will not care until it comes to his own — let him face the consequence of his selfish, wicked act. Another offered the Pidgin proverb that burial rice tastes sweet until they cook it in your house. Another tied it to the falling standard of education. And one comment in particular I loved, and it is worth engaging with: if anyone partakes of that giveaway money — the blood of innocents murdered by these men, the evil they perpetrated to get those funds — that person becomes an accomplice, and their blood will be on your head.
That is the point I had so far missed. It is not only that those who participated failed to ostracize the evildoers, failed to use that social instrument to pressure their consciences toward repentance. It is also that, by receiving part of the loot, they became accomplices — and not merely from a legal standpoint, which may be difficult to prove, but morally. Knowing the source, they received it and spent it, and so became equally guilty of the blood those bandits shed and the theft by which they extorted those ransoms. Equally guilty of all the despicable evils those men committed.
As for the man now crying that the bandits are after him for one hundred million — he may well be in trouble, unless they are merely “cruising,” merely toying with him in a vicious way. They likely know that a man so desperate as to collect a hundred thousand from bandits is not a man who can raise a hundred million. But let us also reflect on the foolishness of those who imagine that when you hand your details to strangers online, they simply vanish into the air. And let us reflect on what this tells us about the bandits themselves: that they are so relaxed, so well entrenched, so unbothered about consequences, so certain they will never be arrested, that they have the bandwidth to stage giveaways. You would suppose terrorists and kidnappers would be people on the run, shielding themselves from publicity, leaving no trail for diligent investigators. Instead, they are at ease. And that is exactly where we are.
Yes, some point to the poverty in the land, and that is true. But should poverty be an excuse for this? This is blood money — like the thirty pieces of silver that Judas could not enjoy. It is blood money for the one who collected it, and for the one who spent it, whether he threw a party with it or justified himself with some “noble purpose.” Remember that Judas could not break free of the guilt that engulfed him, because he knew he was a participant in the killing of our Lord. He was not there at Golgotha; he did not pronounce judgment — Pilate did; he did not level the charges — the scribes and Pharisees and priests did; he did not drive the nails — the soldiers did. But he collected the money that led to the arrest, and so he knew he was as guilty as Pilate, as the priests, as the soldiers. Accepting the proceeds of kidnapping makes one complicit. However small the share, it profanes the memory of the victims and the grief of their families.
This is an occasion for us on the Lord’s side to call people to repentance and holiness. Even in poverty, we must reject evil. Some imagine that sin resides only among the high and mighty and the wealthy. No — sin resides in every house that does not know the Lord. Even people in abject poverty can be the vilest of sinners. Poverty can never be the excuse for evil. Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice — that is from Proverbs 16. God sees the desperate heart; He is Jehovah Jireh, and we are to seek Him first.
So we make two points, holding them together. On the one hand, desperation is no excuse for becoming complicit in banditry — that is wrong, it is sinful, it must be called out. On the other hand, we must be genuinely concerned about poverty, because poverty is one of the devil’s instruments. He dogs our steps with sorrow in this fallen world, hoping that in our desperation we will become foolish enough to follow him. We must not. We must pray against whatever fuels desperation, and avoid it in our own lives.
We must also pray for our security forces — especially the rank and file of the military, those who do not make the decisions but must obey the orders, for they have their work cut out for them against an enemy so entrenched and so comfortable. People need help on many levels in Nigeria: help out of poverty, help to become circumspect with their digital details — call it education, enlightenment, orientation — and, above all, spiritual help. I do not expect anyone on the Lord’s side to have taken part in that giveaway.
Nigeria’s challenges are multifaceted and deep-rooted. They have attached themselves to nearly every institution and nearly every class of citizen. But this much we know: Jesus is the answer — because He alone can transform hearts. These problems do not spring merely from faulty economic policy, or the complicity of the military leadership, or the failures of the political class, or the poverty of the people. They spring from depraved hearts, fallen hearts, hearts of stone. And only Christ can change a heart of stone.
