The West African regional bloc said on Saturday it would lift strict sanctions on Niger as it seeks a new strategy to dissuade three junta-led states from withdrawing from the political and economic union - a move that threatens regional integration.

The decision to lift the sanctions was reached at the extraordinary summit of the ECOWAS held in Abuja on Saturday.

The regional bloc also lifted sanctions on the Republic of Guinea-Bissau.

The military junta in Mali took over power in August 2020 while soldiers in Burkina Faso overthrew the democratic government in September 2022.

Also, soldiers in the Niger Republic in July 2023 sacked the democratic government in the country, forcing the authority of ECOWAS to impose sanctions on the three countries.

Omar Alieu Touray, president of the ECOWAS commission, read the resolution taken at the summit.

He said while the political and targeted sanctions on the Niger Republic remain, the regional bloc lifted some financial and economic sanctions on Guinea-Bissau and Mali.

Touray said the decision is based on humanitarian considerations especially because of the month of Lent and the approaching Ramadan.

“Now, let me make it very clear what I have listed is not exhaustive. Political sanctions have not been lifted. Border closures have been lifted. And commercial sanctions have been lifted. But there are targeted sanctions as well as political sanctions. That remain in force,” he said.

“I think our sanctions regime should be assessed correctly. The list I have given relates mainly to Niger because all the other countries still have political sanctions on them.

“So the border closures, the commercial sanctions and all that are on leisure and that is what the leaders have decided to lift. But individual sanctions as well as political sanctions remain in place in Niger.

“Now for other countries, political sanctions remain. That is the limited ability to attend ECOWAS Summit as well as ministerial sessions.”

Earlier, President Bola Tinubu who is the chairman of ECOWAS asked for the lifting of sanctions on the three member states.

In a statement, Ajuri Ngelale, presidential spokesperson, said Tinubu also said the decision to lift the sanctions was based on humanitarian considerations.

“Everything we did was in hopes of persuading our brothers that there existed a better path, a path that would lead to genuine improvement of their people’s welfare through democratic good governance. And this was a path each of our nations had solemnly agreed with one another pursuant to formal regional treaty and protocol,” the statement quoted Tinubu as saying.

“However, the sanctions that we contemplated might help lead our brothers to the negotiating table have become a harsh stumbling block. In my mind and heart, that which is hurtful yet ineffective serves no good purpose and should be abandoned.

“ECOWAS was established for the unassailable objective of improving the lives of the people of this region through fraternal cooperation among all member states. This edifice was cemented on the strong foundation and apt conviction that, united as one, we can be the true masters of our destiny.”

Tinubu said ECOWAS took the steps it did based on the regional ideals of security, social stability, democratic governance, political freedom, broad-based prosperity, and sustainable economic development through fair opportunity for each and everyone in West Africa.

He said neither hatred nor hidden motive influenced the steps taken, adding that there was never any intention to douse or undermine the legitimate political aspirations of any member state or to advance the interests of any outside party.

In calling for the suspension of sanctions, Tinubu said: “We must take note of the approach of the holy month of Ramadan and of Lent.”

“Whether you pray in the mosque or in the church, this represents a time for compassion, hope, and harmony. It is a time that we must not only seek God but also a closer relationship with brother and neighbour,” the president said.

“In the Spirit of the holy month and of the Lenten period, and with hearts bestirred by goodwill towards all our people, let us extend a hand as brothers and friends to those in Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea.

“What I suggest in real and practical terms is that we, my colleagues and fellow heads of state in ECOWAS, indefinitely suspend economic sanctions against Niger, Mali, Guinea and Burkina Faso and against the leadership of the military authorities in those nations.”

The president asked that ECOWAS facilitate the unfettered flow of foodstuffs, medicines and other humanitarian items to the people of these nations, especially to the most vulnerable.

He added that for Nigeria, “this will also mean the prompt resumption of the export of electric power to Niger”.

“In this vein, suspension of sanctions is an important but initial step. What we seek is more than the breaking of the diplomatic logjam. We must use this very moment when things seem tense and progress unavailing, to forge greater cooperation within our community,” he said.

“We not only reach out to our brothers. Today, we say unto them — let us begin to work more earnestly together for the economic development of our people and towards confronting those modern challenges that respect no borders or boundaries.

“Challenges ranging from climate change to violent extremism to illegal pilfering of our precious natural resources require that we join together in progress or we fail separately.

“As leaders of ECOWAS, we have accepted the honour and duty to draft the history of the region and its people during our tenure in office.

“We have also accepted the honour and duty to reach out to our brothers, letting them know this regional home belongs to us all. I shall do my utmost in this regard. I humbly beseech that you do the same.

“For these reasons, we must suspend sanctions and return to brotherly dialogue. I call on the leadership in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, and Niger to embrace the hand extended.”

Last month, Niger said it would quit the regional bloc — together with Mali and Burkina Faso — which pushed Ecowas to reiterate its commitment to a negotiated solution to the crisis and swift return to democracy.

It also overturned a controversial anti-migration law, dealing a blow to Europe’s effort to stop African migrants from reaching its shores.

The three countries have called ECOWAS's sanctions strategy illegal and grounds for their decision to leave the bloc immediately without abiding by usual withdrawal terms.

The three have started cooperating under a pact known as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES) and sought to form a confederation, although it is not clear how closely they plan to align political, economic and security interests as they struggle to contain a decade-old battle with Islamist insurgents.

Reuters/The Cable/Bloomberg

Amid the free fall of the naira to the United States dollar, traders who deal in grains have devised a way to sell their wares to neighbouring countries for higher profits.

Many of them, who spoke to our correspondents, claimed that they preferred to sell their wares to the countries because they had stronger currencies compared to the naira.

This, several experts have said, may lead to hoarding and an artificial grain scarcity and can cause the price of the goods to further head north, thereby leading to a food crisis if nothing is done about it.

This is coming at a time when the country is battling severe hunger, as the prices of staples have increased by over 300 per cent.

The country is also witnessing the highest inflation in 28 years, with the food inflation rate in January hitting 35.41 per cent.

Nigeria’s annual inflation rate rose to 29.90 per cent in the same month from 28.92 per cent in December 2023, according to official figures from the National Bureau of Statistics.

For instance, a bag of long grain rice now sells for almost N80,000 as against N45,000, which it sold for in December 2023. A crate of eggs now sells for almost N5,000; in December, it sold for N2,700.

Several other food items have also seen an astronomical increase in prices owing to several market forces, chief of which is the free fall of the naira.

As of Thursday, the naira fell to a new record low, selling for 1,851 to a dollar in intra-day trading compared with around 1,800 quoted in street trading, FMDQ Exchange data showed on Friday.

It, however, recovered later in the day to close around N1,571 to the dollar, according to the FMDQ data.

There have also been cases of traders accused of hoarding food items for transfer to neighbouring countries like Cameroon, Chad, and Niger Republic, among others.

This is not unconnected to the fact that the currency used by these West African countries has strengthened against the naira in recent years.

For instance, in Borno, Niger, Adamawa, Katsina, Sokoto and several other northern states, grain farmers and traders told our correspondents that they preferred to sell their goods in the neighbouring countries and earn CFA franc instead of selling in Nigeria and earning naira.

Several sources said that the draining of Nigeria’s grains to neighbouring Niger had almost tripled over the last couple of months in a trans-border trade upheaval.

This is following the historic depreciation of the naira and the consequent exponential appreciation of the CFA franc.

The upheaval has drastically crashed the flow of Nigerian grains and other essential commodities’ merchants to the Francophone country for trade.

CFA franc

The CFA franc stands for the West African CFA franc and the Central African CFA franc, two currencies which though different, are interchangeable and have a fixed exchange rate to the euro.

The Central African CFA is the official currency of six countries under the Central African Economic and Monetary Union and is symbolised by the abbreviation XAF in currency markets.

The countries are Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon.

On the other hand, the West African CFA franc is the official currency of eight member nations under the West African Economic and Monetary Union consisting of Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte D’Ivoire, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

It is symbolised by the abbreviation XOF in currency markets.

According to a short history on the website of the Central Bank of West African States, the CFA franc was created on December 26, 1945, remarkably the date France ratified the Bretton Woods Agreements and made its first declaration of parity to the International Monetary Fund.

In recent times, the currency has climbed up in value against the naira as N1 exchanges for 1.38 XOF compared to 3 XOF, which it exchanged for in 2015.

In 2015, data available on the website of Exchange Rate United Kingdom shows a 54 per cent decline in the exchange between naira and XAF and XOF within six years.

That same year, the CFA began to take a spot as a competitive currency. Between August 2015 and August 2016, the naira lost about 69 per cent against the CFA year-on-year, according to official data by the Exchange Rate UK.

As of Saturday, Aboki FX Limited, an online platform that provides daily updates and information on the parallel market (black market), noted that 1,000 West African CFA francs (XOF) traded at N2,400.

This means one can get N2,400 for every 1,000 CFA franc that one exchanges.

It should be noted that the black market exchange rate is typically higher than the official exchange rate because it is not regulated by the government.

There are several factors that can affect the XOF black market exchange rate, including the supply and demand for the CFA franc; the political and economic situation in XOF and Nigeria; and the value of the US dollar.

So, Nigerian grain traders who rush to countries like Senegal, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Mali, Burkina Faso, Benin Republic, and Guinea Bissau, among others, to sell their wares would be making double the profits they would have made if the grains were sold in Nigeria.

The traders also stated that constant harassment by hoodlums on the highway, the ravaging insecurity in the country and bad roads were other reasons why they prefer to sell in neighbouring countries.

Last Sunday, for instance, the Nigeria Customs Service declared that it had intercepted 15 trucks fully loaded with food items and were heading out of the country through the Sokoto State border.

It said the trucks were stopped and the food items were returned to Nigeria, adding that this was part of measures to stabilise the prices of food items across the country in line with the mandate of the Federal Government.

The PUNCH had reported days before that the Federal Government had set up a committee comprising the National Security Adviser, the Director-General of the Department of State Services, and the Inspector-General of Police to clamp down on traders hoarding grains.

The report also stated that the government had ruled out the importation of food as part of strategies to address the high costs of foodstuffs and the economic hardship troubling the country.

