The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the October 13, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
Good morning to you once again. It’s Tuesday, the 13th of October 2026, and this is On the Lord’s Side, Christian perspectives on news and current events. My name is Olufemi Oguntokun. You can follow me on X at @OlufemiOG, and you can follow GospelBells Radio on X at @GospelBelsRadio.
She Was Poisoned for 18 Months — a Camera Caught Him
I want to begin with a story going round again — not new, but back in the news because some consequences are now kicking in, and it is deeply telling. An engineer at a university in California poisoned the food and water of a female colleague, lacing them with a toxic heavy metal and a known carcinogen, for roughly eighteen months between 2017 and 2019. She began suffering serious, unexplained illness from 2017, at times needing emergency care, and no one could say why — until she bought a spy camera on Amazon, set it up in her office, and caught him on video. He was arrested in 2019. A lab report now reviewed by journalists shows the carcinogen was in a bottle at levels up to 3.5 million times the federal drinking-water limit. Her mother drank from the bottle once and noticed a sour taste. She has since published a research paper on the long-term effects she and her family suffered, dedicated to her late father — who by late last year was bed-bound and unable to eat; it has not been confirmed whether the poison contributed to his death, but time will tell.
So why is this back? Hear the arithmetic of the punishment. He was arrested on charges of attempted murder and poisoning. The case stalled four years. In 2023 the then-district attorney offered a plea deal that dropped the attempted-murder charges; he pleaded no contest to a single felony count of poisoning. In 2024 he was sentenced to two years’ probation — no custody. In 2026 his probation was completed; the woman he poisoned sought nearly $500,000 in restitution and was awarded $7,000, while she still suffers long-term effects and cannot work full-time. And this month, October 2026, he applied to have the felony conviction dismissed under California’s expungement procedure. You can see why the story is back: the punishment did not fit the crime.
We cannot know his motive — but your guess is as good as mine. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? This is something we emphasise in Christian communities: the unregenerate heart, not transformed by the Holy Spirit nor washed in the blood of Jesus, is so wicked that it devises evil schemes continually — as the Lord who made us and reads our hearts like an open book has said. And but for a camera she bought online for a few dollars, she would never have known; she would simply have gone on wrestling with a mysterious, recurring illness. Eighteen months of a carcinogen at 3.5 million times the safe limit — and the real-world outcome was two years’ probation, $7,000, and now a bid to make it as if it never happened.
Many question the wisdom of a law that lets criminals apply to have their crimes expunged. And some who advocate such things lean, in my view, on a misapplied Christian principle of forgiveness — “as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.” But that is God removing our sins from us. In a fallen world, it is foolish to treat criminals with kid gloves. We are told to be wise as serpents. Paul wrote that the ruler does not bear the sword in vain — he is God’s agent to bring wrath on the wrongdoer. And the reality, for wicked hearts, is that where there are no consequences, or consequences can be washed away, evil-minded people will keep doing evil. The reason I would not do evil is that I fear the Lord. But those with no such scruple — the Pharaohs who say, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey Him?” — simply weigh the consequences, and if the penalty is a slap on the wrist, they proceed. That is the folly of jurisdictions that say, “Let us not be too harsh on criminals” — for to go soft on crime is to encourage it. When people say a man who rapes should merely get counselling, the next man tempted weighs it and thinks, “A slap on the wrist and some counselling? Perhaps I’ll do it too.”
But the deepest horror in this story is not the poison. It is that she did not know she was being harmed. They shared an office, perhaps the same projects; he said good morning, perhaps was friendly to her face — while poisoning her. That is why the psalmist prays, “Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked” — because the wicked so often work in secret. Psalm 64: they “whet their tongue like a sword… that they may shoot in secret at the perfect.” Psalm 11: “the wicked bend their bow… that they may privily shoot at the upright in heart.” One of our limitations as human beings is that we can look into a face — sometimes the face of a colleague, even of a spouse, a sibling, a fellow believer — a smiling face that says “I’m glad to see you,” while the person is secretly doing us harm. For us on the Lord’s side, this must never be us: we cannot be the one who says good morning while harbouring evil. And our Lord has told us that you do not have to put a carcinogen in someone’s water to have done wrong — you have already sinned when you wish them evil in your heart. Such are the unseen dangers around us that it is folly for anyone to imagine he can keep himself; we must pray the very prayers of Psalms 64 and 11.
