The Finnish government has formally charged Simon Ekpa, a Nigerian-Finnish citizen and controversial pro-Biafra activist, with terrorism-related offences. The charges, filed on Friday at the Päijät-Häme District Court in Lahti, include “public incitement to commit a crime with terrorist intent” and “participation in a terrorist group.”

Jukka Rappe, Finland’s Deputy Prosecutor-General, confirmed that the case stems from Ekpa’s secessionist activities linked to the push for an independent Biafra state in Nigeria’s South-East. Ekpa, who resides in Lahti, is accused of using social media and other online platforms to spread separatist propaganda, incite violence, and promote terrorism.

The Finnish authorities allege that between August 2021 and November 2024, Ekpa contributed to violence and crimes against civilians in Nigeria through his online campaigns. The charges are also tied to suspicions of illegally raising funds in violation of Finland’s Money Collection Act. The investigation, led by Finnish police in collaboration with Nigerian authorities, marks the first case of its kind in Finland, according to Rappe.

Ekpa, 40, was arrested on 21 November 2024 along with four others. While he was remanded by the Päijät-Häme court for spreading terrorist propaganda, the other suspects were later released after preliminary investigations. Ekpa is believed to be the leader of the “Autopilot” faction of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), although the main IPOB group loyal to Nnamdi Kanu has publicly disowned him.

Despite Finland’s legal action, Nigeria’s Attorney-General of the Federation, Lateef Fagbemi, recently stated that the federal government has not yet initiated formal extradition proceedings against Ekpa.

No court date has been set yet for the trial.

Deadly Israeli strikes pound Gaza, Trump says 'people are starving'

Israeli strikes on Gaza have killed more than 250 people since Thursday morning, local health authorities said on Friday, one of the deadliest phasesof bombardment since a truce collapsed in March, with a new ground offensive expected soon.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire as Israel steps up its military campaign, acknowledged Gaza's growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.

"We have to help also out the Palestinians. You know, a lot of people are starving in Gaza, so we have to look at both sides," he said. When asked if he backed Israel's war plans, Trump said he expected "good things" over the next month.

Friday's air and artillery strikes were focused on the northern section of the tiny, crowded enclave, where dozens of people including women and children were killed overnight, said Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Khalil al-Deqran.

Israel has intensified its bombardment and built up armoured forces along the border despite growing international pressure for it to resume ceasefire talks and end its blockade of Gaza, where warnings of famine are growing.

Just before midnight on Friday, the Israeli military said that during the last day forces began launching extensive strikes and transferring forces to seize control over areas within the Gaza Strip.

It said the escalation was part of the initial stages of what it said was "Operation Gideon's Wagons" to expand the battle in the enclave "with the aim of achieving all the war's objectives, including the liberation of the kidnapped soldiers and the defeat of Hamas.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on May 5 that Israel was planning an expanded, intensive offensive against Hamas as his security cabinet approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

An Israeli defence official said at the time that the operation would not be launched before Trump concluded his visit to the Middle East, which was expected to end on Friday.

Israel's declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communitieson October 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 people and seizing about 250 hostages.

Its military campaign has devastated the enclave, pushing nearly all inhabitants from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, while aid agencies say its blockade has caused a humanitarian crisis.

Heavy strikes were reported on Friday in the northern town of Beit Lahiya and in the Jabalia refugee camp, where Palestinian emergency services said many bodies were still buried in the rubble.

Israel dropped leaflets on Beit Lahiya ordering all residents to leave, whether they lived in tents, shelters or buildings. "Leave southwards immediately," the leaflets read.

Residents said Israeli tanks were advancing towards the southern city of Khan Younis.

Israel's military said its air force had struck more than 150 military targets across Gaza.

STRIKES

In Jabalia, men picked through a sea of rubble following the night's strikes, pulling out sheets of metal as small children clambered through the debris.

Around 10 bodies draped in white sheets were lined up on the ground to be taken to hospital. Women sat crying and one lifted a corner of a sheet to gaze at the dead person's face.

"Where should I go today? To west Gaza? There's bombing in west Gaza. To the south? They're killing people in Khan Younis. To Deir al-Balah? There is bombing. Me, my children and my family, where should we go?" said Fadi Tamboura, sitting crying next to a crater left by an overnight strike.

