The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the July 2, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast – Christian perspectives on news and current events.
ON PASTORS, POWER, AND “PEACE WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE”
Good morning to you once again. It is Thursday, the 2nd of July 2026.
Pastors are always in the news in Nigeria — and, it appears, in many parts of the world — particularly when it concerns political matters. In recent days some pastors have been in the news again, including the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, Pastor E.A. Adeboye, and the General Superintendent of the Deeper Life Bible Church, Pastor W.F. Kumuyi. For what? For lending their support, in effect, to the current administration of President Bola Tinubu. To be fair, they would not characterise it as directly supporting him. But political matters are so divisive that many view it as: if you are not on my side, you are against me.
Pastor Adeboye said on video, “I don’t support those who are saying Tinubu has not done enough. You don’t expect him to go and put on khaki.” He said that against the backdrop of the ongoing insurgency in Nigeria — the Christian genocide, the terrorism, the kidnapping, the banditry — and of the many innocent Nigerians who remain in the captivity of bandits, a distressing matter for everyone of good conscience. As regards those kidnapped in Oyo State, they remain in captivity more than a month after it happened. This has been so distressing that anybody excusing the president in any way is seen as not standing with the people. In his words: “He called a meeting of the big officers. What he told them, I don’t know, and I don’t need to know, because he is Commander-in-Chief. When the Commander-in-Chief gives instruction to his subordinates, who are you to be there? I don’t support those who are accusing the President of not doing enough. He has done his bit. You don’t expect him to go and put on khaki. When my friend Trump gives instructions to go and bomb anywhere, he doesn’t leave the White House. He gives his command — bomb Iran — and then goes to his bedroom and sleeps. The rest is left to the soldiers.”
That opinion by Pastor Adeboye has left many people expressing disappointment — to be charitable. The suggestion is that as long as President Tinubu has given instructions to the military to root out insurgency, kidnapping, terrorism, genocide and banditry, he has done his bit and should not be criticised. But President Tinubu himself, before he became president, when he was unofficially leading the political opposition, said of President Goodluck Jonathan — this is on record — “The buck stops on the table of the president.” Who made that statement originally? It was popularised by Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States, who served from 1945 to 1953, as a sign of taking responsibility. To “pass the buck” is to keep looking for someone else to hold responsible — this one says it was not him, it was the other, and the other says it was yet another — until, at some point, the buck must stop; someone must be responsible. So Pastor Adeboye’s perspective was that, having given the instructions to the military, whether or not they carry them out is not the president’s problem. He did not go quite that far explicitly, but he insinuated it.
Pastor Kumuyi of the Deeper Life Bible Church said something similar. I am quoting from Instablog9ja: “God is our problem solver — Pastor Kumuyi urges Nigerians to seek divine intervention over insecurity.” He said the solution is not Tinubu, nor the president, nor anybody — God is our problem solver. And just as people have dug out President Tinubu’s own tweets from when he led the opposition — saying the buck stops on Jonathan’s table when the girls were kidnapped in Chibok, “you are the president; if you can’t bring them back, it’s on you” — people have also dug out a statement by Pastor Kumuyi when Jonathan was president, from The Nation newspaper of September 29, 2012: “Kumuyi to Jonathan: find lasting solution to Nigeria’s crisis.” Many are placing these otherwise respected men of God side by side with what they said under President Jonathan, and wondering what has changed. In 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, many popular pastors in Nigeria — including Pastor Adeboye and Pastor Kumuyi — came out and used strong expressions to condemn what was widely regarded as the incompetence, corruption and lack of empathy of President Jonathan’s administration. Perhaps they were right to condemn him then. But now, when a majority of Nigerians would agree there is an absolute need for people to be as clear as possible in condemning the corruption, incompetence and lack of empathy of this president, they do not appear to be doing so. And that is distressing.