It stated that this formed part of the resolutions reached at an emergency meeting between President Bola Tinubu, Vice-President Kashim Shettima, and state governors at the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja.

When contacted by one of our correspondents on Saturday to confirm whether the service had clamped down on food hoarders or those trying to move food out of Nigeria, the National Public Relations Officer of the NCS, who is a Chief Superintendent of Customs, Abdullahi Maiwada, stated that interceptions had been made.

On Tuesday, Shettima while addressing a conference on public wealth management in Abuja, noted that the Federal Government had uncovered 32 routes used to smuggle food to neighbouring countries.

The VP said the routes were found in the Illela Local Government Area of Sokoto State.

Despite these clampdowns, traders have continued to smuggle foodstuffs, mostly grains, out of the country for illegal sales in neighbouring countries.

C’River to Cameroon

In Cross River State, an unholy alliance exists between Nigerian and Cameroonian traders dealing not only in foodstuffs but other items of value to earn CFA franc.

A Cameroon-based Nigerian, simply identified as Ebere, described Cameroon as one country that was good for trans-border trade, adding that it was not lacking food.

He, however, said traders from Cross River State and other nearby states sold stockfish heads to Cameroonians to earn CFA franc.

Ebere said that apart from stockfish heads sold by Nigerians to Cameroonians, iron rods were also being exported to the country.

He added that Nigerian traders also move stockfish heads to Gabon, adding that the increase in such trade had further strengthened the CFA franc against the naira, especially in the black market.

Ebere stated, “There is an increase in the sale of stockfish heads and iron rods by Nigerians. They (Nigerians) are ready to do business, especially when the currency they will receive will mean doubling or tripling their gains.

“Cameroon has food; the country even sells food items to Gabon, which is also a neighbouring country, but Nigerians make a lot of money selling stockfish and iron to Cameroonians. The interest there is the CFA franc.”

A road transport operator, Godwin Eze, who plies the Ikom-Mfum-Ekok border roads in the state, told our correspondent that high trade volume between Nigerian and Cameroonian traders stemmed from the cascading fall of the naira against the backdrop of the high value of the Cameroonian CFA franc.

He further noted that Cameroonian traders had infiltrated the Nigeria-Cameroon borders to neighbouring towns in the Ikom Local Government Area of Cross River State to buy foodstuffs and other valuables and ferry same to their country for further sales.

It was also gathered that apart from that, traders in Nigeria had also found Cameroon as a safe haven to market their foodstuffs, among other trade items, to have unfettered access to the Cameroonian currency, which at the moment is higher in value than the naira.

A trader involved in the trade, who begged to remain anonymous, confirmed this to one of our correspondents.

She said, “It is no longer news that we have a trading alliance with traders from Cameroon. Our politicians are stealing billions, so we too must find a means of making enough money to cater to our family needs since we don’t have access to government money.

“What crime did we commit by buying and selling with Cameroonians?”

Borno grain traders

A major trans-border grains and commodities merchant, Abdullahi Aliyu, told our correspondent that 1,000 CFA francs were exchanged for N2,900 in the black market as of Saturday.

He said, “This shows a sharp contrast to just a few years ago when 1,000 CFA francs exchanged for as little as N320.

“With a comparatively strong naira to the CFA franc, we used to troop to Niger to buy so much rice and other essential commodities not available here just a few years ago.

“Now, the table has turned against us because the Nigeriens now seize the advantage of the drastic depreciation of the naira and exponential rise of their CFA franc to troop into Nigeria to buy as much of our grains as they can to resell in their country.

“To make sure they benefit from the depreciation of the naira to the utmost, many grain merchants in Niger, in a hot race for Nigeria’s food grains and other commodities, now even sell their residential houses to generate enough money for as much of the maize and millet as they can purchase from Nigeria to resell in their country.

“A bag of rice will cost around 22,000 CFA francs but in naira, it is around N75,000.”

The trader lamented that a Nigerien merchant having just enough to buy 10 sacks of Nigerian maize or millet just about a year ago, could now afford to buy 100 to 150 sacks with the same amount of money he traded for the 10 sacks a year ago.

Aliyu stated, “In one year, the draining of Nigerian grains to the Niger Republic through the Geidan (Yobe State) and Damasak (Borno State) borders has more than tripled.

“If the naira does not gain strength against the CFA franc, the situation may worsen next year.”

The trader also absolved any Nigerian farmer selling his grains to Nigeriens of any blame.

He added, “With the persisting economic hardship, the Nigerian farmer or grains merchant, who needs cash for pressing needs, will be tempted to sell his grains to the Nigerien who has the cash to give him than to his fellow Nigerian who doesn’t have the cash.

“So, in a short time, the food grains needed to feed a large population of Nigerians will be drained to the neighbouring countries, leaving Nigerians hungry, especially as they now do not have the money to cross the borders to buy food when they need to.”

Sokoto traders

Most exporters of foodstuffs from Sokoto State to the neighbouring Niger Republic have explained that their decision is the only way to make more money by selling their goods.

They added that most of them shared family ties with Niger with many intermarriages happening between them.

A trader within Sokoto’s old market, Abubakar Salisu, who spoke to our correspondent, said he was in business to make money, hence he decided to sell his goods at any available market to maximise profits.

Salisu stated, “I honestly don’t know why there is a lot of noise about where we decide to do our business and who we sell to.

“I believe everyone is doing business to make money. Why will our own be different from others that Nigerians now take us to be criminals?

“I believe you know there is a huge difference between the Nigeria currency and CFA franc, which is the legal tender in Niger and Cameroon. That is one of the major reasons why I decided to go there to sell my grains.

“If I take my goods to Niger Republic, I will make double what I will get in the Nigerian market here. So, why will I remain here to sell when I can make more money by simply changing location?

“The government should fix the economy and allow us to do our business in peace. They should stop harassing us. We are not the ones who caused the economic woes.”

A Nigerian rice seller in Niger Republic, Nuhu Illela, said even though he does a legal service, agents of the government still disturb him unnecessarily.

He said, “I have been selling the same rice in Illela (a border town in Sokoto) for over 20 years now without any rancour or disturbances.

“Since the closure of the border by the Economic Community of West African States, the rice we used to get from Niger Republic has stopped coming. That is one major reason food prices are increasing beyond the reach of ordinary citizens.

“I normally sell my products to our people in Illela, which is a border community between us and Niger Republic.

“Now that we don’t have the opportunity to get rice from Niger Republic, we resort to selling local rice here in the market and now the government looks at it as if we are criminals.

“I know some of my people here who have their families over there in Konni, Niger Republic. So, can’t I take my own goods to them to buy? What is my offence?

“Now that the government is setting up a task force to stop it, how do they expect us to survive and take care of our business and families?

“What they are supposed to do as a government, they are not doing. Why can’t the government find a solution to the falling naira, which is the reason we are taking our goods to these countries to sell?”

Sokoto task force

Meanwhile, in order to curtail the continued exportation of foodstuffs to Niger Republic from the state and to tackle the smuggling and hoarding of foodstuffs in the state, the Sokoto State Government, on Thursday, approved the task force to deal with the menace.

The nine-member committee is headed by Dalhatu Sidi Mamman, while Ahmed Usman serves as the secretary.

Others members are the Garrison Commander, 8 Division; Comptroller of Customs; Comptroller of Immigration; Commissioner of Police; representatives of the DSS and the NSCDC; the Sultanate Council; and the Grain Sellers Association of Nigeria.

According to a statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Abubakar Bawa, and made available to newsmen, the governor charges the task force members to identify all the routes through which smuggling activities are taking place.

The statement read in part, “To identify all hoarding facilities and ensure foodstuffs are released and sold to the general public at controlled prices.

“To identify hoarders and smugglers and take appropriate action against them.”

It also noted that the government would take any necessary measure to ensure food sufficiency in the state, while the committee would report to the secretary to the state governor’s office periodically on all its activities.

Smuggled foodstuffs intercepted

Meanwhile, the Nigeria Customs Service, on Saturday, declared that it had intensified efforts to halt the illegal export of food items from the country, adding that it had intercepted food smugglers in Kano, Katsina, and Sokoto states.

It also warned members of the public to desist from smuggling food items out of Nigeria for selfish reasons to the detriment of the larger masses, stressing that culprits would be caught.

Recall that on Sunday the NCS revealed that it intercepted 15 trucks that were fully loaded with food items and were heading out of the country through the Sokoto State border.

It said the trucks were stopped and the food items were returned to Nigeria, adding that this was part of measures to stabilise the prices of food items across the country in line with the mandate of the Federal Government.

When contacted on Saturday and asked whether there had been fresh seizures by the service, Maiwada, stated that interceptions were made in three states in the North.

He said, “We have some seizures or interception of some grains that were to be illegally exported out of the country for selfish desires by some members of the public.

“We have made several interceptions in Katsina, Sokoto, Kano, and around the Jigawa area.”

Maiwada urged Nigerians to desist from the illegal export of food items.

He said, “Our call on members of the public is not to fall for these unpatriotic acts by some elements who are only out to benefit themselves financially without recourse to the masses.

“So we encourage Nigerians to partake in legitimate trade and avoid anything that has to do with smuggling of items either into or out of the country.

“We will continue to re-strategise our enforcement strategies so that we will be ahead of them (smugglers).”

Recall that while assessing the government’s action to tackle the hardship in the country, the All Farmers Association of Nigeria and the organised private sector had supported the decision of the President and the governors not to adopt importation as a solution to the biting food crisis facing the nation.

They also backed the planned action against hoarders as the NCS vowed to stop the smuggling of food out of the country.

The AFAN President, Kabir Ibrahim, had told one of our correspondents that the decision of the government to order food producers to release their products to the market would help check the continued rise in the prices of food items.

He said, “I encourage the security agencies to move in with some other government officials and ask people to open their stores to sell what they have at the prevailing prices. The commodities should be sold at the prevailing prices.

“Nobody is asking them to bring down their prices, for once they sell at the prevailing prices they will not lose anything. But hoarding is not allowed anywhere in the world. You cannot keep what is needed and make it scarce.

“So the government should move in and do all it can to address this situation in Nigeria now. The prices of commodities are rising and the government has to intervene to tackle this issue, and it has our support on this.”

Taraba, Adamawa smugglers

The Nigeria Customs Service said on Saturday that it had, within the past month, seized contraband items worth over N13.352m.