Ismail, a man from Gaza City who gave only his first name, described a night of horror. "The non-stop explosions resulting from the airstrikes and tank shelling reminded us of the early days of the war. The ground didn't stop shaking underneath our feet," Ismail told Reuters via a chat app.

"We thought Trump arrived to save us, but it seems Netanyahu doesn't care, neither does Trump."

Israel has faced increasing international isolation over its campaign in Gaza, with even the United States, its staunchest ally, expressing unease over the scale of the destruction and the dire situation caused by its blockade on deliveries of food and other vital aid.

On Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Washington was "troubled" by the humanitarian situation.

Netanyahu has dispatched a team to Doha to take part in ceasefire talks with Qatari mediators, but he has ruled out concessions, saying Israel remains committed to defeating Hamas.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which represents some of the families and supporters of the 58 hostages still held in Gaza, said Israel risked missing a "historic opportunity" to bring them home as Trump wound up his visit to the Middle East.

"We are in dramatic hours that will determine the future of our loved ones, the future of Israeli society, and the future of the Middle East," the group said in a statement.

Reuters

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia’s top negotiator outlines key outcomes of Istanbul talks

Russia’s chief negotiator at the Ukraine peace talks in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinsky, has delivered a statement following the first direct peace talks between Moscow and Kiev in three years. The discussions on Friday lasted for nearly two hours.

Medinsky announced a major prisoner exchange, acknowledged Kiev’s request for a meeting involving Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, and confirmed that both sides will soon present detailed proposals for a potential ceasefire, after which the negotiations will continue.

Here is the full text of Medinsky’s statement: 

Dear colleagues,

Direct negotiations with the Ukrainian side, organized at the initiative of the president of Russia, have just concluded. Overall, we are satisfied with the outcome and are ready to continue contacts.

Here is what was agreed:

First – in the coming days, a large-scale prisoner exchange will take place, 1,000 for 1,000 people.

Second – the Ukrainian side requested direct talks between the heads of state, and we have taken this request into account.

And third – we agreed that each side will present its vision of a possible future ceasefire, outlining it in detail. Once these visions are presented, it has been mutually agreed that it would be appropriate to continue our negotiations.

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Europeans and Zelenskiy agree Russian stance is 'unacceptable', Starmer says

The leaders of Britain, France, Germany and Poland agreed on Friday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Russia's position in peace talks was "unacceptable" and also consulted with U.S. President Donald Trump, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said.

The first direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in more than three years took place in Istanbul on Friday.

They lasted well under two hours, with no apparent sign of progress so far in narrowing the gap between the sides, and a Ukrainian source called Moscow's demands "non-starters".

Starmer made his comments in a brief joint statement with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk at a European Political Community summit in Tirana, Albania.

Starmer said the leaders had met with Zelenskiy - who is also at the summit - to discuss the Istanbul talks and had also had a call with Trump.

"The Russian position is clearly unacceptable, and not for the first time," Starmer said.

"And so as a result of that meeting with President Zelenskiy and the discussion with President Trump, we are now closely aligning and coordinating our responses and will continue to do so," he said.

The leaders did not take any questions from reporters.

RT/Reuters

In many parts of our hinterland—and even in our cities—sudden death is often attributed to what the Yoruba call apepa—a mystical demise believed to be caused by malevolent forces who summon a person’s soul from afar. One is said to have been “called,” their life abruptly and mysteriously ended.

This belief, though deeply rooted in our culture, has often led to misplaced blame, suspicion, and years of acrimony among families and communities. But as our understanding of health improves, we must face the truth: most of these sudden deaths are not spiritual—they are medical. Preventable. Manageable. Treatable.

Conditions like undiagnosed hypertension, cardiac arrest, stroke, diabetes, and stress-induced breakdowns are responsible for many of these tragedies. These are not tales from the otherworld; they are the outcomes of neglect, fatigue, and silence.

Just recently, two heartbreaking incidents reminded us again of this painful reality.

In Abeokuta, Mrs. Bukola Agbakaizu, a well-loved broadcast journalist with Ogun State Television, reportedly slumped and died at her desk, in the line of duty. Known for her diligence and grace, she died doing what she loved. That alone makes her loss all the more devastating.

Much earlier, we received the shocking news of Kunle Akinyele, a retired Customs Chief and respected hotelier in Lagos, who slumped and died at the thanksgiving reception for his wife’s 60th birthday. What was meant to be a celebration of life turned into an unspeakable tragedy.