And consider the man’s heart. This was not rage. Provocation, in narrow cases, can offer a limited defence — I read recently of a father who threw furniture at a judge for a lenient sentence on his daughter’s rapist, and people debate such things. But this was not a moment’s fury; it was patient, and that is what makes it cold. Morning after morning, for a year and a half, he woke and decided again to poison her, slept, woke, decided again — on and on. The more we grasp the coldness of the human heart, the more we appreciate the grace of God that saved us from such wretchedness, and the role of the Holy Spirit who moderates us, who will not let us rest in evil. We often underestimate that work. Many think the Spirit’s role is the eye-catching and extraordinary — people speaking and others falling down. But His real work is to moderate us, to quicken the conscience, to give us no rest when we have strayed. Which is why, when you find yourself no longer pulled back from the path of evil, you should examine whether you have grieved Him.
And note: he aimed at one person but ended up poisoning a household — her mother drank it too. That is the nature of sin; target it at one, and many are harmed. Some now say that because the lady did not die and may recover, he should not be treated harshly. I disagree. And on the expungement: yes, it is to the glory of God that He forgives our sins and does not deal with us according to them — but in a fallen world it is not wise, nor fair to the injured, to let a criminal off with a slap on the arm; what guarantee is there that he will not do it again? This exposes the limits of law: no human law, no prison, no “naming and shaming” can change what is in a man’s heart — which is why some criminals do horrible things in prison, and others reoffend after release, and some even harm the very victims who forgave them. As the commenters under the video put it in six words: the heart of man is desperately wicked. No one needs a seminary to see it.
And one more thing is true here. For eighteen months a woman was being slowly killed and did not know it — may the Lord protect you from such evil — and what saved her was a cheap camera. The closed-circuit camera is, as I’ve often said, the most vivid metaphor of our age. My wife told me recently of a housemaid in Nigeria accused of signalling intruders into the house; she denied it and went public accusing her employer of victimising her — until the employer released CCTV footage showing her communicating with the thieves. Cameras have taught us that nothing is hidden: you could be at any public event, recorded without knowing it, and if you later deny being there, the footage may surface. And here is the point the culture — even the church — half-misses: “the Lord who sees.” We love to read it as the Lord who kindly sees our troubles, as He saw the distress of Hagar. And that is gloriously true — but it is only half the truth. The other half is that He sees the wickedness of men. Psalm 94 quotes the wicked: “The LORD shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it.” But He does see; He understands. He sees our struggles and sympathises — and He sees the sins of men, and it grieves Him, and nothing is hidden, for our Lord said there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed. A California court may expunge this man’s record — I have not read of any apology to the woman — but the consequences she bears cannot be expunged; and no sin is ever expunged from the record in heaven without confession and a plea to God, in the name of Jesus, for washing in the blood. So I pray the Lord protects you and me from such people, who pretend to be friends while meaning us harm; and I pray for those tempted to such evil, that the Holy Spirit will arrest them — which is why we must take evangelism seriously, even praying for the salvation of our own colleagues. And I pray this lady experiences full recovery. A single story, and the whole gamut of Christian theology is in it: the wickedness of the human heart, the limits of human systems to produce goodness, and the common harm the righteous and the unrighteous alike suffer in a fallen world.
ON HOW DESPERATE A CHRISTIAN SHOULD BE FOR OFFICE
Now to politics, for we are in campaign season ahead of Nigeria’s 2027 general elections. At the Rainbow Coalition stakeholders’ meeting in Abuja on Monday — the coalition assembled by the very loud FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, who, though a member of the PDP, is a strong backer of the APC president (make of that what you will) — Wike gave his own account of the 2024 Edo governorship race and of the PDP candidate, Asue Ighodalo. Ighodalo is a corporate lawyer of real stature, co-founder of the leading firm Banwo & Ighodalo and a bank chairman before he ran. By Wike’s own telling, Ighodalo “came to see me more than three times,” and Wike says he told him: “I know you’re a good candidate, but for this election I’m sorry, because this election is between us and the man who is bringing you” — meaning former Governor Godwin Obaseki — “so returning you would be like bringing him back; I’m sorry, you have to fail.” And, Wike says, he failed.