This, it said, was across 15 different raids.

The seized items include 16,675 litres of petrol packed in 643×25-litre jerry cans and three × 200L drums; 20×50kg bags of foreign parboiled rice; and one used V/Wagon Golf with a big, reconstructed fuel tank, according to the Adamawa/Taraba Area Controller of the NCS, Salisu Abdullahi.

AFAN’s reaction

Ibrahim said on Saturday, “To put things into perspective, when someone takes things out of the country without paying duties, it is called smuggling.

“But if you look again at the Africa bilateral agreement, it presents that all of Africa is one market.

“By that, it is not illegal for any foreigner from Africa to come into Nigeria and Nigerians to go into neighbouring states for trade, but there are conventions and agreements which also require that things be done right.

“There is no rule that says you cannot take things from Nigeria to Europe by exporting. It’s not that there is no food, it’s just that it is not affordable.

“Anybody who smuggles anything should be punished according to the law. But if they are taking it out legitimately, there is nothing wrong with that because we also encourage people to export what they produce.”

He further advised the government to invest more in agriculture because of the drop in productivity.

Economist caution govt

Reacting to the development, a professor of Economics, Adebayo Abayomi, said rice merchants taking their produce to neighbouring countries because of the rise in the exchange value of CFA franc to naira were private economic agents rationally reacting to their selfish interest as dictated by the realities of the current economy.

He added that it was a normal business phenomenon as entrepreneurs do business to maximise their profits, noting that their actions indicated their efforts towards getting the best value in the current economy.

Abayomi also appealed to the Federal Government to stabilise the value of the naira.

Punch

Security operatives including soldiers, police and Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Crops (NSCDC) have taken over the popular Yankalli Market, one of major commodity markets in Plateau State, following an attempt by desperate residents to break in to steal food and other essential commodities.

The desperate people, including both males and females, arrived at the market around 8:00 pm on Friday but were intercepted by security operatives who had been deployed in anticipation of attack.

Jamilu Kabiru, chairman of a traders’ association, confirmed the development, stating that they had earlier reported to security agencies.

He said “We had heard on Thursday that hoodlums from Gangare, Rikkos and other places would attack the market to loot food items on the ground that we sell the commodities at high price. We didn’t take the rumor for granted and quickly reported the case to the security agencies that swiftly intervened. We had to sleep with our eyes open in the market to keep vigilance with the security.

“We are not the cause of inflation. The rise in price is not because of us. Our goods are always bought from companies. The increase is always from the companies. In addition to that, when you buy commodities from Lagos, you have to hire a truck for a price of over two million naira. What you spend on transporting the commodities to your destination, you divide the expenditure by the number of commodities, and that’s how the price is increasing. It is not our fault. We want people to understand that.

“In our market, we centrally control price of goods. It is a competitive market where everyone is struggling to sell and bring new goods. People should please understand with us.”

Spokesperson of the state police command, Alabo Alfred, who confirmed the development, said, “We got the information early and with the support of some people in the market and we were able to suppress the attempt. The operation was led by the Area Commander of the area and was successful.”

Daily Trust

Bandits have killed one of the seven persons abducted from Kuduru community in the federal capital territory (FCT).

The bandits stormed the area and abducted the victims on December 28, 2023.

A community source told our correspondent that the victim, Olayinka Ogunyemi, was killed after members of the families of the hostages failed to pay the N290 million demanded.

The source said the bandits called on Friday to break the news of the execution of Ogunyemi, a civil engineer.

“The bandits called us yesterday that they have killed Olayinka Ogunyemi.

“The bandits threatened to kill the remaining captives if N230 million is not made available as ransom. Those still in captivity include one and half year-old boy, two siblings, a pregnant woman and two men.

“N23 million has been paid, food sent and other items they demanded but none of our people has been released.

“We are appealing to the federal government, the police and the army to step up efforts to rescue our people because their abductors said Nigeria has offended them and they would retaliate.”

When contacted, spokesperson of the FCT police command, Adeh Josephine, simply said: “I am not aware of the incident.”

Daily Trust

Israeli officials to meet on a proposed pause in Gaza while the Cabinet is set to OK a Rafah plan

Israeli officials will meet Saturday night on the next steps after the latest talks with the United States, Egypt and Qatar in search of a deal on pausing the fighting in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

But Netanyahu announced that he’ll convene the Cabinet early next week to “approve the operational plans for action in Rafah,” including the evacuation of civilians, despite widespread warnings from the international community about a military ground operation in the southern city where more than half of Gaza’s population shelters. “Only a combination of military pressure and firm negotiations” would achieve Israel’s aims in the war, he said.

A senior official from Egypt, which along with Qatar is a mediator between Israel and the Hamas militant group, said mediators were waiting for Israel’s official response to a draft deal that includes the release of up to 40 women and older hostages held in Gaza in return for up to 300 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, mostly women, minors and older people.

The Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the negotiations, said the proposed six-week pause in fighting would include allowing hundreds of aid trucks to enter Gaza every day, including the northern half of the besieged territory. He said that both sides agreed to continue negotiations during the pause for further releases and a permanent cease-fire.

Negotiators face an unofficial deadline of the start of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan around March 10.

Hamas political official Osama Hamdan noted that the group wasn’t at the talks, but asserted to reporters in Beirut on Friday that Israel had refused its main demands, including stopping the “aggression” and withdrawing from Gaza.

The Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza said Saturday that the bodies of 92 Palestinians killed in Israeli bombardments were brought to hospitals over the past 24 hours, raising the overall toll in nearly five months of war to 29,606. The total number of wounded rose to nearly 70,000.

The ministry’s death toll doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants, but it has said that two-thirds of those killed were children and women. Israel says its troops have killed more than 10,000 Hamas fighters, but hasn’t provided details.

An Israeli airstrike hit a house in Rafah, killing at least eight people. including four women and a child, health authorities said. An Associated Press journalist saw the bodies at Abu Youssef al-Najjar hospital.

“Enough, enough. Either the Israelis or us should stop. There should be a truce,” said neighbor Abdul-Qader Shubeir, who described feeling lost at not being immediately able to put out the fire burning the bodies.

NEW GENOCIDE ALLEGATIONS

Brazil’s president alleged Saturday that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians, doubling down on harsh rhetoric after stirring controversy a week ago by comparing Israel’s military offensive in Gaza to the Nazi Holocaust in which 6 million Jews and others perished during World War II.

Israel has pushed back against genocide claims made at the U.N.’s top court and elsewhere, saying its war targets the militant group Hamas, not the Palestinian people. It has held Hamas responsible for civilian deaths, arguing that the group operates from civilian areas.

“What the Israeli government is doing is not war, it is genocide,” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Children and women are being murdered.”

In response to Lula’s initial comments, Israel declared him a persona non grata, summoned Brazil’s ambassador and demanded an apology. Lula recalled Brazil’s ambassador to Israel for consultations.

Last month, South Africa filed a landmark case with the International Court of Justice, accusing Israel of genocide against Palestinians. The court issued a preliminary order ordering Israel to do all it can to prevent death, destruction and any acts of genocide in Gaza.

Israel, created in part as a refuge for survivors of the Holocaust, has accused South Africa of hypocrisy. South Africa has compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in Gaza with the treatment of Black South Africans during apartheid, framing the issues as fundamentally about people oppressed in their homeland.

HUNGER AND DISEASES SPREAD

Israel declared war after the deadly Oct. 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel in which militants killed about 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages. More than 100 hostages remain in captivity in Gaza.

The rising civilian death toll and worsening humanitarian crisis in Gaza have amplified calls for a cease-fire. Hunger and infectious diseases are spreading and about 80% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, with about 1.4 million crowded into Rafah on the border with Egypt.

“There are choking, skyrocketing prices. It’s terrifying. There is no source of income. The area is very overcrowded,” said Hassan Attwa, a displaced man from Gaza City who now shelters in a tent on the sand in Mawasi in the south. “The garbage, may God bless you, is not collected at all. It stays piled up. It turns into a mess and clay when it rains. The situation is disastrous in every sense of the word.”

In Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, children banged on pots as part of a protest outside a closed hospital demanding more aid to the north.

Netanyahu has vowed to fight until “total victory,” but is under pressure at home. Police used a water cannon to disperse anti-government protesters in Tel Aviv on Saturday night, and 18 people were arrested. Others protested in Jerusalem.

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

How Russia's military uses volunteer fighters to plug gaps in Ukraine

When Russian forces withdrew from the town of Balakliia in eastern Ukraine in late 2022, pursued by Ukrainian troops and under artillery fire, they left a poorly equipped group of volunteers to guard their retreat.

The force of around 50 men came from the National Army Combat Reserve - known by its Russian acronym BARS - a loose assembly of units totaling several thousand fighters that Russia's defense ministry has deployed in Ukraine to supplement its regular forces.

About four hours of footage from a bodycam worn by one of the fighters, obtained by Reuters, provides a rare first-hand view of the combat operations of a BARS unit, according to three military experts who reviewed the video to provide an assessment for the news agency of the unit's military capability.

The invasion of Ukraine marked the first time BARS, which was founded in 2015, deployed units in combat. The video, coupled with interviews with four platoon members, shows the BARS unit was left to defend Balakliia with no heavy weaponry or air support, malfunctioning communications, and confused coordination with the regular military.

"Where is our air force?" asked one of the BARS fighters. His squad, tasked with defending a crossroads north of the town, was sharing a mess tin of cold meat stew during a break in Ukrainian shelling.

The squad leader, Anton Kuznetsov, whose bodycam recorded the exchange, told the men that there must be a good reason there was no air support. "Do they understand that we're surrounded?" complained another soldier, off-camera.

Contacted by Reuters, Kuznetsov said that he had made the bodycam video and had then misplaced the camera's memory card but he declined to comment on combat operations. The memory card was left behind in a rucksack after the retreat.

Russia's defence ministry and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment about the video or the extent to which the military relies on the BARS irregulars. A deputy commander of the BARS 9 force that fought in Balakliia, contacted by Reuters, confirmed his position in the unit but declined to comment on its activities.

The news agency could not independently determine how representative the conditions in the video were of the operations of the wider BARS force.