That is why we must keep praying for this nation. As Evangelist Bayo Adebisi said this morning on Prayer for the Nation: nobody should tell us not to pray; it is the weapon we have. But part of our prayer must be that God will move those who have a duty to act. As a private citizen in the matter of banditry, prayer may be all I can do. But there are people who carry not only a constitutional and moral and social duty, but a spiritual one — to act. If a noble end requires human effort, then making that effort becomes a spiritual duty too. The Bible says, through James, that to him who knows the right thing to do and does it not, it is sin (James 4:17). So it is foolishness — indeed, sinful — to pray and then refuse to do what one is plainly obliged to do. For those in authority who have the duty to act and do not, their inaction becomes sin. And we can help them by praying that they will have no rest until they do what they are constitutionally, morally, socially, and spiritually obliged to do.
We do not have only a broken political system and what appears to be a defeated or inept military formation — we have an abjectly broken moral situation on our hands. I pray the Lord Himself will deliver us. He said to Moses, I have heard the cries of my people in Egypt. We are in bondage of sorts — in bondage to these terrorists — and we pray that the bondage will not become total, and that the captives still held will be released.
I have been reading the book of Judges recently, the account in chapter 6 of the angel’s meeting with Gideon. The description of how the Midianites oppressed Israel so fits our situation. They would let the Israelites plant their crops, and when harvest came they would bring their animals to graze, devour and destroy everything, and then withdraw. Does that not remind you of our bandits? They let you accumulate your wealth, then come and demand it by force. They let our farmers plant, then bring their cattle, and dare you to do your worst — or even tell you to go to court. Then they plunder and withdraw. For Israel, God raised up Gideon. And we will not be free of these bandits until God raises up a deliverer for us. For that, we must pray. I rest only in the assurance that it is a good God who hears, and who will graciously answer us in Jesus’ name.
ON SELLING A VOTE FOR A SACHET OF SEMOVITA
Still on the brokenness of our moral fabric — and the foolishness in the hearts of many citizens — there is a story on Linda Ikeji’s blog about residents of a particular state who expressed support for a politician because he gave them a one-kilogram sachet of Semovita.
You know what Semovita is if you live in Nigeria: a wheat-based meal, classed as a “swallow” in our dietary parlance. And you know how small a one-kilogram sachet is — for any family of appetite it might stretch to one meal, perhaps two.
And guess which state? Oyo State — the very state where students and teachers were abducted about three weeks ago, captives still held, with one of the teachers already killed. In that same state, a politician distributed one-kilogram sachets of Semovita, and the people responded by declaring that the 2027 election was “settled.” According to the report, the politician visited to campaign for votes in the 2027 general elections, handed out the sachets, and the electorate looked thrilled as they brandished the food.
The reactions online were telling. One cried out to God in lament. Another said the shame was unbearable. Another, with biting irony, called it “magic Semovita” — you can pour it in your fuel tank or your gas cylinder, it multiplies, and it lasts four years; if you understand irony, you understand the point. Another wrote: these are people whose children are being kidnapped in that same state. And one wrote, Please, feed your parents, so they won’t be celebrating their oppressors.Exactly. That is the point. People are now so desperate, or so foolish, or both, that they celebrate their oppressors. One lament put it this way: from rice we have descended to Semovita — God, I beg.
There is age-long wisdom that says he who is down need fear no fall. But there are situations where the man already on the ground finds himself digging deeper still, as if there were a place lower than the ground itself. We find ourselves on the ground as citizens, and somehow people still find a way to dig holes and go deeper. It ought not to be so.
And this foolishness does not attach only to the citizen; it attaches also to those who make our decisions — though for them it may not be folly at all, but complicity, or some mixture of both.
ON THE “REPENTANT BANDITS”
Which brings me to a story published by Instablog9ja: Repentant bandits kill eight soldiers in Kaduna ambush.
So-called repentant bandits. Many of us continue to be dumbfounded by the policy — from state governments and from elements in the federal government — of treating captured bandits as “repentant.” The pattern is familiar: some are captured, put through a course of training, declared rehabilitated and repentant, given new clothes and a vocation, handed cash gifts sometimes running into millions of naira, and then presented to us as reformed men.
Well, some of those “repentant bandits” have now killed eight soldiers. And that is precisely why I call it foolishness to pat evil on the back, to caress evil — it is the very height, or depth, of folly. According to the report, eight Nigerian soldiers were killed on a Monday after suspected “repentant bandits” ambushed troops in Kaduna State, raising fresh concerns over the government’s rehabilitation programme for these criminals. A relative of one of the slain — who lost his brother — confirmed it, and other sources corroborated it. The families are still mourning and had yet to receive official notification. The bandits were reportedly heading to attack communities along the Kaduna River, between Chikun and Igabi local government areas, when they ran into the troops.
