News

How A Church Member Corrected Me, Pastor Sam Adeyemi Reflects On Leadership

Published

2 months ago

May 13, 2025

Editor

The Senior Pastor of Daystar Christian Centre, Sam Adeyemi, has emphasised the need for authenticity and honesty in leadership, especially within the church, following a personal experience where he publicly acknowledged an error made during a sermon.

In a podcast circulating on social media on Tuesday, Adeyemi recounted the incident, which took place a few years before the COVID-19 pandemic, during a teaching session in church where he claimed that the eagle is the highest flying bird in the world—an assertion he had heard for decades.

“The next day, a church member sent a text message to Pastor Nick and said, ‘I know I don’t have the right to correct Pastor Sam, but he said something in church yesterday that the eagle is the highest flying bird in the world. That statement is not correct,” he said.

Upon receiving the message, Adeyemi said he immediately checked online and discovered the correction was valid.

“As she was saying it, I was on my phone checking on Google. The person was right. The eagle doesn’t even come within the first ten,” he admitted.

Acknowledging his mistake, he returned to church and issued an apology. “I went back to church and I apologised. I told them, this is what one of you said. I checked it up,” he said.

Adeyemi used the opportunity to call for greater involvement of younger people in leadership, noting that access to information has changed the way people engage with authority.

“We don’t realise you said something now that you said before and nobody would even bother to follow it. They are checking on Google as you are saying it.”

He said. “Now they are saying hypocrisy. That’s why people are leaving the church—because people are holding their ground.”

He added that many young congregants now verify teachings using digital tools, including researching biblical texts in their original languages.

“These young people have gone to check all those in the original Greek that you were saying before because nobody understood Greek. If they go online now, they will get the correct meaning of what you are saying,” he said.

Adeyemi stressed that while perfection is not expected of leaders, honesty is.

“They are seeing a lot of hypocrisy in leadership. They want authenticity. This is just a call on all of us to practise leadership with honesty. Nobody says we should be perfect. People are not expecting us to be perfect, but they want us to be perfectly honest,” he stated.

He said the response to his apology was overwhelmingly positive.

“When I owned up to that error on the eagle, then I was getting text messages and emails and people were saying, wow, thank you for doing that. I never thought the pastor could do that—to come back and admit that they were wrong.”

Adeyemi concluded by reaffirming that people today value accountability and openness in their leaders, calling for a shift in leadership attitudes to reflect those expectations.

News

PHOTOS: Esama Of Benin Commissions BRC Ultramodern Lounge, Promises A Phase Lift

Published

11 hours ago

June 29, 2025

Editor

The Esama of Benin Kingdom, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, has promised to give a phase lift to the Benin Recreation Club (BRC) in the next 12 months.

Chief Igbinedion made the promise in Benin on Saturday when he officially visited the BRC to commission a newly remodeled ultramodern ‘Chief Go.O. Igbinedion Bustop Lounge.’

The Esama, who expressed dissatisfaction on how he met the ancient recreation club, said: “This place needs a drastic improvement. I would, therefore, like the committee to see me, and I promise 12 months from now, this place will wear a new look.”

Chief Igbinedion, however, thanked current and past executives of the club for a job well done, and for sustaining the BRC, saying “many organisations or associations as this have gone into extinction but you have put in your best to keep this going.”

The octogenarian, who thanked the leadership and the board of trustees for the honour done on him through the naming of a lounge, also vowed not to neglect the leadership especially knowing well that he has been a founding member of the BRC.

In his remarks, Special Guest of Honour and Chief Judge of Edo State, Justice Daniel Okungbowa, while describing the BRC as the best place to relax after a stressful day, urged members of the public who are yet to join the BRC to do so.

Earlier in his welcome speech, president of the BRC, Courage Osamuyi said the lounge was named after Chief Igbinedion in recognition of his great support for the club and his contribution to humanity.

Justice Daniel Okungbowa, Chief Judge of Edo State

The BRC president, who declared that the presence of the Esama in the BRC signifies a new dawn, said “what we are having today is just the beginning. As he has stepped into this place, greater things will start to happen.”

Osamuyi, while noting that the Esama “has been a founding member of the club over the years,” thanked Chief Igbinedion for his good work and for honouring them with his presence.

Osamuyi Courage, President of The BRC

News

Peter Obi Condemns Tinubu’s Saint Lucia Trip

Published

13 hours ago

June 28, 2025

Editor

Labour Party leader and former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has criticised President Bola Tinubu’s planned trip to Saint Lucia, describing it as poorly timed and lacking in sensitivity, especially amid Nigeria’s deepening economic and security challenges.

Tinubu is expected to leave Nigeria on Saturday for Saint Lucia and is also scheduled to attend the upcoming BRICS summit in Brazil.

