WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Missile that killed 12 in Russian strike on Kyiv was North Korean, Zelenskiy says

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Thursday the Russian missile that struck a residential building in Kyiv overnight and killed 12 people was supplied by North Korea, confirming an earlier Reuters report.

A North Korean KN-23 (KN-23A) missile hit a residential block in the Sviatoshynskyi district west of Kyiv's centre during a major aerial attack by Russia, a Ukrainian military source told Reuters.

"According to preliminary information, the Russians used a ballistic missile manufactured in North Korea. Our special services are verifying all the details," Zelenskiy said on X, without providing further details.

Russia made no comment on Zelenskiy's remarks. Russia and North Korea have denied weapons transfers that would violate U.N. embargoes.

Russia's military cooperation with North Korea grew rapidly as Moscow became internationally isolated after invading Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine says North Korea has supplied Russia with vast amounts of artillery shells as well as rocket systems, thousands of troops and ballistic missiles, which Moscow began using for strikes against Ukraine at the end of 2023.

By the start of 2025, Pyongyang had supplied Russia with 148 KN-23 and KN-24 ballistic missiles, Ukraine's military spy agency says.

KN-23 (KN-23A) missiles are armed with warheads of up to one tonne, which is more powerful than the Russian equivalent missiles, the Ukrainian source said.

In the initial readout after the Russian attack, Kyiv said seven ballistic missiles were used in total, identifying them broadly as Iskander-M/KN-23.

North Korea's involvement in Ukraine has alarmed not only European capitals but also South Korea and its allies in Asia, who fear that lessons learned from war could be unleashed on them one day.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Massive Ukrainian drone raid on Crimea repelled – Moscow

The Russian military has downed almost a hundred Ukrainian drones overnight across several Russian regions, including half of them over the Crimean Peninsula, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.

In a statement on Thursday morning, the ministry said Russian air defense forces destroyed or intercepted a total of 87 fixed-wing Ukrainian drones.

Of the total, 45 drones were shot down over Crimea. Elsewhere, ten each were intercepted in the border Belgorod and Kursk regions, and eight in Voronezh. Four drones were downed in each of Bryansk, Lipetsk, and Nizhny Novgorod regions, while two were intercepted near Moscow. The statement did not specify whether any of the drones caused damage or casualties.

Crimea, which joined Russia after voting in a public referendum in 2014 following a Western-backed coup in Kiev, is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet and has frequently been targeted throughout the conflict with Ukraine. Moscow has accused Kiev of attacking the peninsula’s civilian infrastructure, including the strategic Crimean bridge that connects it to the mainland.

The issue of Crimea is reportedly at the center of negotiations to end the Ukraine conflict. According to multiple media reports, US President Donald Trump has floated a draft proposal that includes American recognition of Crimea as part of Russia and an agreement to bar Ukraine from NATO membership, which has long been a key concern for Moscow.

However, Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has refused to discuss recognition of Crimea as Russian, with a Washington Post report claiming that his rebuttal of the US peace roadmap had “angered” officials in Washington.

Trump has described Zelensky’s stance as “very harmful to the peace negotiations with Russia in that Crimea was lost years ago,” while accusing the Ukrainian leader of prolonging the conflict.

Reuters/RT

It’s nothing to laugh off, however tempting. If the movies imitate life, we may not be as far away from an African pope. It happened in The Conclave, a film by Peter Straughan released in 2024, based on the novel by Robert Harris.

Through the intrigues, rivalries and scandals of the plot, Adeyemi, a Nigerian cardinal at the Conclave, almost emerged as pope before a contestant snookered him with the scandalous love story involving him and a nun, Shanumi, who had a child for him while he was 39 and she was 19.  

If the plot sounds like something from the fertile imagination of the movie director, a Nigerian, Arinze Cardinal, came close to claiming the papacy in 2005. Arinze didn’t miss it because of any scandals. Once the youngest Catholic bishop in the world, he was judged not just as one of Africa’s best but also as a global theological legend. Still, he was a nearly pope.

Banking on hope

That was two decades ago, when the papacy was a relay amongst a few European countries, with Italy claiming the lion’s share of 217. Pope Francis was the first Jesuit and cardinal from the Americas to rise to the top of the papacy, raising hopes that the next one may come from Africa or Asia.

This hope is not based solely on legend. Africa is the fastest-growing region for the Catholic Church, with about 20 percent of the church’s 1.4 billion population. This demographic shift has spurred optimism that, after the Americas, Africa or Asia could produce the next pope, and better if he is the first Black pope in modern history.

What does it mean for Africa?

An African pope will inspire faith across the continent, demonstrating that, when it matters, the church casts its vote where its mouth is. Papal historians say that some early popes were from North Africa, citing Victor I, Miltiades I, and Gelasius I, from Roman-era Africa.

But Africans are unwilling to exhume the tombs of papal history going back to the 5th century for the remains of the last Black pope. They argue, for example, that if grace is the leveller, the rock upon which Peter’s Church is built, the baton of its highest office cannot be made to look like the exclusive right of three European countries – Italy, Germany and France.