Russia has made territorial gains along parts of the frontline in recent months. Ukraine, which replaced its military top brass in early February, has repeatedly said it needs more equipment and support from Western allies to prosecute the war.

On at least two occasions, President Vladimir Putin has publicly praised the contribution of BARS to Russia's campaign. In a Feb. 21, 2023 annual address to parliament, he said BARS fighters were patriotic volunteers and thanked them for their service.

As the war enters a third year, BARS is part of a patchwork of irregular forces that helps Russia avoid an unpopular general draft, the military experts said.

Rod Thornton, associate professor at the Defence Studies Department of King's College London, estimated that BARS contributes between 10,000 and 30,000 men to a Russian force operating in or near Ukraine of about 200,000. Russia does not disclose the number of BARS fighters.

In recent months, BARS units have been fighting in north-east Ukraine and in the southern Zaporizhzhia region, two of the most bitterly contested fronts, according to updates posted on social media by Dmitry Rogozin, the Moscow-appointed representative for Zaporizhzhia in the upper house of the Russian parliament, and a report from Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

BARS units were useful in plugging gaps in Russian manpower, said Nick Reynolds, Research Fellow in Land Warfare at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), a UK-based defence think tank.

"With the Russian state clearly mobilizing for a longer conflict, a system such as BARS does provide an additional avenue from which to mobilize parts of the population, get them trained and provide additional mass," said Reynolds, who reviewed the bodycam footage.

He said the group shown in the video appeared "not particularly professional or well trained."

"WE'D BEEN FORGOTTEN"

On Sept. 6, 2022, the core of the Russian force in Balakliia was withdrawing in the face of a major Ukrainian counter-offensive. Ukrainian forces have already taken the nearby settlements of Verbivka and Lagery. But the BARS fighters stayed behind.

Kuznetsov, aged 29 and from Siberia, was one of the squad leaders of a BARS 9 platoon, in command of around a dozen men, the video showed.

The commander of the BARS platoon inside Balakliia ordered Kuznetsov's squad to head to the crossroads and repel Ukrainian forces, the video showed.

They knew they would be outgunned by the Ukrainians, conversations caught on camera showed. The heaviest weapons Kuznetsov's squad had at its disposal were machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, and mortars.

Two members of the BARS force were sent to find a spot with radio signal to contact a nearby artillery unit to get support, according to one of the four fighters who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity.

After around 24 hours, they located an artillery unit, but they were already pulling back towards Russia, so could not help, the person said.

"My first impression was that we'd been forgotten," he said. "It hit me very hard psychologically."

TOY SOLDIERS

On Sept 7, the last day recorded on the bodycam, Kuznetsov's squad were keeping watch from an apartment building overlooking the crossroads, as radio traffic reported Ukrainian forces approaching.

While they waited, Kuznetsov and two of his men played with a toy plane and toy tank, pantomiming a soldier requesting air support.

Soon after, a radio report came in saying five Ukrainian Humvees were spotted nearby. Kuznetsov tells his squad: "Right, men, let's get into the mood for a battle." The video footage ends as Kuznetsov heads downstairs into the street.

Two of the fighters told Reuters they did engage the Ukrainian forces, but the Russians were outnumbered.

After the retreat, BARS 9 temporarily disbanded, according to the same two fighters, though they said it has since been re-started.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia’s former leader threatens West with ‘revenge’

Moscow should retaliate as hard as it can against the West for its indiscriminate sanctions that hurt regular people, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Saturday.

The sweeping restrictions imposed on Russia go beyond targeting just “the authorities and businesses,” Medvedev wrote on his Telegram channel. “They are directed at the whole Russian population.”

“The rationale is clear: the more Russian citizens suffer, the better it is for the Western world,” Medvedev, who currently serves as the deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, argued.

“We just need to remember this and exact revenge everywhere we can. They are our enemies.”

Medvedev suggested that Moscow should punish its adversaries by “creating various difficulties in the economy, stirring up public discontent over the foolish policies of the authorities in the West, and promoting international decisions that undermine the interests of the Western world.”

On Friday, the US announced a new round of restrictions targeting 500 individuals and entities in Russia, citing the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the death of jailed opposition activist and anti-corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny. The fresh sanctions are aimed at Russia’s defense and financial sectors.

The US Treasury also blacklisted the state-owned operator of the Mir payment system, which soared in popularity in Russia after the country was cut off from the SWIFT financial messaging network and the services of Visa and Mastercard.

Moscow has maintained that all sanctions against it are illegal and are aimed at destabilizing the country.

RT/Reuters

So at plenary in the senate last week, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, rushed naked out of the bathtub. He raised his hand up. In the presidency’s search for scapegoat, Akpabio suddenly became Archimedes. Last week, he came forward to shout “Eureka!” He had found the No 1 Nigerian enemy! Ancient Greek scholar, Archimedes, was the author of a find similar to but of sterner stuff than Akpabio’s. 

Archimedes had proclaimed "Eureka! Eureka!" immediately he stepped into a bath and discovered that the water level immediately rose. This led him to the discovery that the volume of water he had displaced equaled the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. This discovery led to what in science is today known as the Archimedes principle. The Greek scholar was said to have been so excited at his discovery that he dashed out of the bathtub and ran naked through the streets of Syracuse. Before him, this knowledge was not known. 

Like Archimedes, Akpabio had made a find that would revolutionize the quest for who exactly was behind Nigeria’s food crisis. He said he got this Archimedes find from an “unverified report." The world slid into eerie silence. Why would the No 3 Citizen of Nigeria regale Nigerians with a report that lacked the rigour of verification? That office, at the occupier’s beck and call, was stacked with panoply of authentic information about happenings in high and low places. So, why would Akpabio seek to transmute an unverified report into national discourse? Wasn’t this akin to giving life to rumours? Nigerians listened nevertheless. And Akpabio spoke. He had found the enemy of Nigeria. They are the 36 state governors. They collected N30 billion each from the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to cushion the effect of biting inflation and high cost of food in their respective states. He thereafter relapsed into the usual inane platitudes that Nigerian leaders are known by. Every state government should utilize the money, he said. The state governments have a lot to do because they are closer to the people and Nigerians want to eat as there is no excuse, bla bla bla...

The logic of Akpabio’s find does not seem to add up. As governor of a Nigerian state for eight years, he must be aware that FIRS cannot pay money directly to sub-national governments. It is a revenue generating agency. It is not a revenue sharing entity. Even then, in its strict configuring, the Nigerian federal government is the proverbial Alabahun or Ahun, otherwise known as Tortoise, the trickster. A fable is told of how Tortoise and his son were at the dining table. As Tortoise, the father, scooped up a morsel en-route his mouth, his son opened his mouth, hoping the father had meant it for his belly. Tortoise felt sorry for his hungry son and told him that if he was that generous, the world would not ascribe the appellation of ahun (the stingy) to him.

As designed by the RMAFC and approved by the National Assembly, the Federal Government takes 52.68% of federally distributable revenue and states, 26.72%. The FG is very wealthy. Akpabio must however be aware that, as huge and wealthy as it may be in public eye, the federal government cannot give out freebies to any state, except their statutory entitlements. So, did Akpabio not know this or did he damn all he knew for the sake of an ulterior motive? Or was it the usual lack of depth in high places that was unraveling?

If one of the governors, Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, had not bravely spoken out almost immediately last week, the consequences of the deflection of arrows parceled out for Nigerian governors would have been dire. Makinde’s counterpart in Akwa-Ibom, Umo Bassey Eno, also did same. Eno was even blunt and direct: “We are in a time when people want to be relevant and they feel that being relevant is to incite the public, tell lies against government. No civil society behaves like that.” He said this in denying Akpabio’s conjured N30b. Already, a welter of attacks against the governors had sprung up on the social media. If the Akpabio allegation had gone without a lie put to it, we would have had passers-by pelting governors’ vehicles with stones and a state of uprising in the states. Akpabio would have feathered his political nest in the presidency as a good Man Friday.

At critical moments, virtues leaders need to exhibit are self-restraint and forbearance. The mouth, as harmless as it may seem, is a very powerful weapon that leaders must use sparingly. It holds emotions and feelings and is also a tinder which can cause national fire. The moment the mouth is set a-loose, its destructive effect is unimaginable. In the Ifa corpus, Esu, being the most gluttonous of the Irunmoles (deities) reputed with the task of ferrying human appeasements from earth to heaven, is most times depicted with his lose mouth. A story of the destructive nature of the mouth and unconscionable decision is often told in King Odarawu. He was an Alaafin in the old Oyo Empire whose brief reign in the late seventeenth century, after succeeding Alaafin Ajagbo, his father, made him the first Alaafin to be rejected by the Oyomesi, the council of state. Odarawu was a prisoner of his tongue and temper and this led to the brevity of his reign. His fiery temper and the calamity it wrought became almost like a totem which the kingdom used to teach morals about leaders and their mouths.

Told by The Reverend Samuel Johnson in his authoritative Yoruba nation biography, The history of the Yorubas, (p 169) as was the custom, at his installation, Odarawu was asked to name his enemy. Without mincing words, the Prince named Ojo Segi, a town in the kingdom. On what provoked the enmity, Odarawu went down memory lane. Years back, the Prince had gone to buy corn meal (eko) for dinner. Unbeknown to him, the woman who sold the eko was the Baale’s wife. The price of a wrap of eko was then a cowry and Odarawu bought six. He however paid five cowries, according to the privilege of his birth. The Baale’s wife, feeling insulted and not aware of his princely status, decked Odarawu’s face with a dirty slap. She then repeatedly shouted “thief!” at him for trying to withhold a cowry off her legitimate earning. As he was being installed Alaafin, Odarawu asked the council for one favour: the destruction of Ojo Segi. Though the Oyomesi acceded to his request and brought the town to ruins, the council agreed to do away with Odarawu. In their estimation, the new king was a heartless tyrant. If, out of malice against a single woman, he could have macabre pleasure in the destruction of a hapless people, he was not worthy of the kingdom. Oyo people thereafter rejected Odarawu and, in frustration, he committed suicide.   