All of us on the Lord’s side find it most distressing to live in a culture where pastors are regarded as complicit in the problems of Nigeria. There is a time for courage, and we are living in such times. I expect those who are clearly leaders to be courageous enough to confront what is going on. There was a time when to identify as a pastor was to be highly regarded; today, while many still adulate some pastors for their success, more often than not people sneer at the church and at pastors. Somebody wrote on X yesterday, in English and Yoruba together, “It’s either Pastor Adeboye ti j’edodo” — a figurative expression meaning the person has been given something (“eaten plantain”). The general wisdom on the streets — and I am not saying it is correct — is that many of these pastors have been compromised, or have had past alliances with the person now leading the government, and so are not in a position to condemn what we are observing. Now, I am not privy to whether they have been compromised, or are complicit, or are deliberately running cover for this government. Some go as far as suggesting that people must have called them and said, “Please go out and make a statement,” pointing out that soon after Pastor Adeboye made his statement, Pastor Kumuyi made a similar one.
This brings to the fore one of the strongest accusations against religion in the culture generally: that religion is the opium of the society. It was the German philosopher Karl Marx who popularised the quote, “Religion is the opium of the people.” He meant that religion acts as an emotional painkiller, a comforting illusion for oppressed people, numbing the suffering caused by harsh social and economic conditions. And many look at this and say it is true: if you are in government and things are going wrong, and you expect people to be angry and perhaps eventually rise up or vote you out, the thing you want to do immediately is to tell the people that what is happening is the will of God. If you, the politician, say it, nobody will believe you — “you are a mere politician, you are the one doing these things.” So you go to those regarded as the servants of God, the oracles of God, and say, “Please tell the people all is well, that this is exactly what God wants at this time,” and then the people are numbed, relaxed, at peace, saying, “I have been told it is the will of God.”
Now, I am not a supporter of Karl Marx — communism is fundamentally based on the assumption that there is nothing substantial in existence except material things; it renounces God and religion, so I will never stand on the same foundation as Marx. But to the extent that it is the reality that those who want to calm restless, distressed people often run to religion — “prophets, apostles, tell them it is the will of God, and they will be at peace” — Marx and those secular thinkers were not entirely off the mark, even though they started from a wrong foundation. And the reason I bring this up is that there is a danger in giving even more ammunition to those trying to mislead the youth and others in society that religion is a scam. We must not give ammunition to those preaching such heresies and enslaving people. And let us not naively assume that everyone regarded as a man of God is saying the truth, saying what he has heard from God — because it has always been the case that some prophets rise in defence of kings.
Go and read the book of Jeremiah in full, and you will understand how many prophets, even when the kings of Israel and Judah were doing things detestable to God, and when God sent Jeremiah to warn them of the consequences, were saying, “There is peace, there is peace.” Jeremiah 6:14 condemns leaders who treated the nation’s spiritual wounds superficially, proclaiming peace when disaster was coming: “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious. ‘Peace, peace,’ they say, when there is no peace.” Ezekiel 13:10 likewise rebukes the prophets of Israel who misled the people with visions of peace when there was no peace. And Micah 3:5 describes prophets who cry “peace” to anyone who feeds them, but declare war on those who do not. So this is not new. I am not categorically saying these pastors who have come out to say “all is well, Tinubu is not the problem, only God can solve it” are running cover for the government — I cannot make that judgment. But we must call to mind that these things have always happened, and remember what our Lord said: be wise as serpents. The sons of this age are so wise in their ways that they will take advantage of anything to survive — and if they find that religion would be their saving grace, they will take advantage of it. Those of us who are, by grace, God-honouring should not be so naive as to be taken in.
Everyone regarded as a servant of God in Nigeria today, respected by many Christians, should be very sober in times like this, and sure that he is hearing from the Lord what he says to the people. I have allowed for the possibility that these men have heard from God and are speaking His mind — in which case they are courageous to say it in the face of widespread condemnation. But if they are merely expressing their own opinions and, as Marx said, numbing the pain of the people, serving opium at a time when the people should voice their distress, then they should be reminded that this is detestable to God. In the New Living Translation, “they offer superficial assurances of peace when there is no peace.” None of us should claim to speak for the Lord when we have not specifically heard from Him.