Both were strong, accomplished individuals. Their deaths have left a painful void—not just in their families but in the communities they served and inspired. And yet, their stories are also a warning. A call to awareness. A call to action.

This past weekend, I found myself crisscrossing towns in the Southwest—attending weddings, funerals, chieftaincy celebrations, and birthdays. I wanted to show support, be present, fulfill obligations. But by Sunday evening, I was completely drained. And I asked myself: At what cost?

At our age—particularly for those of us over 45—this constant movement, this inability to say no, this drive to be everything to everyone, is no longer sustainable. Our bodies send us quiet signals before they give way. The question is: Are we listening?

What we must begin to do, urgently and deliberately:

1. Know Your Numbers: Monitor your blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol regularly. These are silent killers.

2. Annual Health Checks: Schedule a comprehensive medical exam at least once a year. Prevention is cheaper than cure.

3. Prioritize Rest: Even machines break down from overuse. Sleep, rest, recharge.

4. Exercise Wisely: A 30-minute daily walk or light stretches go a long way in preserving heart health.

5. Eat with Care: Cut down on salt, sugar, and processed foods. Let food be your medicine.

6. Hydrate Constantly: Dehydration contributes to fatigue, headaches, and other health complications.

7. Decline with Grace: Not every invitation must be honored. Choose health over appearances.

8. Seek Emotional Support: Talk. Share. Don’t bottle stress or pain. It’s not heroic to suffer in silence.

We must also begin to educate our communities: not all sudden deaths are spiritual attacks. Many are the result of long-ignored symptoms, dangerous habits, and avoidable delays. We must trade superstition for science, suspicion for support, and myth for truth.

Let me share a personal experience that brought this home even more starkly.

A friend of mine had been battling diabetes for years. Instead of seeking proper medical care, he relied heavily on herbs. About three weeks ago, he visited me, and I noticed he looked unwell. I pressed him for answers, and not satisfied with what I heard, I gave him money to go for a medical check-up. He didn’t go.

Days later, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. I sent one of my aides to check on him. To my horror, he had been moved—not to a hospital—but to a relative’s house in a dire state. We searched for him, found him on the brink of death, and rushed him to the hospital. Thankfully, with the swift intervention of Dr. Ariyo and his team at the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, he was stabilized and is still on admission today. He is alive—but only just.

That story could have ended differently—like so many others we have mourned.

This message is for the middle-aged and aging among us, for caregivers, professionals, leaders, and public servants who carry the world on their shoulders. It is also for our traditional and cultural custodians, who must begin to champion wellness as urgently as they do tradition.

Let us honor the memories of Bukola Agbakaizu and Kunle Akinyele—not only by mourning but by heeding the warning their passing represents. Let their lives and their loss awaken us to the fragility of life and the power of timely care.

May their souls rest in perfect peace. And may we, the living, make a solemn commitment today to care more intentionally for the only body we have.

A Greek woman decided to divorce her husband of 12 years after ChatGPT told her he was having an affair, simply by “reading” the coffee grounds in his coffee cup.

OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot is great for a lot of things, but it can ruin your life if you blindly put your trust in it. One Greek man recently appeared on the Greek TV morning show To Proino to complain about ChatGPT destroying his marriage by painting him as an adulterer simply by interpreting the coffee grounds in a cup of coffee he had posed with for his wife. Allegedly following a social media trend, the man’s wife thought it would be fun to have the world’s most popular chatbot “read” their coffee cups in a sort of modern twist on the art of tasseography. She made coffee for both of them and then uploaded photos of the grounds in their cups for ChatGPT to “read”. The chatbot claimed that the woman’s husband was having an affair with another woman, which made his wife furious enough to file for divorce without even asking him if it was true.

“I laughed it off as nonsense,” the husband said on the show. “But she took it seriously. She asked me to leave, told our kids we were getting divorced, and then I got a call from a lawyer. That’s when I realized this wasn’t just a phase.”

According to ChatGPT, the man was fantasizing about a mysterious woman whose name started with the initial “E”,  and with whom he was destined to begin a relationship. To make matters worse, the chatbot’s interpretation of the wife’s coffee cup revealed that her spouse was already cheating and that this mystery woman was hell-bent on destroying their family.