Nigeria’s Senate President, Akpabio, took on a very minute slice of the vice that brought Odarawu and the people of Ojo Segi to destruction. Akpabio unleashed the power of the tinder in his mouth. Today, Nigeria is embroiled in crises. Her economy is tailspinning into chaos. A video of Thomas Hobbes on Kaduna road, Suleja went viral a couple of days ago. Protesters against the badly hit economy went haywire, showcasing Nigerian life at this time as nasty, brutish and short. A Dangote truck was also said to have earlier been hijacked somewhere in the north and its food content pillaged. From every indication, there is a national emergency and leaders’ cast role at this time should be forbearance and words that will fuse the people together.

Rather, buck-passing and scape-goating have reigned. Yet, hunger has morphed into anger on the streets. Apart from seeking ways out of their hunger, Nigerians want to know who their enemy, the one responsible for this hunger, is. Spiritedly, Bola Tinubu, president of Nigeria, has seized every opportunity to tell the people he is their friend. Like an evangelist, Tinubu has been gospelling. His have been preachments of patience and policies (PPP). But, like the biblical sower, Tinubu’s seeds are not landing on the ridges where they should germinate. They fall on furrows and waysides where sparrows fly down from the sky and immediately swallow them for dinner.

You cannot blame the people. Hunger has stretched their patience thread-thin. It is tearing asunder political party loyalties and primordial sentiments. Even All Progressives Congress (APC) party members are throwing barbs at their party-led government. Yoruba are forcefully retrieving the chain of beads they cavalierly decorated on the amoeba-shaped bottom – the “Idi bebere” – of their child in the wake of the 2023 presidential election. Hunger is angrily making the people break the beads into pieces. Whilst gallant praise-singing soldiers recruited on social media to deodorize the hunger in the land attack them for being bastards, Yoruba listen to the jarring noise of hunger in their bellies. Didn’t our forefathers say that when hunger ingresses into the belly, every other matter egresses? Recently, the people’s hunger pushed them to the streets of Ibadan, Oyo State to protest. Shouting “Enough is enough” to the “Idi bebere” reign of hunger, they demanded what use the Tinubu PPP would be to them by the time hunger had sent them to their untimely graves.

In the midst of all this, explanations for the hunger in the land are finding their way into the information highway. A pot-pourri of explanations confronts the people. The soldiers are struggling to outdo one another in this roulette of convincing hungry Nigerians that they are not too hungry. Yet, Nigerians want to know who their real enemy, the one responsible for this massive hunger, is. According to the soldiers on the social media, the Number One cause of the hunger is the ramrod-thin General, the one who spoke seldom while his mindless appointees stole Nigeria blind; whose eight-year reign was filled with empty sanctimony – Muhammadu Buhari. Cascading the enemies downwards, they equally told us that thin-statured ex-CBN governor, Godwin Emefiele, ranks high on the list of those responsible for this massive hunger. The history of the hunger was further elasticized. According to them, Nigeria’s financial troubles began from the crisis that stampeded Sanusi Lamido Sanusi out of the vault of the CBN. A report of huge financial mess in the Nigeria’s apex bank, they said, had allegedly indicted Lamido. But, so they reasoned, Sanusi ran out of the cold harmattan haze of the hefty allegations into the humid comfort of the Kano Emir’s palace. The palace immediately provided him a shawl for his face, immunity from a Goodluck Jonathan whose roars were as feeble as a cat’s meow. So, to Sanusi we should look for the genesis of our hunger.

The presidency was even more direct. A ubiquitous, even if nameless, opposition must be the culprit. The saboteurs, in the narrative of the president, were those who failed in their bid to clinch power in the last election. They have subsequently remained in “political mode” while working towards the fall of the country. Speaking last Tuesday in Abuja at the inaugural Public Wealth Management Conference organised by the Ministry of Finance Incorporated, the president, represented by Vice President Kashim Shettima, added another scapegoat – smugglers. He said government had uncovered fresh 32 smuggling routes through which food items were siphoned out of Nigeria.

Those feeble explanations have yet to tame the anger on the streets. With attacks on the Tinubu government growing by the day, methinks a Strategic Hunger Council Meeting (SHCM) became imperative. And it was inaugurated. The spirit of Joseph Goebbels, 

German philologist and Nazi politician, was immediately invoked. How could government deflect these raging arrows? Being same party-led government, there is a tolerable level to which this government could shovel the dirt of current woes on the Buhari government without a boomerang. In any case, the president himself had asked Nigerians not to pity him as he willingly asked to be president. He knew Nigerians would ask if he wasn’t aware of the challenges of governing a chaotic Nigeria before diving into the waters. Swimmers, flaunting their prowess, scold the ogberi (non-initiates) not to even step their foot on the bank of the river if they cannot swim as the Oluweri – goddess of the river – was prepared to make barbecue of them.

So, the SHCM must have agreed that the most effective scapegoats should be the Nigerian governors. Don’t our elders say, being a generally perceived abominable bird, any arrow shot at the vulture is well deserved? (Iri t’a ri’gun la fi nta’gun l’ofa) The Villa goons have empirical and believable reasons to turn their gaslighting state-wards. Since the advent of the 4th Republic, massive theft of Nigeria’s resources has taken place in the states. Governors after governors have pillaged their states’ resources mindlessly, leaving shells as memorabilia. Since 1999, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) established to go after the vultures scavenging our vaults, has tumbled from a fearsome lion to a tame cat. Today, rather than governors and other thieves in high places, EFCC’s special menu is scamming boys in university hostels.

The narrative of blame must thus land at the feet of the governors. It began with the social media soldiers calling Nigerians’ attention to increasing FAAC allocations from the casino tables of Aso Rock which they said have swelled state governments’ accounts. With this, they say there is no reason why blames for Nigerians’ pervasive hunger should be pointed in Aso Rock’s direction. The Tinubu government’s fiscal reforms, they also argue, have benefited state governors’ coffers tremendously. It is an argument flushed down general lavatories which has saturated national sewages. Only a deeper thought can defrost the argument of its cants and sophistry. True as it is that many governors go on a binge with their monthly allocations, what was the worth of the state allocations before now and today, with the Tinubu chaotic economy? How much is the worth of those allocations today as Tinubu’s Naira engages in Atilogwu dance? For those who inherited foreign debts from their predecessors among the governors, what is the worth today of those debts which they pay from their federal allocations? Do states pay the same salaries now as before the reforms?

In my thinking, in pursuit of this general scape-goating agenda, a willing recruit needed to be found. No one fitted the bill than Akpabio. He wears on his lapel the unenviable pedigree of a reversible chameleon. Even before his recent Odarawu journey, like Nostradamus, 

Thisday’s Segun Adeniyi had appropriately dimensioned him. In his last week’s piece entitled Akpabio: A man for every new season, which is a summary of the reversible political life of the former Akwa Ibom state governor, Adeniyi fittingly attired the Senate president the garment of sanctimony. In the piece, he effectively derobed him of any flavor of virtues of leadership. In its place, Adeniyi wore on Akpabio a befitting garment of an all-weather politician who follows the tide of power and office.

The truth is, characters like Akpabio get away with their insurrectionist statements because the people move on after each Intifada. Since the N30b Intifada, Akpabio has gone into his shells; no remorse, no apologies to the over 200 million Nigerians whose emotions he provoked needlessly by such gross lie. In saner societies, such a leader would be sorry; or, be made to be sorry.

We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all toward each other aboundeth ~ 2 Thessalonians 1:3.

Introduction:

Faith is a quintessential faculty that must be allowed to fully develop in us. It’s the incontestable means by which we can offer remarkable kingdom services, develop an honorable character, and obtain a good report in God’s trustworthy assessment.

Faith is a living thing; indeed, a living power from heaven: “faith is…”(Hebrews 11:1). It’s firm trust and sound confidence in God and the integrity of His Word (Hebrews 3:14). Faith substantiates the promises of God, making them present realities to us.

The assurance of the things hoped for, whatever they are, is available to us through the assent of faith because faith infers the reality of the objects believed for (Hebrews 6:5-6). Faith is an agreement with the truth that’s credible upon the testimony of God as found in the Bible.

Faith deals with spiritual and invisible things. It proves to the mind the reality of things hoped for, and gives the believers the “convincing proof” of things not yet seen.

By faith, our souls can see the buried past, the unseen present and the unpredictable future. Faith is a firm persuasion and an unyielding expectation that God will perform all He has promised to us in Christ.

There are different levels/kinds of faith: little faith (Matthew 6:30; 14:31), mustard seed faith (Matthew 17:20), great faith (Matthew 15:28), strong faith (Romans 4:20), living faith (Galatians 2:20), steadfast faith (Colossians 2:5), and sound faith (Titus 1:3).

Every believer has faith in a measure, as a gift from God (Romans 12:3). However, our faith must grow adequately for it to produce our desired expectations (Romans 1:17). It must be bold in speaking forth God’s promises (1Timothy 3:13; Romans 1:8).

We must develop our faith, otherwise it will naturally ebb away  because of the unpalatable winds that occasionally blow around us (Matthew 7:25-27).

Faith is never static. It is either growing, diminishing or withering. Sadly, faith can wither without the owner knowing that something precious is slipping away from him. Hence, our Lord Jesus Christ warned the Laodicean church against such an ugly scenario (Revelation 3:14-22).

We cannot truly live without faith (Habakkuk 2:4). Yet, the devil incessantly hunts it in order to rubbish our Christian testimony (Hosea 7:8-10)! We must therefore never become careless with our faith; rather, we must always strive to maintain and even grow it.

In Matthew 17:14-21, a man took his son, who was tormented by the spirit of lunacy, to Jesus' disciples for healing. But they couldn't cure him. The man then went to Jesus, and He immediately cast out the devil with a mastery touch of authority.

Now, just like every serious-minded learner would make recourse to his teacher whenever the occasion demands, Jesus’ disciples privately asked Him why they weren’t able to cast out the despicable spirit from the boy.

Jesus told them that it was their unbelief that made it impossible for them to cure the boy. This is always the case with us when we refuse to grow our faith as we ought to.

Unarguably, the disciples then were on a learning curve, and hadn’t attained a spiritual level of faith required to heal the boy. Nevertheless, Jesus still reprimanded them, calling them a “faithless and perverse generation”, because He had expected they would learn fast enough to grow their faith to a degree of kingdom relevance (2Timothy 3:5-7).

Understanding The Mustard Seed Faith!

