The following are the views expressed by Olufemi Oguntokun in the June 4, 2026 episode of the On the Lord’s Side Podcast — Christian perspectives on news and current events.
ON THE YORUBA LANGUAGE AND THE DUTY OF CULTURAL TRANSMISSION
Someone posted a video on X addressed to Yoruba parents, captioning it with these words: “To my Yoruba people, the greatest gift you can give your children is a strong connection to their roots. Your language is your identity. Teach them Yoruba.” The video was a segment from a UK television programme reporting on a new cultural centre in Peckham — a part of London many Nigerians affectionately call Little Lagos — where Yoruba language classes are being held for toddlers and children of Nigerian heritage. Parents are enrolled alongside their children, learning together.
The report touched on something I find deeply important. A parent in that video put it plainly: many children of Nigerian immigrants in the UK grew up not speaking Yoruba because their parents prioritised English, partly out of a desire that their children not speak with a “funny accent.” But a second generation has now looked back and recognised that as a mistake. They want connection to their roots, and they are doing something about it.
Now, let us be clear about one thing: those children do not need Yoruba to thrive in the United Kingdom. They do not need it to excel academically or professionally. English is the currency of success in that environment, and nobody seriously disputes that. So the question we must ask is: why, then, are these parents so determined? The answer is that there are things in life that go beyond utility. There is a connection to one’s roots, a cultural inheritance, that carries its own weight — not a legal obligation, but a moral and cultural one. A duty, if you will, to carry certain things from one generation to the next.
There is a Yoruba proverb that I have always laboured to translate as accurately as possible. It says: Orisha ti a ba sin, ti a ko fi han omo, orun na lo giga. The deity — or that which you hold sacred, that which you revere — if you do not introduce it to your children, it will eventually go extinct. It will be forgotten. And this is not the children’s fault. If you do not tell them, if you do not explain not just what you do but why you do it, they will forget. That is simply the way of things.
This brings me to the Book of Judges, which I have been re-reading of late. Before the chronicler begins to recount the various judges God raised up for Israel, he records something chilling in chapter two. He tells us that the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua — because they had seen the great works of God with their own eyes. Then Joshua died at a hundred and ten years old. And then comes verse ten: “When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them who did not know the Lord, nor the work which He had done for Israel.”
Are we going to call that the sinful generation? Are we going to blame them? We might. We might say they were rebellious. But more likely than not, the reason a generation does not know the Lord is simply that the generation before them did not tell them. Did not teach them. This is precisely why, when you look at societies in Europe and parts of North America that are now deeply secularised despite rich Christian heritage, and you look at the state of their prisons and their culture, you find that the blame must be laid at the doorstep of the generation that knew the Lord — but chose to raise its children from a secular worldview, even to exalt that worldview. It was a generation that knew God that did that. And so it is no surprise that a subsequent generation has no scruple about God or His Word whatsoever.
This is why Moses’ charge to the new nation of Israel is so urgent and so enduring. He said: “These words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates.”
Notice what Moses is saying. It is not enough to teach once. You must teach continuously, and you must teach creatively. The Word must be so woven into the fabric of your home and your daily life that even long after you are gone, your children will remember — Dad used to write something here. Mum used to do this. And that memory will carry them.
The parents in Peckham have their hearts in the right place. They do not want their culture to die. They do not want their language to disappear. That is a beautiful thing. But if we as human beings so cherish our cultures and languages that we go to these lengths to preserve them, how much more should we — whose primary loyalty is to the Kingdom of God — be deliberate about ensuring that the knowledge of God and His ways is passed on to our children? How much more?
I pray the Lord gives us grace. The duty placed on parents is enormous, and it is only the Holy Spirit who can help us discharge it fully and as the Lord expects.
ON THE GRANDMOTHER AND THE MATTER OF TRANSFORMATION
I came across another video that has been generating significant conversation. A granddaughter posted a before-and-after comparison of her seventy-six-year-old grandmother — the before showing the woman in a Nigerian village, dressed simply in a wrapper, looking every bit her age, the years visibly etched into her. The after shows the same woman, now living outside Nigeria — somewhere in Europe or North America — dressed smartly in white trousers and a sleeveless jacket, hair done, looking not only healthier but genuinely younger in appearance. The caption read: “Granddaughter shares the before and after transformation of her 76-year-old grandmother after leaving Nigeria, and the striking change has left many questioning the quality of life in Nigeria.”