After he refused to agree to a separation, the poor husband was served divorce papers just three days later. However, his lawyer warned that they would contest the divorce actions because the claims made by an AI chatbot have no legal standing, and his client was innocent until proven guilty.

Apparently, the woman is very sensitive to divinatory practices. The husband said that a few years ago, she visited an astrologer and became obsessed with astrology. “It took a whole year for her to accept that none of it was real,” the man said.

After the bizarre divorce case went viral in Greece, seasoned tasseography practitioners explained that reading into a cup of coffeeinvolves more than the grounds. Masters of the trade also analyze the foam and the saucer, and ChatGPT is definitely not a master.

Oddity Central

According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Nigeria's headline inflation rate decreased to 23.71% in April 2025, down from 24.23% recorded in March 2025, marking a 0.52% drop month-on-month.

The April 2025 inflation figure also represents a significant year-on-year decrease of 9.99% compared to April 2024's rate of 33.69%, though this comparison involves a different base year.

On a month-on-month basis, the headline inflation rate was 1.86% in April 2025, which is 2.04% lower than March 2025's rate of 3.90%, indicating a slower pace of price increases.

Food Inflation Declines

Food inflation stood at 21.36% on a year-on-year basis in April 2025, showing a substantial 19.27% decrease from April 2024's rate of 40.53%. The NBS attributes this significant decline primarily to the change in the base year used for calculations.

Month-on-month food inflation in April 2025 decreased to 2.06%, down by 0.12% from March's 2.18%. According to the NBS, this decrease resulted from lower prices for staples such as maize flour, wheat grain, dried okra, yam flour, soybeans, rice, and various beans.

Regional Variations

The NBS report highlighted significant regional differences in food inflation rates:

- Highest year-on-year food inflation: Benue (51.76%), Ekiti (34.05%), and Kebbi (33.82%)

- Lowest year-on-year food inflation: Ebonyi (7.19%), Adamawa (9.52%), and Ogun (9.91%)

- Highest month-on-month food inflation: Benue (25.59%), Ekiti (16.73%), and Yobe (13.92%)

- Some states recorded declines in month-on-month food inflation: Ebonyi (-14.43%), Kano (-11.37%), and Ogun (-7.06%)

Consumer Price Index and Other Metrics

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose to 119.52 in April 2025, a 2.18-point increase from the previous month. The percentage change in the average CPI for the twelve months ending April 2025 over the previous twelve-month period was 28.5%, showing a 0.4% increase compared to April 2024.

Urban inflation stood at 24.29% (year-on-year), 11.71% lower than April 2024's 36.00%, while rural inflation was 22.83%, down 8.81% from 31.64% in April 2024.

Background on Nigeria's Economic Challenges

Nigeria has experienced sharp increases in food prices in recent years, a trend that worsened in 2023 following President Bola Tinubu's removal of petrol subsidies and adoption of a floating exchange rate for the naira. These policies led to steep increases in staple food costs, pushing many Nigerians further into poverty and heightening food insecurity.

In response to the crisis, Tinubu declared a state of emergency on food insecurity in July 2023 and later suspended duties, tariffs, and taxes on essential food imports including beans, wheat, and husked brown rice to combat rising prices.

This latest decline in inflation offers potential relief after prolonged economic pressure on Nigerian households.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

Nigeria's Trans Niger Pipeline, a major oil artery transporting crude from onshore oilfields to the Bonny export terminal, burst and spilled oil into the local B-Dere community in Ogoniland, an environmental rights group said on Thursday.

This is the second incident affecting the Trans Niger Pipeline in two months. In March, the pipeline was shut after a blast that caused a fire.

Nnimmo Bassey, executive director of Health of Mother Earth Foundation, said the spill, which occurred on May 6, was yet to be stopped, adding that the slow response showed a lack of care for the people and was "unconscionable."

"We are in a disaster zone and further disasters can erupt from even an accidental spark of fire," he said. "The fact that this spill that happened a week ago is yet to be stopped sends a very strong point to why the government should focus on cleaning up Ogoniland and not seek to open new oil wells. The old wells should be shut down, and decommissioned."

Ogoniland, one of Africa's earliest crude oil producing areas, has been dealing with oil pollution for decades, but its profits have often flowed to the big oil companies and to Nigerian state coffers. Local residents have long complained of toxic waste and little compensation.