And some suggest these men have no choice, having received gifts from politicians in the past. To the extent that we have no proof, we should refrain from such assumptions. But if it were the case, we should remember something I have always said: one of the worst things that can happen to you in life is to become an “owned” person. Nobody who is owned by another — from a Christian point of view, all of us should be owned by God, so that we do only what God says, immediately, because He owns us. But to be owned by any human being is the most humiliating, degrading thing in the world, because then someone can simply pick up his phone and say, “Femi, I want you to write this article tomorrow, say this,” even if you do not believe it. I do not want to believe that is the case in the Nigerian churches today — we have no proof — but it is being suggested in the culture, so we must put it out there.
So this is how we engage with this story. We are not privy to what God has said to these pastors, so we merely remind them that the Lord detests those who say “peace” when there is no peace. In times like this, I do not expect anyone with an influential platform to be so brazen as to say things God has not specifically asked him to say. And as people dig out the pastors’ statements from 2011 to 2015, when they did not hold back in holding President Jonathan to account, emphasising that the buck stopped at his table, and compare them with what we see today, these pastors should be most careful to reflect.
Is religion the opium of society? It must not be. But we must recognise that if we choose to pray rather than join a massive protest, that is a good thing — yet let nobody tell us that the buck does not stop at the table of the president. When I watched that video of Pastor Adeboye, it was telling that people did not applaud heartily, because it was difficult to swallow the claim that once the president has given the order, he has done his bit. With all respect, the president has not done his bit merely by giving orders; it is also his duty to ensure they are carried out, and to call to account those who fail to carry them out. Otherwise, why elect a president at all? We would simply have the head of the military give an order and say, “He has done his bit.” Take the example of President Trump: he does not merely give the command and go to sleep. When an operation is ongoing, presidents go into the room and monitor it until it is completed, and then report to the citizens. In the United States, the successes or failures of military operations are reported to the citizens by the president — the one they elected. This is Democracy 101: the generals were not elected; only the president was elected, accountable to the people.
I hope the president is not listening to Pastor Adeboye on this point — because I am sure that what Pastor Adeboye said was his own opinion. Thankfully, he did not say, “This is what God has told me.” Paul himself sometimes wrote, “I say this — this is my own opinion, not a command from the Lord.” And we should grant that these pastors are also citizens and human beings who may have their own opinions. So when Pastor Adeboye said the president has done his bit by giving orders, he was not claiming God said it; he was expressing his opinion — and this is where we hope the president himself will disagree and say, “No, the buck stops on my table.” That is where we should all disagree. The president has not done his bit merely by giving the order; it is his duty to report back to us who elected him — this is what I have done, and this is the result, whether the operation failed or succeeded — because he is ultimately the person in charge.
Let us not excuse the incompetence, the lack of empathy, the corruption, because these things are going on, and with our naked eyes we can see the horrible things happening in this society. For otherwise respected people not to call out those things, but instead to say “don’t worry, don’t worry,” is unacceptable, and contradictory to the calling of those who should be the custodians, the guardians of the conscience of the nation. Another thing we lack now in Nigeria is a figure who symbolises the conscience of the nation — the person who would tell the truth no matter whose ox was gored. In Nigeria’s recent history, that was Gani Fawehinmi — and Gani was not a Christian, he was a Muslim. Every time I think back to his life, I see it as a challenge to many Christians who had the opportunity but not the courage. We do not seem to have that kind of person today, and unfortunately many otherwise revered pastors have not been bold enough to put on that mantle. Granted, perhaps they were not called to it — but then those not called to come into politics and speak that way should refrain from statements of that nature. I hope they are so concerned about the plight of those in captivity that they would not bear any statement telling them, “The president has done his bit.” And let us be clear: Mr. President, do not go to bed thinking you have done your bit. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, in captivity all over. Wake up and do what you were elected to do.
Having said that, Pastor Kumuyi said Tinubu is not going to save us, nor any other person — and in that respect it is true. This is the time when all who are in captivity, and all who pray for them, should not make the mistake of saying, “President, rise up and do this,” alone; what we should do is call on the One who truly is able to save. That is the overarching point Pa