An African pope might be the most unambiguous indication yet that the Catholic Church might be inclined to continue with the legacy of Pope Francis, especially his advocacy for the poor, marginalised, and developing countries. And perhaps more than any time in the recent past, Africa has a solid lineup at this year’s Conclave.

The lineup

OK, only a few bookmakers are betting on any of the 18 African cardinals in Rome. Most forecasts put their chances at 14 percent or less. Yet, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Ghana, Cardinal Fridolin AmbongoBesungu of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cardinal Ignace Bessi Dogbo of Côte d’Ivoire are among the best crop you can find anywhere in the world.

The least favoured African candidate, Cardinal Robert Sarah from Guinea, is not because of competence. He is a risky candidate because of his age (79, three years older than when Francis assumed the papacy) and his conservative views. His position on various issues, from LGBTQ rights to the exclusive use of Latin for the liturgy, puts him at odds with most European electors.

Stars not enough

Despite its bright stars, why does Africa still appear unlikely to get the number one spot? Cardinal Sarah’s dilemma – his mainly conservative views – reflects not only the sentiment amongst the other 17 cardinals and the predominant position of the 281 million faithful on the continent, this conservatism also impairs the chances of the African cardinals.

The beggar church

Yet, conservatism is only one of the many obstacles. The African church may have the fastest-growing flock, but it is also the begging bowl. In a world where money is the bicycle of the gospel, the African church is the largest recipient of many forms of financial aid. Although the irony is less rampant among the Catholic church than it is among Pentecostals, Africa has some of the world’s richest Forbes-worthy pastors in contrast to the majority of the poor flock.

According to one statistic, at 32.6 percent between 2020 and 2023, the African Catholic church received the largest assistance per region from the Catholic Charity Aid. Compare this with the German national church, for example, which has $26 billion of the net assets of the Church.

Some also argue that African cardinals have limited chances because they have faced less scrutiny. An article published by www.devdiscourse.com on April 22 acknowledged that even though a figure like Cardinal Turkson has emerged as a potential candidate, “Vatican insiders highlight the lack of public scrutiny by African contenders compared to their Western counterparts, potentially complicating their candidacy.”

Conclave politics

Yet, others say politics may be the most potent obstacle against African candidacy, reminiscent of the deadly secret plots in Straughan’s movie once the doors in the Domus Santa Martha were shuttered and millions of the faithful waited outside the Sistine Chapel to see the white smoke and the face of the new pontiff.

It won’t take very long to find out. Pope Francis wantedhis successor elected within two weeks of his death. It used to take much longer. In The Conclave, for example, which spiked 283 percent across streaming platforms in one day from 1.8 million to 6.9 million, it took five votes over an unspecified period to elect the cardinal from Kabul, Cardinal Benitez.

The longest papal conclave after the death of Pope Clement IV lasted almost three years, from November 1268 to September 1, 1271, after which Pope Gregory X was elected.

Long road to change

For the pontificate and the faithful, it’s been a long road since. The Catholic Church has evolved from its medieval conflicts, reformation and counter-reformation through seasons of loss of power.

While books like In God’s Name: An Investigation into the Murder of Pope John Paul I by David A. Yallop highlight the tragedy of an institution endangered by internal corruption and fierce power play, the bestseller,The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown explores the grip and fascination of theological myth over the faithful and even millions of non-believers.

Yet the encyclicals of Pope Francis, his willingness to confront dogma with doubt and creed with charity, show the extent of introspection and modernisation in the Church. As the world waits for the white smoke from the Conclave, those who hope these changes may be so profound as to produce an African pope may have to wait a bit longer. Perhaps a sequel to Straughan’s movie would be the sign.

The odds, this time, favour yet another Italian pope.

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

A growing body of evidence has increasingly linked diet sodas and other no- or low-calorie foods with weight gain — so much so that the World Health Organization issued an advisory in May 2023 saying not to use sugar substitutes for weight loss.

"Replacing free sugars with non-sugar sweeteners does not help people control their weight long-term," Dr. Francesco Branca, director of WHO's Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, said at the time.

Now, a new study may shed light on why consuming too much of the artificial sweetener sucralose could be counterproductive. Instead of the brain sending a signal to eat less, sucralose triggers an increase in appetite when consumed in a drink.

"Sucralose activates the area in the brain that regulates hunger, and that activation, in turn, is linked to greater ratings of hunger," said lead study author Dr. Katie Page, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics and director of the Diabetes and Obesity Research Institute at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

In fact, people who drank water with sucralose said their appetite increased by nearly 20% compared with drinking water with table sugar, Page said.

In the United States, sucralose is a key ingredient in some Splenda sugar substitutes. In Europe, sucralose is known as E955 and is found in sugar substitutes sold under the brand names Candys, Canderel Yellow, Cukren, Nevella, Splenda, SucraPlus, Sukrana and Zerocal.