Of a truth, Jesus clearly said that anyone with “faith as a grain of mustard seed” can move mountains (Matthew 17:20). But, this is one of the most commonly misunderstood passages in the entire Bible.

The “mustard seed” kind of faith is often roughly interpreted as “just a little bit of faith to do great exploits”. Some people therefore become content with their ground-level, puny faith. Undoubtedly, this wasn’t the intention here.

Jesus didn’t mean that our faith should be small, and remain so. Little faith doesn’t accomplish big things, only big faith does. Anything beyond your faith level remains undone! It certainly takes full-grown faith to move mountains (Matthew 17:16).

“Mustard seed faith” refers to the kind of faith that can grow to the extent that it can produce signs: heal the sick, cast out demons and wrought wonders. It’s that “little faith” that grows and eventually moves mountains.

Jesus explained this in Matthew 13:31-32, saying, “The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed, which a man took, and sowed in his field: which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof”.

Our faith is expected to grow to the extent that our lives become a pleasant fragrance of God's grace, that we become solution-bringers to our world, and that we begin to touch other destinies just like birds of the air find a haven in the enormous tree that grew out of the tiny mustard seed.

Faith has always been the mark of God’s servants, from time immemorial. The disciples had faith, otherwise they wouldn’t have prayed at all. It was just not enough. We must be determined to develop our faith!

At the onset, we don't have to go in at the deep end, but we must start where we are and steadily increase in it by believing God for small things and then graduating to higher things. Thereafter, our faith can move any mountain (Mark 11:22-23).

Necessary Conditions for Faith To Grow

Faith isn’t a matter of works, soulical activities, or something that comes about as a result of our emotional rollercoaster. Developing our faith is about being increasingly focused on God's Word, relying on His grace and following Him in intentional fellowship (Ephesians 2:8-9).

A conducive atmosphere is highly essential here; otherwise, our mustard seed faith won’t grow. It may even lose its potential. The soil is certainly important. It must be fertile and very nourishing. This refers to a well-prepared and well-watered heart, always eager to hear the Word (Ephesians 5:26).

Albeit, hearing the Word is more than a mere audible perception. It entails obeying it as well (James 1:22). Disobedience hinders growth. Your faith cannot grow beyond your obedience.

There must also be good “sunlight” for our mustard seed faith to grow  (Malachi 4:2). When our lives are exposed to Jesus' light, we become energized by love, and we certainly produce bountiful yields (Galatians 5:6).

Furthermore, prayer and fasting are very essential to the administration of faith and power in the Holy Ghost. Prayer and fasting speak to death. Before our mustard seed faith will sprout, grow and produce, it must die first. The way up is the way down!

Prayer and fasting require a lot of discipline, diligence, determination and perseverance! Fasting is a valid means of dying to the flesh, and when it’s coupled with prayers, we become finely-honed to pick the signals from the invisible realm.

Friends, your faith is very precious! The glory of God shows in your life only to the extent that you have grown your faith. Guard it jealously; don't trifle with it, and don't allow anyone (or anything) to steal it!

Faith grows by speaking right words (Revelation 12:11). If your faith is not sown, it will lie dormant and useless. There’s an incredible power in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). Moreover, the mouth of the righteous is a well of life (Proverbs 10:11).

Never side with Satan! Take side with God by saying what He says. Believe also what you speak. Your faith will grow big, and it shall produce bountiful harvests for you. You won’t miss it, in Jesus name. Amen. Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

Connect with Bishop Akinola via these channels:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/bishopakinola

SMS/WhatsApp: +234 802 318 4987

The beginning of the year is the season when the merchants of God tell the tallest tales about God. They tell us to trust God for all kinds of things in the coming year. They tell us God will buy us cars; He will build us houses; He will even buy our pastors jets so they can evangelise and save the world.

These motivational preachers, who often require down payments for God’s promises in their bank accounts, are snake-oil salesmen and women. What they conveniently fail to tell us is the truth that God cannot be trusted to fulfil our vanities.

Be careful what you trust God for. Otherwise, you will conclude that God is not trustworthy. God is often not inclined to do what we want. His thoughts are not amenable to our vainglories. His ways are not conducive to our pride of life.

Do not buy the lie. Yes, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. (2 Corinthians 5:19). But only so that the world might ultimately be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:20). God says to man: “Not your will but mine be done.” He says: “Not your method but mine. Not your timing but mine.”

Can we trust God enough to accept this?

God will only act when He chooses to act. He will only do things His way. That makes Him untrustworthy to the Frank Sinatra who want things their way.

“As for me,” says the psalmist, “I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God. My times are in your hand.” (Psalm 31:14-15).

Commanding God

As a new believer, I was misled by a King James Bible translation that reads:

“Thus saith the LORD, the Holy One of Israel, and his maker, ‘Ask Me of things to come concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands command ye Me.’” (Isaiah 45:11).

I went around barking commands at God in the altar of prayer. It took me a while to realise that the correct translation means the exact opposite of that KJV version:

“The LORD, the holy God of Israel, the one who shapes the future, says: ‘You have no right to question Me about My children or to tell Me what I ought to do!’”

God cannot be trusted to fulfil our dreams. He cannot be trusted to fulfil our purposes. The fact that you want a car does not mean you can trust God to get one for you. God can only be trusted to fulfil His promises. He cannot be trusted to fulfil our agendas.

That is why it is important to have a relationship with God. That way, we can hold God to the promises He makes to us and not even assume the promises He made to others in biblical days automatically apply to us. When we read the Bible without understanding, we conclude foolishly that letters addressed to others are automatically meant for us.

Trust Without Understanding

Think this through with me. Can you really trust Someone who kills off Ezekiel’s wife just to make a point to Israel? Can you trust Someone who did nothing to prevent Herod from chopping off John the Baptist’s head? Can you trust a Doctor who deliberately stays back when told His friend is sick and finally arrives four days’ late after the man has died?

Can you trust a Physician who could heal you immediately but decides instead to nurse you back to health? Can you trust Someone who would shut His face from His Son when He is dying on the cross? Can you trust the bosom Friend who invited the devil into Job’s situation and allowed him to kill his children, destroy his business and adversely affect his health?

Job himself provides the implausible answer. He persists in trusting God despite his ordeal. He did not succumb to the entreaties of his wife to curse God. Instead, he declares:

“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” (Job 13:15).

Trusting God does not always mean we will understand what He is doing or why He is doing it. The wise man counsels:

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Do not be wise in your own eyes.” (Proverbs 3:5-7).

Work of Faith

What we are called to do is to stand on the word of God, irrespective of whatever situation we find ourselves. We are not to trust God for things. We are to trust God in all things.

God is not only good when the going is good. He is the same yesterday and today and forever when the going is bad. (Hebrews 13:8). We mouth vain platitudes that “God is good all the time.” But then we nevertheless feel betrayed when times are bad.

Peter trusted Jesus to walk on water. But when the waves turned, he doubted and began to sink. (Matthew 14:29). The disciples trusted Jesus to cross over to the other side. But when the storm arose, they doubted and complained that He did not care if they perished. (Mark 4:38).

Trust in God is not inherited: it is learnt. It does not come because of the “completed work of Christ on the cross.” We learn to trust God by trusting Him. For us to learn to trust God, He must put us through some hair-raising situations. If God does everything we want the way and when we want it; we would never develop real trust in Him.

How much work do we have to do when we are trusting God? James says: 

“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” (James 2:26).

What then is the nature of the work of faith?

Sometimes it is not doing what we would normally do. When we put our trust in the Lord, we do not have to scheme to get a husband. We do not have to backstab to get promoted. We do not need to be evil to get ahead. We do not need to hoard to keep. God gives His beloved sleep. (Psalm 127:2).

God is Trustworthy

Do not believe the lie: Jesus did not become poor that we, through His poverty, might become wealthy and filthy rich. That is a misunderstanding of Paul. (2 Corinthians 8:9). We do not need Jesus to become rich: we need Him to become poor. God cannot be trusted to make us rich. But He can be trusted to meet our needs. (Psalm 23:1).

He will, indeed, give us the desires of our hearts. (Psalm 37:4). But that means He will determine what those desires should be. God cannot be trusted to give us another man’s husband. He can be trusted to give us ours. He cannot be trusted to give us the world. He can be trusted to give us His kingdom.

Jesus says:

“Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” (Luke 12:32).

God can be trusted to meet and exceed only our righteous expectations.

If our prayer is “Father, thy will be done,” we will not be disappointed. As we carry our crosses daily, we should be mindful of Jesus’ example at Gethsemane where He prayed:

“Father, if You are willing, take this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” (Luke 22:42).

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In a neat little neighborhood in Venice, Calif., there’s a block of squat, similar homes, filled with mortals spending their finite days on the planet eating pizza with friends, blowing out candles on birthday cakes, and binging late-night television. Halfway down the street, there’s a cavernous black modern box. This is where Bryan Johnson is working on what he calls “the most significant revolution in the history of Homo sapiens.” 

Johnson, 46, is a centimillionaire tech entrepreneur who has spent most of the last three years in pursuit of a singular goal: don’t die. During that time, he’s spent more than $4 million developing a life-extension system called Blueprint, in which he outsources every decision involving his body to a team of doctors, who use data to develop a strict health regimen to reduce what Johnson calls his “biological age.” That system includes downing 111 pills every day, wearing a baseball cap that shoots red light into his scalp, collecting his own stool samples, and sleeping with a tiny jet pack attached to his penis to monitor his nighttime erections. Johnson thinks of any act that accelerates aging—like eating a cookie, or getting less than eight hours of sleep—as an “act of violence.” 

Johnson is not the only ultra-rich middle-aged man trying to vanquish the ravages of time. Jeff Bezos and Peter Thiel were both early investors in Unity Biotechnology, a company devoted to developing therapeutics to slow or reverse diseases associated with aging. Elite athletes employ therapies to keep their bodies young, from hyperbaric and cryotherapy chambers to  “recovery sleepwear.” But Johnson’s quest is not just about staying rested or maintaining muscle tone. It’s about turning his whole body over to an anti-aging algorithm. He believes death is optional. He plans never to do it. 