Nigerian oil consortium Renaissance Group, which now owns Shell's former onshore subsidiary that operates the pipeline, confirmed the explosion and said a team of investigators has been dispatched to determine the cause of the spill.

The Trans Niger Pipeline (TNP), with a capacity of around 450,000 barrels per day, is one of two conduits that export Bonny Light crude from Nigeria, Africa's biggest oil producer.

It was not immediately clear whether the TNP was shut. TNP did not immediately provide a statement when asked for comment. A prolonged outage could, however, force its operators to declare force majeure on Bonny Light exports.

Pipeline sabotage and crude theft are some of the major reasons that forced oil majors like Shell, Exxon Mobil, Total and Eni to sell their onshore and shallow-water fields in Nigeria to concentrate on deep-water operations.

Renaissance Group, which includes Nigerian exploration and production companies Aradel Energy, First E & P, Waltersmith, and ND Western, along with the international energy group Petroline, completed the acquisition of Shell's former onshore assets in March.

Reuters

Israeli army kills five Palestinian militants in West Bank after pregnant settler killed

Israel's military killed five Palestinian militants in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, hours after a pregnant settler was killed in a shooting, as hardline pro-settler leaders including a government minister called for Palestinian towns to be razed.

The military said in a statement it had killed five "terrorists" and arrested a sixth who had barricaded themselves in a building in Tamoun, following an exchange of gunfire and the use of shoulder-fired missiles by Israeli soldiers.

The military wing of Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad later issued a statement saying five of its members were killed while clashing with Israeli forces that surrounded their house in the town of Tamoun, north of the West Bank.

Tamoun is a Palestinian town about 35 km (22 miles) from the Israeli settlement of Brukhin, near which the heavily pregnant woman, Tzeela Gez, was killed on Wednesday night in a shooting that drew strong condemnation from Israeli leaders.

The military said it was searching for those responsible for Wednesday's shooting - whom it did not identify - though it was not immediately clear whether the Tamoun operation was linked.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the shooting, which occurred amid one of the largest Israeli military operations in the West Bank in two decades and while the Israeli military bombards Gaza.

Gunfire could be heard in Tamoun on Thursday, while Reuters footage showed flames and black smoke on the top floor of a house as Israeli soldiers stood on the street outside. The Palestinian WAFA news agency said the Israeli military was demolishing the house where the Palestinian men had been killed.

The Israeli military said soldiers had identified the "terrorists" in a building during an overnight operation in Tamoun and the nearby city of Tubas. It recovered rifles used by the militants in the building in Tamoun, it said.

The military also said that three armed individuals had been arrested in Tubas.

The Palestinian Health Ministry said the military had taken the bodies of four of the deceased. The local Red Crescent said it had recovered a fifth body from a burning building.

DEMAND FOR RETRIBUTION

Gez, the pregnant woman, was shot near the Brukhin settlement while travelling to hospital with her husband to give birth. She was pronounced dead at the hospital where her baby was delivered by caesarean section, Israeli media reported.

The baby was reportedly in serious but stable condition, while Gez's husband Hananel was lightly injured.

As retribution, Israel's far-right Finance Minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said the nearby Palestinian towns of Bruqin and az-Zawiya should be destroyed, just as cities in Gaza have been.

"Just as we are flattening Rafah, Khan Younis and Gaza (in the Gaza Strip), we must also flatten the terror nests in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich said on social media, employing the term often used in Israel for the West Bank.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped security forces would quickly find those responsible for Gez's death, while President Isaac Herzog expressed his condolences to her family.

The chief of Israel's general staff, Lieutenant General Eyal Zamir, visited the troops searching for Gez's killer on Thursday near Brukhin.

The Israeli military has killed dozens of Palestinians and destroyed many homes since it launched an operation in January in the West Bank city of Jenin to root out militants.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Russia says forces capture two settlements, Ukraine says fighting continues throughout front

Russia's Defence Ministry said on Thursday that its forces seized two more settlements in their drive through eastern Ukraine, but Kyiv made no such acknowledgement and its top commander said battles raged over 1,100 km of the front line.

The frontline fighting continued as direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators appeared set to get underway in Turkey.

The talks will be the first direct discussions between the sides since March 2022, but hopes of a breakthrough were limited as Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin ignored a call by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to meet.