A caution before we go on: we have only Wike’s account. We do not know for a fact that it happened as he says, though if you know how things work in Nigeria it appears plausible. Ighodalo may yet come forward to deny it, though I do not expect he will. But the point we want to reflect on does not depend on whether Wike embellished it. It is the reality that in Nigeria a man of serious accomplishment is expected to go, repeatedly, to another man’s house to ask permission to serve. Wike is not even from Edo State; ordinarily he would have no business in that election — except that everyone understands he wields real political power. I have a friend from a political family in Lagos who once toyed with going into politics, and a man close to a godfather told him plainly what to do: go to the man’s house, lie prostrate on the floor, hold his leg, and say, “Daddy, you are the only father I have.” My friend would not do it, and we did not want him to — and ever since, we reflect on the reality that to rise in Nigerian politics you are often made to go cap in hand and offer yourself, not for service to the nation, but for service to the godfather.
So how desperate should a Christian be for political office in such a climate? There seem to be two answers, and both are wrong. The first: not at all — politics is dirty, keep out. But that is withdrawal, and if Christians do that, we simply hand the country to whoever is left. The second: as desperate as it takes — we need our people in there, so go and do whatever must be done. But do that and you become like them. The third way — the godly way — is this: be as desperate as you like for the work, for the opportunity to serve, but never desperate for the seat. Those are two different things. You may want the office with all your heart, yet draw red lines: “I desire this, but I will not do X, Y, and Z to get it.”
Look at Scripture, and notice whom God mostly used — people who did not grasp for it. Moses: “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh?” and finally, “Send… by the hand of him whom thou wilt send” — send anyone else. Gideon: “my family is poor… and I am the least in my father’s house.” Jeremiah: “I cannot speak: for I am a child.” Jonah ran the other way. Even Saul, Israel’s first king, hid himself among the baggage when he was to be presented. And David — the man with every right, who still would not take it. He was anointed by God, popular, with an excellent military record and a prophetic word behind him, and he had two clear chances to kill Saul and seize what was already promised him — in the cave at En-gedi, and in the camp at Hachilah — and he would not. A sister in this community once told me of a Bible study elsewhere where it was taught that David erred in not killing Saul — that we should seize opportunities God presents with both hands. I was horrified. That cannot be the lesson. Did they not read David’s own reason: that he would not stretch out his hand against the Lord’s anointed, because he trusted that God is able to accomplish what He has promised? As Isaiah 9:7 says of the Messiah’s government, “the zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this” — not by might, nor by power, but by His Spirit. That is no excuse for complacency; it is the assurance that God, not our scheming, accomplishes what He has promised.
Contrast the graspers. Absalom “prepared him chariots and horses, and fifty men to run before him,” rose early at the gate and stole the hearts of Israel: “Oh that I were made judge in the land!” Adonijah did the identical thing — “I will be king” — with his own chariots and fifty runners. Abimelech killed seventy brothers for the throne. So the Christian’s options are not merely two — stay out because it’s dirty, or dive in and do whatever it takes. There is the middle, godly path: want it, if you are led to it; pray; do all that is lawful — but never be desperate for the seat, and never do what displeases the Lord to gain an office you claim you want in order to please the Lord.
And asking is not wrong in itself. A Christian may ask. So Ighodalo’s visit to Wike need not be wrong — it could be wisdom, if someone is positioned to help and you are not asking them to do wrong for you. Nehemiah asked the king for materials to rebuild the wall; Caleb asked Joshua for the hardest territory on the map; Esther went in uninvited; Daniel asked the king’s chief steward to indulge him over the food. We may go even to the great to ask favours — but we ask legitimately for what we want; we do not throw ourselves at their feet saying, “I’ll do anything you ask.” For asking carries its own danger: “the rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.” Throw yourself at another’s feet, clutching his legs, and you have made yourself his servant — to do whatever he later demands. Wike himself said, in effect, “You’re a good candidate, so I’m sorry, you have to fail.” But failure and success belong to God: “promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south… but God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.” Know that, and you can have peace about your legitimate ambitions. As John the Baptist said, “A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.”
So, whether or not you are called to politics: if you feel that pull to offer yourself for service, keep asking — what am I asking for, and from whom? What will I owe, and to whom, and what will they ask for it? That is the real danger of asking men rather than God. Could I lose this tomorrow and still sleep? If not, you want it too much to be trusted with it. What fruit am I already bearing for the Lord that this would cost me? Better to ask God first — “when a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him” — and if He says it will happen, you’ll find the kingmakers themselves coming to you, for the king’s heart is in the hand of God. We pray the Lord heals our land, and hastens the day when who holds office in Nigeria depends more on the will of the people than on the whims of political godfathers. But even now, may He raise Christians willing to serve in public life — for we cannot leave it all to those who neither know nor fear Him — and may those Christians learn to depend on God alone, and sit back to see the wonderful things He does when He has purposed to elevate a man.
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