Outsourcing the management of his body means defeating what Johnson calls his “rascal mind”—the part of us that wants to eat ice cream after dinner, or have sex at 1 a.m., or drink beer with friends. The goal is to get his 46-year-old organs to look and act like 18-year-old organs. Johnson says the data compiled by his doctors suggests that Blueprint has so far given him the bones of a 30-year-old, and the heart of a 37-year-old. The experiment has “proven a competent system better at managing me than a human can,” Johnson says, a breakthrough that he says is “reframing what it means to be human.” He describes his intense diet and exercise regime as falling somewhere between the Italian Renaissance and the invention of calculus in the pantheon of human achievement. Michelangelo had the Sistine Chapel; Johnson has his special green juice. 

But when I showed up at Johnson’s house one Monday in August, I wasn’t really there to figure out if his elaborate age-defying strategies actually worked. I assumed that given my family history of cancer and personal fondness for pepperoni pizza, I probably won’t live long enough to find out. Instead, I spent three days observing Johnson to learn what a life run by an algorithm would look like, and whether the “next evolution of being human” would have any real humanity at all. If living like Johnson meant you could live forever—a big if!—would it even be worth it?

Kate Tolo opens the door to Johnson’s house and welcomes me inside. Tolo, a 27-year-old former fashion strategist who is originally from Australia, is Johnson’s chief marketing officer and most loyal disciple. Two months ago, she became the first person aside from Johnson to commit to Blueprint, making her the first test of how Blueprint works on a female body. Tolo is known as “Blueprint XX.”

The home is beautiful and devoid of clutter, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out on the pool and lush greenery outside. It reminds me of an Apple Store in a jungle. Tolo offers me a little bowl of special chocolate, which had been “un-dutched,” stripped of heavy metals, and sourced only from regions with high polyphenol density. It tastes like a foot. She also makes me a juice-like concoction that contains chlorella powder with spermidine, amino complex, creatine, collagen peptides, cocoa flavanols, and ceylon cinnamon. Tolo and Johnson call it the Green Giant, but it looks almost black, like the stuff that washes off a duck after an oil spill. She manages to mix it without getting any of the dark sludge on her immaculate white jumpsuit. “It moves through some people’s digestive system faster than others,” she chirps, gesturing to the nearby bathroom. I take a tentative sip. It tastes like Gatorade, but sandy.

Johnson walks into the room, wearing a green T-shirt and tiny white shorts. He has the body of an 18-year-old and the face of someone who had spent millions attempting to look like an 18-year-old. His skin is pale and glowing, which is partly because of the multiple laser treatments he’s done, and partly because he had no hair on his entire body. The hair on his head is “not dyed,” Johnson says, but he does use a “gray-hair-reversal concoction” which includes “an herbal extract” that colors the hair a darkish brown. He gestures to my Green Giant, and then toward the bathroom. “Did you warn her?” he asks Tolo. I pretend to take another sip.

The next day, Johnson walks me through his morning routine, step-by-step. He woke up at 4:53 a.m, but delayed most of his routine until I arrive at 7 a.m. to observe him. His bedroom has almost nothing in it: no photos, no books, no television, no glass of water, no phone charger, no chair with piled-up clothes he tried on once, no dry cleaning he meant to put away, no towels, no mirror, no nothing. “I only sleep in here,” he says. “No work, no reading.” The only two objects in the room besides his bed are a laser face-shield he uses for collagen growth and wrinkle reduction, and the device he wears on his penis while he sleeps to measure his nighttime erections. “I have, on average, two hours and 12 minutes each night of erection of a certain quality,” he says. “To be age 18, it would be three hours and 30 minutes.” Nighttime erections, he says, are “a biological age marker for your sexual function,” one that also has implications for cardiovascular fitness. The erection tracker looks like a little AirPods case with a turquoise strap, like a purse worn by a penis. (No penises were viewed in the reporting of this article.)

When Johnson wakes up and removes the device, he weighs himself on a scale that uses “electrical impedance” to measure his weight, body-mass index, hydration level, body fat, and something called “pulse wave velocity,” which he explained but I didn’t quite grasp. “I’m in the top 1% of ideal muscle fat,” he says. Then he turns on his light-therapy lamp (which mimics sun exposure) for two to three minutes to reset his circadian rhythm. He takes his inner-ear temperature to monitor changes in his body, and starts off with two pills of ferritin to boost his iron, along with some vitamin C. He washes his face, uses a cream to prevent wrinkles, and puts on a laser light mask for five minutes, with red and blue lights designed to stimulate collagen growth and control blemishes. By this time, it’s typically about 6 a.m., and Johnson walks downstairs to start his day. 

The Blueprint supplement regimen is arranged on Johnson’s kitchen counter, organized from left to right. He begins with eye drops for his pre-cataracts, then uses a little vibrating device against the side of his nose to stimulate a nerve that apparently helps his eyes create tears. Johnson makes his Green Giant, then starts taking more pills in between sips of dark-green sludge. “It’s what my body has asked for,” he says. Does he ever miss coffee, even a little? “I love coffee, it’s so fun,” he says. “It’s an addictive escalation drug for me.”

At this point, he begins doing special exercises to increase his grip strength. Then he heads to his home gym—decorated with a floor-to-ceiling wallpaper photograph of a forest—and starts an hour-long routine. Johnson can leg-press 800 lbs., but his daily workout isn’t much more advanced than something you’d see from a very enthusiastic guy at the gym: a series of weights, planks, and stretches. He does this seven days a week; he adds on a high-intensity workout three days a week. Occasionally, during these high-intensity workouts, he’ll wear a plastic mask to measure his VO2 max, or the maximum rate of oxygen consumption during physical exercise. Johnson’s VO2 Max is in the top 1.5% of 18-year-olds, he says.

After his workout, Johnson eats a meal of steamed vegetables and lentils that have been blended until they resemble a mush the color of a sea lion. He and Tolo don’t name their meals “breakfast,” “lunch,” or “dinner.” They call them “first meal,” “second meal,” and so on. This is first meal. He offers me some “nutty pudding,” which is made from macadamia-nut milk, ground macadamia and walnuts, chia seed, flaxseed, Brazil nuts, sunflower lecithin, ceylon cinnamon, and pomegranate juice. It’s the color of a pencil eraser and tastes a little dusty, but it’s not too different from a vegan yogurt, if you like that sort of thing. 

Johnson insists all this is about something much bigger than getting ripped and maintaining a youthful glow. “Most people assume death is inevitable. We're just basically trying to prolong the time we have before we die,” he says. Until now, he adds, “I don't think there's been any time in history where Homo sapiens could say with a straight face that death may not be inevitable.”

Experts strongly disagree. “Death is not optional; it’s written into our genes,” says Pinchas Cohen, dean of the Leonard Davis School of Gerontology at the University of Southern California. Cohen emphasizes that living longer in the future is certainly possible: over the course of the 20th century, human life expectancy rose from around 50 to more than 80. But living forever is not. “There’s absolutely no evidence that it’s possible,” Cohen says, “and there’s absolutely no technology right now that even suggests that we’re heading that way.”

“If you want immortality, you should go to a church,” adds Eric Verdin, CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging. “If I believed even a little bit that it would be possible, I would be excited. It’s a pipe dream.” Verdin isn’t just skeptical of Johnson’s claims that he can achieve immortality; he’s skeptical of his claims of age-reversal altogether. “He professes to make everything transparent, but as a scientist it’s really impossible to understand the tools he’s using to assess his age,” Verdin says, adding that the Buck Institute reached out to Johnson to collaborate on some research, but never heard back. Johnson’s lack of interest in collaboration with independent scientists made Verdin even more skeptical. “I think if he wants to convince all of us that what he’s doing is valid, then he’s going to have to accept being challenged by colleagues,” he says. (Johnson doesn’t remember ignoring Verdin’s invitation, and says that he and Verdin have recently exchanged friendly emails.)

Some scientists do believe that limited age-reversal is possible. In still controversial and contested work, researchers at Harvard Medical School have claimed they've rejuvenated older mice, and are currently testing whether the aging clock can be turned back in human skin and eye cells. But those experiments are being done according to established scientific conventions. Johnson, in contrast, has made himself a human guinea pig, adopting nearly every age-related treatment at once and seeing what works.

It’s not just that medical professionals are skeptical of Blueprint’s ability to achieve immortality. They’re not even convinced Johnson’s routine is particularly healthy. Nir Barzilai, the director of the Institute for Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, met Johnson in May, at the annual retreat for the Academy for Health & Lifespan Research. Barzilai recalls that when Johnson showed up, the doctors present were concerned. “He looked sick. He was pale. I don’t know what he did with his face,” Barzilai says, adding that he was alarmed by Johnson’s lack of fat, which plays an important role in the body. “All these MDs, we all kind of agreed that he didn’t look so great.”

Barzilai also has serious reservations about Johnson taking so many supplements and treatments at once, warning that all the different pills could interact with one another in dangerous ways. “What he’s doing hasn’t proven to be safe, because some of the treatments he’s taking are actually antagonizing to each other,” he says, adding that doctors normally research the effects of one drug at a time, rather than the cumulative effects of more than 100 pills at once. “Even if it works for him, how do you know it works for you?” Barzilai says. Blueprint, he adds, is “not an experiment that we accept as scientists or doctors.” 

Johnson did not make his own doctors available for an interview, nor did he provide details about his team. But he intends to bring Blueprint to the masses. Johnson puts all of his biological measurements online—from his resting heart rate to his plaque index to images of his intestines taken with a “small bowel camera”—and his YouTube videos about his exercise regimen and therapeutic experiments have been viewed by millions of people. Roughly 180,000 people signed up for his newsletter in the first five months, Tolo says. Blueprint’s first commercial product, sold on his website, is an allegedly cholesterol-reducing olive oil, sold in a black box emblazoned with a red-lit photo of Johnson and the slogan “Build your autonomous self.” Fifteen percent of Johnson’s daily diet consists of this olive oil. Two 25 oz. bottles cost $75. Tolo says they’ve sold out.

As Johnson, Tolo and I settle in to eat our “first meal” on his massive rust-colored couch, Johnson gestures to a bookshelf full of biographies: Ben Franklin, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, Napoleon. “I have a relationship with the 25th century more than I have a relationship with the 21st century,” he says. “I don't really care what people in our time and place think of me. I really care about what the 25th century thinks.”