U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday said there would be no progress towards peace without a meeting between himself and Putin.

A Russian Defence Ministry statement said Moscow's forces had seized Novooleksandrivka, a village near Pokrovsk, a logistics hub that Moscow has targeted for months without capturing it.

The ministry said its forces had also taken Torske, further northeast and near two other cities Moscow would like to capture in the longer term -- Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.

The General Staff of Ukraine's military, in a late evening report, listed Novooleksandrivka as one of more than dozen settlements which it said had come under Russian attack.

The General Staff made no mention of Torske, but the popular blog DeepState said Russian forces had tried to seize the settlement but had been repelled.

Reuters could not independently confirm battlefield reports from either side. Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, currently holds about one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said Kyiv wanted a "just peace", but continued to face "active combat continuing on a stretch of the front extending about 1,100 km (680 miles)".

Describing on Telegram his presentation to a meeting of the Ukraine-NATO Council, Syrskyi said Russia "has turned its aggression against Ukraine into a war of attrition and is using a combined force of up to 640,000 troops."

After an initial unsuccessful drive on Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, in the first weeks of the invasion, Russian forces focused their efforts on the Donbas in the east, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

They have been capturing village after village for several months, but Ukrainian forces have achieved some successes in holding back the advance, particularly around Pokrovsk.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky seeks to make a “political show” out of the expected peace talks with Russia in Istanbul, even if it means disrupting the negotiations, former Ukrainian diplomat Andrey Telizhenko has told RT.

Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said he would be waiting for the Ukrainian team starting at 10 a.m. local time on Friday, for the first direct talks since 2022. During a visit to Ankara on Thursday, Zelensky criticized what he described as the “low-level” composition of the Russian delegation, but nevertheless promised to dispatch his own negotiators to Istanbul.

Telizhenko told RT that Zelensky has been relying on France and the UK for weapons and financial aid because he “does not listen to Washington anymore.” If the Ukrainian leader secures more support from the West, he “may agree and move forward with the negotiations, or he may sabotage them,” the ex-diplomat said, expressing doubts that real talks could “ever happen.”

“This is just a political show, not diplomacy,” he said. “Zelensky is not thinking about Ukrainians. He is trying to play this game for himself,”Telizhenko argued.

Russian and Ukrainian delegations were initially expected to meet in Istanbul on Thursday after President Vladimir Putin proposed resuming direct talks without any preconditions. According to Moscow, the negotiations should resume from the process that was interrupted in the spring of 2022, when Ukraine abruptly walked away from the table.

Zelensky initially ruled out any negotiations with Moscow unless Russia agreed to a 30-day ceasefire. Moscow has argued that Kiev would use such a truce to rearm and regroup its forces. Putin has said that, for a lasting ceasefire, Ukraine must halt its mobilization campaign and stop receiving weapons from abroad.

Reuters/RT

Burkinabe leader Ibrahim Traore is acting like a rock star. It’s not entirely his fault. He’s receiving a lot of help from dozens of social media users, especially TikTokers, who are desperate to anoint him as the best thing to come out of Burkina Faso since Thomas Sankara.

Traore must be enjoying it, because even though he is pretending, he knows he’s not Sankara. He is an opportunist, happy to capitalise on the current frustration in his country and the Sahel for his benefit.

A recent report by The Africa Report summarised Traore’s fictional character. “In dozens of viral TikTok edits, Traore leads imaginary armies, topples Western empires and is hailed as the ‘new Thomas Sankara.’ The captions, bold and uncompromising, include ‘Africa’s Messiah!’ ‘The People’s Captain!’ and ‘France Must Fall.’”

Traorephytes even invent videos of Rihanna and R Kelly (imprisoned since 2021) serenading the Burkinabe leader with hit songs!

Fairytale

If he were an elected president, Traore would have served three years of his first term. When he overthrew the government of President Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba in September 2022 due to the rise in Islamic insurgency, and announced himself as head of the new Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (PMSR), he promised to hand over power back to civilians in two years – that was in 2024. He hasn’t said a word about any possible new date since, and if you have seen him recently, you would know why.

Apart from the adulation he has enjoyed as a social media fairytale, and dressing the part in stylish fatigues and matching neck scarves, berets, and boots, he has also talked the part.