Somebody must reflect on the foolishness of those making our decisions — that they imagine men who do evil will simply desist because you patted them on the back, gave them gifts, and told them to be good, without ever punishing them. They will go back to their vomit. Even people who have received the most acute punishment still return to evil, because evil lodges in the heart.
That is why the Bible says the ruler does not bear the sword in vain. In Romans 13:4, Paul writes that if you do evil, be afraid, for the one in authority does not bear the sword for nothing — he is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. That is the biblical view of government, and the biblical duty of those who govern. To provide security for life and property is not only a constitutional duty, not only a moral one, not only part of the social contract — it is a spiritual obligation to punish the wrongdoer. That is the only road to peace.
The Bible does not ask us to bury our heads in the sand like the ostrich and ignore reality. It asks us to be wise, open-eyed — to know evil for what it is. So it is foolishness to think evil people will turn from evil merely because you treated them kindly. A Christian does not say, I know this man is a thief, a robber, a man who assaults women, but I will speak nicely to him and all will be well. No — you protect yourself. You have gates, you have security, you lock your doors. Many have been kind to criminals only to be repaid with greater evil, because your niceness does not change a man’s heart. What a fallen world requires is toughness — tough on crime and tough on the root causes of crime. It was Tony Blair, I believe, who made that phrase popular during his premiership, and politicians have borrowed it ever since. That is what governments are required to do — morally, constitutionally, and, from Romans 13:4, even biblically: to be God’s agent of justice, bringing punishment on the wrongdoer.
There is evil in the world, and we must not close our eyes to it. There is evil lodged in the hearts of men. And one of the means by which Almighty God restrains evil in this fallen world is to give us governments — and for government to bear the sword. So when a government refuses or neglects to do so, those in it are failing not only their constitutional, moral, and social duty, but their God-given duty to be His agents of wrath against the wrongdoer.
And so, to all those in political or military leadership promoting that daft — pardon my expression — that ill-advised policy of rehabilitating terrorists and patting them on the back, instead of locking them away, putting them on trial, and letting them face the full wrath of the law: those who perpetuate this are directly responsible for the deaths of these soldiers killed by the so-called repentant bandits. We grieve with the loved ones of the fallen. These were human beings — men with spouses, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, children. Had the government put those bandits behind bars, put them on trial, and deployed sufficient resources to prosecute them, they would not have been on the road with weapons to kill these soldiers. That is why those who promote these policies must understand their responsibility for these deaths. May God console the bereaved. And may God give us leaders who truly love Him, who truly fear Him — wise leaders.
ON NICK REINER AND THE BLOOD-MONEY INHERITANCE
Next, a story from the United States.
On December 14, 2025, news broke that Nick Reiner — then 31, now 32 — allegedly stabbed his parents to death. His parents were famous: his father the renowned film director Rob Reiner, and his mother the producer and pianist Michele Singer Reiner. The killings reportedly took place at the family’s 135-million-dollar mansion in Los Angeles, California, after which he fled the scene. He is now under arrest, facing six felony charges — two counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances, and counts involving the use of a deadly weapon. He has pleaded not guilty through a deputy public defender and is in jail awaiting trial.
That part of it — the arrest, the trial — should be no surprise. That is how a criminal justice system should work. Again, Romans 13:4: the government does not bear the sword in vain. The Lord expects those in government and in law enforcement to see themselves as His agents to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
But this is a young man, not a boy. At 31 he cannot disclaim responsibility for his actions. So why bring the story up? There are many horrible stories in the world. Here is why. This young man, now 32 and awaiting trial, has filed a petition in a probate court — and once you hear probate, if you know a little law, you know we are talking about inheritance. He is seeking access to a trust his parents established for him and his siblings, reportedly worth around fifteen million dollars — some sources say seventeen — with provisions for him to receive half at age 30 and the rest at age 35. The man who is accused of killing the very parents who set up that trust now wants the probate court to release it to him.