Artificial intelligence “is clearly the most significant event in this part of the galaxy,” he says. “What is the equivalent response for humans to have to AI?” Given the looming AI revolution, Johnson argues that outsourcing the management of the body to an algorithm is the ultimate form of human-AI “alignment.” If everything from marketing to legal research to retail will soon be optimized by algorithms, why shouldn’t algorithms run our bodies as well? Johnson argues that automating the physical body is a form of evolutionary adaptation to what he believes is an inevitable, AI-dominated future.

But all this talk about the scope of history, and the march of technology, and the benefits of un-dutched chocolate seemed to be missing something, I say. Aren’t humans more than just brains and meat? Isn’t there some other ineffable element that makes us human: the feeling of watching your toddler play in a lake, the joy of popcorn with girlfriends at the movie theater, the grief of losing a family member, the frustration at a lost earring? Surely, there must be more to living than simply maintaining adequate oxygen in your spleen. 

He doesn’t see it that way. “Whether we're talking about falling in love, or having sex, or going to the baseball game, you're talking about biochemical states in the body,” Johnson says. “You can remove everything and just say, ‘I'm experiencing this kind of electrical activity in my body and these kinds of hormones.’ We have a whole bunch of ideas about what it means to exist, we have all these ideas about what is happiness, and other things. We're walking into a future where we no longer have control,” he continues. Which means “we are willing to divorce ourselves from all human custom. Everything: all philosophy, all ethics, all morals, all happiness.” 

I try another approach. Let’s say you’re right, I ask Johnson. What if you do live forever? That means you’d outlive everybody you’d ever known on the planet. You’d watch your children and grandchildren and all your friends die before you. What would that be like? Is a life without the people you love worth living?

Johnson says that question reminds him of “senior night” before graduating from high school. “We say goodbye, we have been together all these years, and we're probably not going to see each other again,” he says. “At every stage in life, we move through these transition states of relationships and new experiences,” he continues. “And at every stage, you could certainly pose that question, because the circumstances are going to change. Is it worth it to carry on?”

It strikes me as a weird way to answer a question about watching his own children die, but I turn to Tolo, who was silently eating her nutty pudding in a different corner of the couch. I ask her what she thought about the possibility of watching everyone she loves die before she does. It doesn’t seem like she’s considered this. “Hopefully they wouldn’t,” she says. “I really hope that as many people as possible can come along that journey.” 

Johnson chimes in again. “I think your question reflects Homo sapiens for the 21st century,” he says. “The underlying assumption is, they have roughly 70 years of life. That's their starting frame: I'm going to die soon, and I can't do anything about it. So I'm optimizing in this window of time… If you change the frame, and death is not inevitable, none of the previous practiced thought patterns work.”

My 21st century Homo sapien brain was not convinced. Johnson seemed to suggest that for humans to survive in an AI-aligned future, they may need to sacrifice part of what makes them human in the first place. I thought of Tuck Everlasting, the 1975 children’s novel about an immortal family whose inability to age sets them apart from the world, adrift from the life of everyone they meet, forever alone.

I left Johnson’s house and drove to the DoubleTree hotel in Marina Del Rey. The woman at the front desk handed me a chocolate chip cookie, as they usually do at DoubleTrees (which is why I stay there). My rascal brain wanted it. But it was an act of violence that would accelerate my inevitable death. I abandoned it on the counter and took my Blueprint-approved dinner—steamed broccoli, cauliflower, and lentils, with $75 dollar olive oil and absolutely no flavor—up to my room.

Johnson wasn’t always like this. He grew up in a small Mormon community in Utah. His grandfather owned a farm with horses, and Johnson and his four siblings spent most of their time outside, helping to harvest alfalfa and corn. Johnson served his Mormon mission in Ecuador, then went to Brigham Young University, followed by business school at the University of Chicago. He got married, had three children, and in 2007 he founded Braintree, a payment-processing company. Braintree acquired Venmo five years later. In 2013, the combined entity was sold to PayPal for roughly $800 million. Johnson walked away with more than $300 million.

Despite his financial success, Johnson recalls this as a painful time. He says he fell into a deep depression in 2004 and stayed there for 10 years. He was overwhelmed by building his company while raising three young children. Medication and therapy didn’t help. He was 50 pounds overweight and miserable, he says.

Within a year of selling his company, Johnson ended his marriage and left the Mormon church. In 2014, he plowed $100 million into the creation of the OS Fund, which invests in companies working in what Johnson calls the “programmable physical world”—his term for companies that use AI and machine learning to develop new technologies for therapeutics, diagnostics, and synthetic biology. In 2016, Johnson founded Kernel, a neurotechnology company that uses a specially designed helmet to measure brain activity. Its goal is to detect cognitive impairment at the earliest stages; for now, the company is looking for biomarkers for psychiatric conditions. It can also be used, as a fun side hobby, to measure the age of his brain. 

One day during my visit, we drive to the company’s offices, which are about 20 minutes from Johnson’s home. Even though his mission in life is to “not die,” he still drives himself around LA in an electric Audi. (Extremely slowly.) Before he pulls out of his driveway, he utters his pre-driving mantra to himself: “Driving is the most dangerous thing we do.” Johnson is aware that his singular focus on living forever might make an accidental death somewhat embarrassing.  “What would be more beautiful irony than me getting hit by a bus and dying?” he says. 

In Kernel’s open-plan office, I’m brought into a small room, where a technician fits my head with what looks like a ski helmet with dozens of circular probes inside. I’m instructed to sit and watch a screensaver-type video of soft crystalline shapes morphing into each other. Later that day, my results appear in my email. It tells me that although I am 34, my brain age is 30.5.

On the way home, Johnson utters his pre-driving mantra again before inching through the streets of LA at about 16 m.p.h. As he’s explaining again why Blueprint is “the most significant revolution in the history of Homo sapiens,” a black Chevy truck pulls out of a Trader Joe’s parking lot. He swerves to avoid it, barely taking a breath before returning to comparing himself to Magellan and Lewis and Clark. “I'm not a biohacker. I'm not an optimization person,” he tells me. “I'm an explorer, about the future of being human.” 

Even futuristic humans were mere mortals once. Tolo first reached out to Johnson in 2016, when she was working in fashion in New York City. The AI revolution was beginning to come into view. “I felt so strongly that the only way we could proceed as species would be to kind of latch ourselves onto AI,” she says. She saw a quote from Johnson in a tech newsletter, advocating for humans to “merge with AI,” and decided she wanted to work for him. After years of entreaties, a job finally opened up, and Tolo took a title and pay cut to become Johnson’s assistant at Kernel. “We'd spend hours in his office, just chatting about the future of humanity,” she says.

When she first started working for Johnson, Tolo was a typical twentysomething. She drank alcohol and milky lattes, ate fast food, and stayed up too late dancing with her friends. But early this year, she and Johnson began discussing whether she should try Blueprint as well, to see how the routine would affect a female body. Before committing, Tolo requested a 30-day trial period. That trial included committing to a rigorous sleep routine, adopting Johnson’s exact diet protocol, taking more than 60 pills a day, and doing 13 minutes of intense exercise and 39 minutes of moderate exercise every day. She also measured her ovulation and her menstrual cycle.

“When I was in my trial period, I would go out to brunch with friends, and I would bring my Blueprint food, and there is a bit of sadness,” Tolo says. “Because everyone else at the table is like, ‘Oh my God, this breakfast burrito is so good.’” Ultimately Tolo decided to commit to Blueprint for good. She concluded the health benefits outweighed the lifestyle costs. Tolo says her friends have adjusted to her Blueprint lifestyle. She’s moved her social life earlier in the day to protect her sleep schedule, and they’ve gotten used to her habit of bringing her own vegetable mush to restaurants. The decision, once made, was permanent. “It would also be the final decision in a way,” she says. “It's like, I'm deciding to no longer decide again.”

Now, as Blueprint XX, she has given up “all the things that I've come to cherish in small ways about my life,” she says. She and Johnson think of themselves as a sort of futuristic Adam and Eve. They had even planned an Adam-and-Eve themed photoshoot to help people understand that they’re “talking about a revolution on the scale of the whole human race,” Johnson says. Even though Tolo is apparently as important to the future of humanity as Eve herself, she plated and served all the meals I ate on my visit, and, at least while I was there, seemed to do most of the dishes.

Johnson is currently single. His older son is serving a mission for the Mormon church, and his younger daughter is 13 and lives with her mother. So Johnson spends much of his time with his 18-year-old middle son, Talmage, who commits to the Blueprint diet, rest, and exercise routines, but skips the anti-aging therapies. He briefly donated blood plasma to Johnson in order to test whether it had a measurable impact on his father's aging, but stopped once Johnson decided it didn’t work. Talmage, who is about to start his freshman year of college, says that he’s adopted many of his dad’s attitudes towards lifestyle and life extension. “The idea of having pizza is more painful than pleasurable for me,” he says.

Johnson says his lifestyle makes it very difficult for him to date, rattling off what he calls the “10 reasons why [women] will literally hate me.” The reasons include: eating dinner at 11:30 a.m., no sunny vacations, bed at 8:30pm, no small talk, always sleeping alone, and, of course, “they’re not my number one priority.”

Throughout my visit with Johnson, I could feel my rascal brain buzzing to life. Johnson venerates what he calls “the emergent self,” which is driven “more by computational guidance and less by human want.” And yet wanting, I thought, is what humans do. There is almost no experience more human than the experience of want. As I watched Johnson drink his immortality gruel and explain his religious commitment to bedtime, I was wondering: What did he want? Did he miss eating birthday cake? Staying up late dancing? Baseball games that stretch into long nights filled with hot dogs and beer? Johnson wanted an eternal life. But what is life without wanting?
There were so many things I wanted to do, even if I knew that each indulgence could bring me closer to death. I wanted to meet a friend for cocktails in Santa Monica. I wanted to snuggle into my hotel bed and watch And Just Like That, and I wanted to stay up too late texting my friends about it. I wanted to FaceTime my daughter, the one who had caused me to gain 30 happy pounds when I ate only butter pasta and cheese pizza for most of my pregnancy. I wanted to take the first plane home, even if it meant landing at 1 a.m. and getting four hours of sleep, so that I could be there when she wakes up and says “Up!” with the force of a commanding officer. I wanted eggs and bacon for breakfast. I didn’t want to stop wanting. Life’s too short.

Time