He rallied support by giving speeches – not as many or as eloquently as he has been credited with – against Western imperialism and colonialism, vowing to create conditions at home to stem youth migration and tackle insurgency. Traore has portrayed himself as the new face of the African Renaissance. But talk is cheap.

Traore and the other delinquents

He has been in good company. The turmoil in West and Central Africa, which began in Chad, Mali, and Guinea, and later spread to Niger, has disrupted security and trade in the subregion, rupturing the 49-year-old Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Burkina Faso experienced two coups in a single year. After breaking out of ECOWAS, Traore and his fellow delinquents in the Sahel have pursued a singular mission of cutting off the noses of their Sahelian francophone ties to spite the faces of French business and political interests.

To be fair, it’s a moment of reckoning for decades of brazen French insensitivity, compounded by President Emmanuel Macron’s lack of charity when he described the relationship between France and Francophone West Africa as “part of a civilising obligation.” Which was self-interested nonsense.

Trouble speaking French

France has accumulated a notoriously poor record on the continent that it can hardly be proud of. In Niger, for example, Tom Burgis writes in his book, The Looting Machine, that French state-owned atomic energy group Areva's profit from uranium is twice Niger’s GDP. The shameful French footprint is the same in Burkina Faso and throughout the region.

Fourteen Francophone countries, including the troubled ones – Burkina Faso, Guinea, Mali, Niger and Chad – hold 50 percent of their reserves in the French Treasury. This arrangement has been widely criticised, but if shame is in the French dictionary, it doesn’t exist in the Macron version.

It is this background of despair and frustration, especially among the continent’s youths, that has fostered fairytale messiahs like Traore, who have managed to replace French hegemony with a mix of fussy state control and Russian suzerainty, with the Chinese just around the corner.

If it’s not Sankara…

Traoré is not Sankara, a fact that may be lost on Burkina Faso’s predominantly young population, as well as millennials and Gen Zs across the continent, whose forlorn search for role models tempts them to canonise an impostor. Of course, both are soldiers, similar in age and rank and usurpers of constitutional rule. But that’s where the similarity ends.

Like the demagogues before him, Traore and significant sections of the military and political elite from Maurice Yameogo to Blaise Compaore have been complicit in the misery of their citizens, feeding them instead on a diet of pseudo-ideological jingoism and Western bashing, but offering no genuine alternative. Africa – anglophone, francophone, or lusophone – shares a similar heritage of exploitation; a few of its people, especially the political elite after independence, collaborated with the colonialists to compound the problem.

Hard to beat

Where Traore is trading French hegemony for Russian control, for example, Sankara offered something different. In Burkina Faso: A History of Power, Protest and Revolution, Ernest Harsch said of Sankara, “In a conscious effort at nation-building, the revolutionary government also promoted a new national identity…that revolutionary project succeeded in altering the contours of the state and social and political life.”

Whereas Sankara attempted to forge a proudly African identity, deepening regional integration among ECOWAS countries, Traoré and his cohorts have, by exiting, put at risk the estimated $596.42 billion in trade within the community, excluding informal trade among citizens, which constitutes 30 per cent of the transactions, not to mention the impact on regional collaboration on security.

Sankara pursued radical economic self-sufficiency, agrarian reform, and social justice by outlawing female genital mutilation and promoting women’s rights. He rejected foreign aid, regardless of its source, even if it came without strings attached, something that Traore would be happy to overlook if it came from Russia.

What matters

I get it. With jihadists controlling about 40 percent of the country’s territory (it’s the most terrorised country), and climate shocks compounding its misery, the challenges are as different as are the times. That is why what Traore needs now is not clout-chasing or AI propaganda by Russian-backed Wagner, but sober-minded commitment to turn around the fortunes of his country, one step at a time.

For three years, Traore’s stock has risen amid algorithmic populism expressed in languages he neither understands nor speaks, with minimal institutional reforms, if any, and no prospects or commitment to return the country to civilian rule.

“His rhetoric,” The Africa Report said, “still falls short of real, measurable improvements in security and civic freedoms. There’s a gap between his message and the reality on the ground, something that will ultimately test his legitimacy and legacy.”

That’s not what the netizens want to hear. But in the end, that’s what matters.

** Ishiekwene is the Editor-in-Chief of LEADERSHIP and author of the book Writing for Media and Monetising It.