The most important sermon I have ever preached did not happen in a church. There was no pulpit, choir, altar or congregation arranged in rows. It happened inside a commercial bus travelling from Nyanya toward Area 1, Garki, Abuja, in 2017.
I remember being led by the Holy Spirit to preach that day. At first i was scared and shy. On that faithful morning, the bus was crowded, with more than 70 passengers, each carrying a private story behind an ordinary face. I stood there and preached the Gospel, unaware that one of the passengers was carrying a burden so severe that he had already contemplated ending his life.
I did not know his name when I began speaking. I did not know his history. I did not know that, beneath the silence of that elderly man, despair had already become a weapon pointed at his own life.
Then the journey ended.
As i and some of the passengers began to alight by Old CBN junction, the elderly man came down. He approached me, lowered his head and began to speak. What he told me transformed an ordinary bus journey into one of the most sobering encounters of my life.
He said he had been on the verge of committing suicide.
He told me that he had planned to return home that day and end his life. He said he had even contemplated buying a sniper poison to carry out the plan. Then he began to sob, his head bowed beneath the weight of a life that, in his words, had become unbearable.
His story was devastating. He said he had lost his job about two years earlier. Since then, according to his account, his wife and daughters had subjected him to persistent mistreatment. He described a home in which he felt humiliated, rejected and physically abused. He alleged that his wife and daughters sometimes stayed out with other men until the following day and that confronting the situation resulted in beatings and bruises.
Then came the collapse of the roof over his head.
Their house rent expired. The home that should have been his final refuge became another source of anguish. He said his wife eventually returned one evening with another man, gathered her belongings and some of his possessions, and left. His daughter also left.
Then, according to his account, the landlord removed what remained of his belongings.
An elderly man who once had a family, employment and a home suddenly found himself reduced to a humiliating existence in a small room within the compound, in what he described as the gatekeeper’s space.
This was the man who had listened to me preach inside that bus.
And this was what he said to me: the message had given him hope.
I have never forgotten that moment.
The sermon was over. The passengers had dispersed. The traffic continued. Abuja remained Abuja. But for one broken man, something had happened inside that moving vehicle that he believed had interrupted the darkest decision of his life.
That experience changed the way I understood the phrase: “The good news cannot be silenced.”
The Holy Gospel speaks of God’s love for humanity; Christ calls people to repentance and faith; and love into truth. For me, those words ceased to be merely devotional language that day. They became connected to the trembling voice of an elderly man who said he had been preparing to die.
This is why the current debate over preaching inside commercial buses deserves more than ridicule, outrage or political noise.
Road safety matters. Drivers must not be distracted. Passengers must not be harassed. Nobody should be forced to participate in religious activity. A preacher who obstructs a driver or creates danger should be subject to appropriate regulation.
But there is a crucial distinction between regulating dangerous conduct and silencing peaceful expression.
If the problem is distraction, regulate distraction. If the problem is obstruction, prohibit obstruction. If the problem is harassment, punish harassment. If the problem is interference with the driver, enforce the rule against interference.
But if the mere act of preaching becomes the offence, Nigeria must ask a much harder question: where does legitimate road safety regulation end, and unnecessary suppression of religious expression begin?
That question matters because we do not always know what is happening behind another person’s silence.
The man in that bus did not announce his despair. He did not carry a placard declaring that he was contemplating suicide. He did not interrupt the journey to tell seventy passengers that he had lost hope.
He simply sat there.
That is how many people move through society.
They sit beside us in buses. They stand beside us in queues. They work beside us. They worship beside us. They smile at us. Yet behind those ordinary faces may be extraordinary pain.
The unemployed graduate may be fighting despair.
The abandoned father may be fighting humiliation.
The abused woman may be hiding another night of violence.
The indebted businessman may be contemplating collapse.
The grieving parent may be surviving one day at a time.
The elderly man may be carrying a plan to end his life.
We often see the face. We rarely see the battle.
That is why words matter.
A sermon is not automatically a solution to poverty, unemployment, domestic violence or homelessness. Faith does not eliminate the responsibility of government, families, communities and institutions to confront those problems. But hope can keep a wounded person alive long enough to seek another solution.
That distinction should not be lost.
I am not arguing that every bus must become a church. I am not arguing that passengers should be compelled to listen to sermons. I am arguing for proportion, wisdom and constitutional restraint.
Nobody should be forced to listen.
Nobody should be endangered.
Nobody should be harassed.
But neither should every public expression be treated as an inconvenience deserving the full weight of the state.
The deeper question is this: Who preaches to the private convoy?
The powerful travel in protected vehicles. The wealthy travel in private cars. Political convoys move behind security escorts and tinted windows.
But ordinary Nigerians travel by bus.
The bus is where the trader sits beside the student. The worker sits beside the unemployed graduate. The farmer sits beside the civil servant. The elderly man sits beside the young. Different faiths, classes and histories collide within the same narrow space.
The preacher is there because the people are there.
And sometimes, remarkably, the broken are there too.
That is why lawmakers must be careful not to confuse silence with safety.
Silence is not always peace.
Sometimes silence is despair.
Sometimes silence is grief.
Sometimes silence is a person who has stopped asking for help.
The elderly man I met in 2017 taught me that lesson without intending to. He reminded me that the person who appears least interested in a message may be the person who needs it most.
I entered that bus intending to preach.
I left with a deeper understanding of the responsibility that comes with preaching.
The pulpit is not always made of wood. Sometimes it is the floor of a commercial bus. Sometimes the congregation does not know it is a congregation. Sometimes the person listening quietly is not merely hearing a sermon; he is searching for one more reason to remain alive.
That does not mean every preacher is right, every sermon is appropriate or every public space should become a religious platform. It means that regulation must be intelligent, proportionate and respectful of fundamental freedoms.
Nigeria has more urgent fires to fight.
Insecurity demands attention. Economic hardship demands attention. Unemployment demands attention. Food prices demand attention. Electricity demands attention. Failing infrastructure demands attention. Institutional weakness demands attention. The erosion of public trust demands attention.
These are the fires consuming the nation.
A legislature must therefore be judged not by how many controversies it can manufacture, but by how courageously it confronts the problems that determine whether ordinary Nigerians can live with dignity.
The nation is already speaking.
The farmer is speaking.
The unemployed graduate is speaking.
The struggling family is speaking.
The homeless retiree is speaking.
The victims of insecurity are speaking.
The question is whether those entrusted with power are listening.
And perhaps that is the greatest lesson from that bus journey in 2017.
You never know who is listening when you speak about hope.
The elderly man was listening.
He was hurting.
He was crying.
And, by his own testimony, he had already made plans to die.
Then he heard a message that reminded him that his story might not be over.
That is why I cannot easily dismiss the words:
“The good news cannot be silenced.”
It should not be shouted irresponsibly. It should not be imposed violently. It should not become an excuse for harassment or disorder.
But where there is freedom to speak and willingness to listen, hope should not be treated as a public nuisance.
Because somewhere inside Nigeria today, another person may be sitting quietly behind a window, carrying a burden nobody can see.
And perhaps the next word of hope they hear may be the word that keeps them alive.
The preacher may leave the bus. The passengers may forget the sermon. But sometimes, one sentence survives the journey—and becomes the bridge between despair and another morning.
– Inah Boniface Ocholi writes from Ayah – Igalamela/Odolu LGA, Kogi state.
08152094428 (SMS Only)