In a post shared on X (formerly Twitter) on Saturday, Obi expressed dismay over the president’s travel, questioning the state of governance in the country.

Obi argued that Tinubu’s trip highlights a pattern of misplaced priorities by the administration, particularly at a time when citizens are grappling with widespread hunger and insecurity.

“What I have seen and witnessed in the last two years has left me in shock about poor governance delivery and apparent channelling of energy into politics and satisfaction of the elites, while the masses in our midst are languishing in want,” Obi stated.

He lamented the toll of rising insecurity across Nigeria, pointing out the country’s deteriorating safety situation.

“In the past two years, Nigeria has lost more people to all sorts of criminality than a country that is officially at war.

“Without any twilight, Nigeria ranks among the most insecure places in the world. Nigerians are hungrier, and most people do not know where their next meal will come from,” he wrote.

Obi said he was stunned when he learned of the President’s travel plans, especially following what he described as a recent holiday in Lagos.

“With such a gory picture of one’s country, you can imagine my bewilderment when I saw a news release from the Presidency announcing that President Bola Tinubu is departing Nigeria today for a visit to Saint Lucia in the Caribbean,” he said.

Quoting Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister, Philip J. Pierre, Obi noted that the visit comprises both official and personal segments.

“According to the Prime Minister’s announcement, ‘two of these days, June 30 and July 1, will be dedicated to an official visit, with the remainder of the trip set aside as a personal vacation,” he said.

Obi noted that he initially found the report hard to believe.

“I told the person who drew my attention to the Caribbean story that it cannot be true and that the President is just coming back from a holiday in Lagos.

“I didn’t want to believe that anybody in the position of authority, more so the President… would contemplate a leisure trip at this time,” Obi said.

He condemned Tinubu’s failure to visit disaster-stricken areas like Minna in Niger State, where over 200 people reportedly died and hundreds remain missing due to flooding.

“This is a President going for leisure when he couldn’t visit Minna, Niger State where over two hundred lives were lost and over 700 persons still missing in a flood natural disaster,” he said.

Obi also took issue with Tinubu’s recent trip to Benue State, claiming it was politically motivated rather than compassionate.

“The other state in crisis where over two hundred lives were murdered, the President yielded to public pressure and visited Makurdi… for what turned out to be a political jamboree than condolence as public holiday was declared and children made to line up to receive the President who couldn’t even reach the village, the scene of the brutal attack,” he said.

Drawing comparisons between Nigeria and Saint Lucia, Obi questioned the logic of prioritising a visit to the Caribbean nation over addressing pressing domestic issues.

“Makurdi is 937.4 Km², which is over 59% bigger than St Lucia, which is 617 km², and Minna is 6789 square kilometres, which is ten times bigger than St Lucia. St Lucia, with a population of 180,000, is less than half of Makurdi’s 489,839 and Minna, with 532,000 is almost three times the population of St Lucia,” the former Anambra governor said.

He concluded his post by stressing the urgent need for leadership that is grounded in empathy and focused on addressing the suffering of ordinary Nigerians.

He said, “I don’t think the situation in this country today calls for leisure for anybody in a position of authority, more so the President, on whose desk the buck stops.

“This regime has repeatedly shown its insensitivity and lack of passion for the populace…”

Obi added, “This very obvious indifference of the federal government to the suffering of the Nigerian poor should urgently be reversed.

“One had expected the President to be asking God for extra hours in a day for the challenges, but what we see is a concentration of efforts in the 2027 election and on satisfying the wealthy while the mass poor continues to multiply in number.”

News

World Bank Lists Nigeria Among 39 Nations Facing Rising Poverty, Hunger

Published

13 hours ago

June 28, 2025

Editor

The World Bank has listed Nigeria among 39 countries where poverty and hunger are deepening as a result of conflict and instability.

In a report released on Friday, the bank said the economies, a mix of low- and middle-income countries, span all global regions. Among them are Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Nigeria, Sudan, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe.

The report, which assesses the economic impact of conflict and fragility in the post-COVID-19 era, revealed that 21 of the 39 countries are experiencing active conflict.

According to the findings, extreme poverty is rising more rapidly in these countries, taking a severe toll on economic development, worsening hunger, and derailing progress toward key development goals.

Since 2020, the report noted, the average per capita GDP of these economies has declined by 1.8 per cent annually, in contrast to a 2.9 per cent growth rate recorded in other developing countries.

The report partly reads: “This year, 421 million people are struggling on less than $3 a day in economies afflicted by conflict or instability—more than in the rest of the world combined.

“That number is projected to rise to 435 million, or nearly 60% of the world’s extreme poor, by 2030.”