He claims the trustee, a lawyer, has delayed and withheld the funds with shifting excuses — including doubts about his competence — and refused to pay for a high-profile defence attorney, forcing him to rely on a public defender. He seeks an accounting and damages from the trustee, argues the funds are already his under the terms of the trust, and that they are urgently needed for his legal defence. “Time is of the essence,” he says.
And how have people reacted to this demand? Predictably — in the comment sections of the sites that reported it, such as Linda Ikeji’s blog — the response has been overwhelmingly negative and outraged. “Useless boy,” one wrote. “Super entitled,” said another, pointing to the shocking irony: he wants payment from the very parents he is accused of murdering. Many called it ghoulish, revolting, the very height of entitlement — to use money from the parent he allegedly killed in order to defend himself against the charge of killing them. What nerve, the sentiment runs.
But from a Christian perspective, we must look at this tragedy and understand that it is truly grievous. The fifth commandment — honour your father and your mother — and the sanctity of life itself underscore the profound evil of parricide, the crime of murdering one’s own parents. No parents should suffer such a betrayal from a child they nurtured and provided for — provided for, in this case, even through the very trust meant for his good. Jesus taught us that out of the heart come evil thoughts and murder, pointing us to the deeper spiritual brokenness, and the influences, that can harden a heart to such depravity.
Is it callous, then, for him to demand the inheritance in these circumstances? Of course — as callous as it comes. Does it not mark a man prioritising self-preservation over any semblance of remorse or honour toward his parents’ memory? That is exactly how it looks. You want to be properly defended against these charges despite the evidence stacked against you, so your concern is self-preservation rather than remorse. And as Scripture warns us against the love of money and the spirit of entitlement, we remember that true justice, tempered with mercy, belongs to God — while earthly authorities, under Romans 13:4, are called to execute punishment on the evildoer. Yet justice must not be denied, for evil deeds carry consequences, both temporal and eternal.
This story reminds us of humanity’s fallen condition and the urgent need for Christ-like compassion. We must bear in mind that this man has only been accused; his guilt has not been pronounced by a court of law. But for those who followed the story when it broke, the evidence against him is quite compelling indeed.
And here is the deeper point. Every time we who are on the Lord’s side are confronted afresh with evil in the world, we are shocked, are we not? We say, “We have always known there is evil in the world — but not this bad.” Not this bad. And so, again and again, we come to understand the Lord God Almighty, our Maker, looking down on the unregenerate heart and grieving that He made man, for the thoughts of his heart are continually evil, evil all the time. We must thank God for the grace that has saved us, for the blood of Jesus that has washed us, and for the touch of the Holy Spirit that has transformed our own hardened heart of stone into a heart of flesh. For that, we must be grateful. And we must never forget that our one duty is to bring others to that same saving grace.
This ties into our devotional today on Gospel Bells Radio, where we are reminded that our only purpose is to live to the Lord. Why, then, are we still here? Charles Poggian, expounding on Romans 14:8, asked: would God keep His children out of paradise for even a moment longer than necessary? The answer is that we are here to live to the Lord and to lead others to know His love. Let us make sure our lives fulfil that purpose. We must clearly define the mission God has given us: to bring others to the knowledge of His saving grace.
If anyone out there is daydreaming of a day when we will be so clever as human beings, our governments so well put together, that we will overcome evil in the world — you are deceiving yourself. Evil will never depart from this world until people come to know the Lord. As long as a heart of stone remains a heart of stone, evil will reign. The only way evil leaves the world is when stony hearts become hearts of flesh. So if you want to see less evil in the world, we must take far more seriously the work of evangelism, and the work of praying for sinners to come to repentance.
Think again of those so-called repentant bandits. Evil does not vanish because you pat a man on the back, nor even because you put him behind bars — for as long as the heart of stone remains, he walks out of his cell and commits even worse atrocities. And evil does not vanish because you set up a trust for your child, instructing the trustee to give him half of seventeen million at thirty and the rest at thirty-five — for from such a heart, that boy still kills his parents. Notwithstanding all of it, the only answer for the world today is our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To those of us who have known Him, all the glory. And for those who do not yet know Him, our song should be: Let all the world in every corner sing, My God and King.
I want to thank you for joining us this morning on Gospel Bells Radio for On the Lord’s Side — Christian Perspectives on News and Current Events. I hope to be with you again tomorrow, by the grace of God. Whatever you do today, please remain firmly on the Lord’s side. God bless you.
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