The comment section, as you might expect, was divided. Some said nothing had changed — it was just makeup. Others pointed to what they saw as the real story: she now has access to good healthcare, clean air, genuine medication, security, reliable food, peace of mind, and transportation. One commenter wrote plainly: if you have the opportunity, leave Africa.
Now, is the argument entirely fair? No. There are many women older than seventy-six in Nigeria who are looking fantastically well — because they have received the grace of God, and because they have taken care of their health and have access to good medical attention. So the comparison is not airtight.
But let us not be dishonest with ourselves. There is a difference between living in a developing nation — even if you are reasonably comfortable — and living in a developed one. The things that drain you in Nigeria: the epileptic power supply, the anxiety over whether the medication you are buying is genuine or counterfeit, the inability to trust what you are drinking, the stress of navigating basic infrastructure — these are not small things. They accumulate. They age people. And in many developed societies, these concerns have simply been solved. They are no longer issues.
Many people complain about the NHS in the UK, and about the cost of healthcare in the United States. Those are legitimate conversations. But at the very minimum, in those environments, you can be confident that the prescription your doctor gave you is being filled with the real drug. That confidence does not exist everywhere in Nigeria. That is not an attack on Nigeria. It is simply the truth, and we must say it plainly.
But here is the point I really want to make. The reason this video resonated with so many people is not merely about geography or quality of life. It is about transformation. People are hungry to see it. When a change is claimed — whether a change of location, a change of circumstances, or a change of heart — people want to see the now. They want the receipts, as they say on the streets.
And for those of us on the Lord’s side, we understand this profoundly. The Apostle Paul wrote, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that when a man is in Christ, he becomes a new creature — old things have passed away, and all things have become new. Anyone who claims to be on the Lord’s side should be able to produce those receipts. There is no meeting Christ without changing. You cannot encounter the living God and remain exactly as you were. And when that change is absent — as we discussed in recent episodes in relation to the lady from the Logic Church who declared she was in church but had no intention of changing her lifestyle — it becomes a genuine cause for concern.
The first evidence of an encounter with Christ is transformation. People are watching for it. Let us give them something to see.
ON THE DIVINE AUTHORSHIP OF THE BIBLE
I also came across a video of a pastor making what was described as a scientific case for the divine authorship of the Bible. The visual he used was a bar graph mapping every book of the Bible, every chapter, every verse — and the connections between them. The darker the line, the stronger the cross-reference. And the question posed was: how many such connections exist within the Bible? The answer: sixty-three thousand.
Now consider the context. This is not the work of one man. It is not even the work of ten men working together in the same room. The Bible was written by over forty different authors — kings, shepherds, fishermen, tax collectors, physicians, lawyers — drawn from vastly different backgrounds, cultures, and social strata. It was written in three languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It was written across three continents: Africa, Asia, and Europe. And it was written over a span of approximately one thousand five hundred years. These men never met. They lived in different eras, spoke different languages, and knew nothing of one another’s contributions.
And yet — the entire book tells one unified, cohesive story. Creation. Fall. Redemption through Christ. Restoration. One story, told by forty men who never sat in the same room.
We live in a time when there are voices — including voices within the church, voices from people who call themselves pastors and preachers — who say that the Bible is not the Word of God, that it is merely the word of men about God. We engaged with exactly this line of thinking in a recent episode, when we discussed the American female preacher who called for a third testament, arguing that certain parts of the Bible are “problematic” and should be removed, or rewritten altogether. When challenged on the authority of Scripture, she said plainly: the Bible is not the word of God, it is the word of men about God.
This is not a new argument. Critical biblical scholars have been making versions of it for centuries, even millennia. And yet none of them have succeeded in dismantling the Bible. None. Because the position is simply not logically defensible.
Think about what you are actually claiming when you say the Bible is merely human authorship. You are claiming that forty different men, from different cultures, different languages, different centuries — spanning one thousand five hundred years — somehow conspired, without ever meeting, to fabricate a single coherent story and call it the Word of God. Please make that make sense.
And even that is before we get to the fulfilled prophecies. The Bible contains thousands of specific predictive prophecies — many fulfilled in precise detail. The birth of Christ in Bethlehem, as foretold in Micah 5:2. The virgin birth in Isaiah 7:14. The suffering servant of Isaiah 53. Christ Himself, when He came, endorsed the fulfilment of what had been written.
There is also the matter of scientific foreknowledge — accurate insights embedded in the text long before modern science confirmed them: the earth suspended in space (Job 26:7), the water cycle (Ecclesiastes 1:7), the spherical earth (Isaiah 40:22). And then there is archaeological and historical corroboration — people, places, and events once dismissed as legendary that excavations have since confirmed: the Hittites, King David, Pontius Pilate, the Pool of Siloam.
As Christians, we receive the divine inspiration of Scripture by faith. But even setting faith aside, the intellectual honesty required to hold the position of purely human authorship is impossible to sustain. That is the conundrum for the critics. Deny divine authorship if you will — but you cannot, with any intellectual consistency, embrace human authorship either.
Glory to God for His Word.
ON NIGERIA’S SECURITY CRISIS AND GOVERNMENTAL INSENSITIVITY
Yesterday, many people were shocked to learn that the sister of former Minister of Power Adebayo Adelabu was kidnapped along with her children. Whatever one’s view of that minister’s performance in office, the kidnapping of his sister and her children is a tragedy, and we must say so plainly. Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has condemned the abduction, describing it as a stark reflection of Nigeria’s deepening insecurity crisis. He is absolutely correct.
This is yet another reminder — for those who still need it — that no one in Nigeria is truly insulated from this evil. The power brokers, the elites, those who imagine that wealth or status or political connection places them beyond the reach of these bandits and kidnappers — they are fooling themselves. This evil will not spare anyone if it is allowed to continue festering unchecked. We pray for the family. We trust God to bring them out.
We also spoke yesterday about gospel singer Ink Aishaiyori, who released a video that generated significant backlash on social media. She has since retracted and apologised, and I want to play part of her apology. She explained that her original video was an hour and thirty minutes long — a prayer session covering the kidnapped children, grieving families, the government, the military, and the nation as a whole — and that the version that circulated had been cut from that longer recording. She asked for forgiveness if anything she said caused anyone to feel unseen or unheard.
That apology is perfectly in order, and we accept it graciously. But let me restate what the error actually was, because I want to be fair and precise. Her error was not in urging us to pray — that was right and good. The error was in stepping beyond that to make excuses for the government and to discourage people from considering voting differently. That is where she overstepped, and that is what drew the backlash. A gospel singer calling the nation to prayer is entirely appropriate. A gospel singer doing political coverage for the ruling party at a moment of national grief is not.
I must also address those who disagreed with her. Some of the responses were completely unacceptable — videos were circulating that used unprintable language and laid curses on her. That has no place among people on the Lord’s side. Even when we disagree with someone, even when we believe they have erred seriously, our response must be measured and our conduct must reflect whose side we are on. Disagreement does not license abuse. Full stop.
The broader issue remains: we are not living in normal times, and the government does not appear to understand that. Yesterday, we also saw a video of the First Lady meeting with women political leaders of the APC, announcing that personal vehicles — registered in the recipients’ names — would be ready for them before the end of the week. The question many Nigerians are now loudly asking is: where is the money for those vehicles coming from, and why is this the priority of the government at this moment? While children are in captivity. While mothers are in anguish. The government is carrying on as if nothing is happening.
And then the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, speaking on a news programme, had the audacity to say — and I am paraphrasing because the language was extraordinary — that people should not go on strike or demonstrate over the abductions, because after all, people had been kidnapped in Abuja before and nothing happened then either.
Let that sink in. A minister of the federal government is using the normalisation of past atrocities as a reason not to be outraged by present ones. He should have paused and listened to himself. We are staring at the slow, deliberate normalisation of terror, and the government does not appear to be scandalized by it. That is the real crisis beneath the crisis.
As I have been re-reading the Book of Judges, one refrain has been hitting me hard in chapter three: “And God raised up…” When the people fell out of favour with God and were overtaken by aggressors, God raised up Othniel. Then Ehud. Then Deborah. That pattern of divine intervention in the face of human failure — that is the prayer for Nigeria. God, raise up for us a deliverer. One whom You Yourself will use to bring us out of the pit where we now find ourselves.
Thank you for listening. Whatever you do today, please remain firmly on the Lord’s side. God bless you. You are listening to GospelBellsRadio.com — the Christian internet radio with a mission to engage the culture with the mind of Christ.
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