The study only investigated the impact of sucralose and did not research other popular artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame-Kand sodium saccharin.

"This is a very high quality study, using state of the art methods and careful analysis," said Dr. David Katz, a specialist in preventive and lifestyle medicine, via email. Katz, founder of the nonprofit True Health Initiative, a global coalition of experts dedicated to evidence-based lifestyle medicine, was not involved in the study.

The authors interpreted their results carefully yet make a strong case that "non-caloric sweeteners, and sucralose specifically, interfere with normal appetite regulation in ways that could have adverse effects on weight control and health," Katz said.

A spokesperson for Heartland Food Products Group, which manufactures Splenda, said that low-calorie and zero-calorie sweeteners are backed by research and expert recommendations.

"Low- or zero-calorie sweeteners like sucralose are recommended by healthcare professionals, food safety experts and credible health organizations for diabetes and weight management based on trusted scientific research showing that the impact of low- or zero-calorie sweeteners on body weight is similar to that of water, and that sweet-tasting products have decreased the want for additional sweets while also helping people manage weight, reduce intake of calories from added sugars, and manage blood sugar levels," the spokesperson wrote via email.

Study findings support prior research

The idea that artificial sweeteners may be increasing hunger signals from the mammalian brain isn't new — a prior study coauthored by Page found women and people with obesity were especially sensitive.

"Animal studies have hinted at some of these effects," Katz said. However, "this is, to my knowledge, the most decisive study to date in humans of direct effects on the appetite center."

All cells in the body require glucose for energy. The brain is the biggest user, gobbling up to half of all sugars circulating in the blood. Nature, however, designed the brain to respond to natural sugars such as glucose found in whole fruits and some vegetables.

Artificial sweeteners, therefore, appear to confuse the brain, Page said, by sending signals of sweetness without delivering the needed calories the brain requires. Scientists have hypothesized that when those promised calories don't arrive, the brain may send out a signal to eat more.

Same people, three drinks

The new study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature Metabolism, asked 75 people to consume one of three drinks on three separate occasions: plain water, water sweetened with table sugar (sucrose), and water sweetened with sucralose.

During each visit, the research team tested participants' fasting blood sugar levels, followed by a brain scan called Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging, or fMRI, which tracks blood flow to capture activity in different regions of the brain.

"They came out of the scanner and consumed one of the three drinks, and went back into the scanner," Page said.

One glass contained 300 milliliters of water and 75 grams (about 2.5 ounces) of sugar (sucrose), which is the equivalent of a 16-ounce can of sugary soda, Page said.

Another drink contained enough sucralose to match that sweetness. Sucralose is about 600 times sweeter than sugar, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The third drink was plain water, which served as a control.

During the brain scanning, Page and her team did another round of blood sampling at 10 minutes, 35 minutes and 120 minutes after consuming the drink and asked participants to rate their hunger level.

"(The study) is particularly strong because it used repeated measures within the same participants and included different methods such as brain imaging, blood draws, and subjective ratings to test their hypothesis," said Kyle Burger, a scientist at the nonprofit Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, which investigates human senses of taste and smell. Burger was not involved in the study.

Three possible explanations

In addition to finding that drinks with sucralose increased the sensation of hunger by about 17%, Page and her team found increased connections to other parts of the brain responsible for controlling motivation.

"Sucralose appears to affect your decision-making skills," Page said. "For example, we found increased brain connectivity between the hypothalamus and the anterior cingulate cortex, which controls the risks and rewards of a decision."

In addition, blood tests showed sucralose had no effect on hormones the brain uses to tell when we are satisfied and no longer hungry, Page said.

"There's no signal, no signal at all," she said. "There's a sweetness signal, but there's no hormone signal telling you you're full. Sucralose doesn't have an effect on those hormones."

Not everyone, however, may feel the combined effects of sucralose in the same way, Katz said.

"Those with insulin resistance, for instance, may be especially prone to disruption of normal appetite control with sucralose," he said.

What to do?

Recommendations on how to manage the body's reactions to artificial sweeteners are currently complex, Page said. For example, the American Diabetes Association tells people with insulin resistance and diabetes to use no-calorie drinks and foods, but sparingly.

"I'm an endocrinologist so I see patients for diabetes and obesity," Page said. "I would never say drink or eat more sugar.

"Instead, I tell my patients to not rely on non-caloric sweeteners as a substitute for sugar and try to reduce the overall intake of dietary sweeteners in general," she said.

Katz agreed, preferring to suggest a form of taste bud "rehab" that can reduce overall use of sugars, no matter what their form.

"A truly wholesome diet has little added sugar in the first place, and thus no sugar to 'replace' with sucralose and related compounds," Katz said.

Just as many people have cut their use of salt, it's possible to cut your use of sweeteners by teaching taste buds to desire fewer sweets, he said. Taste buds will respond by finding sugary foods that used to be delicious now cloyingly sweet, or in the case of sodium, much too salty, research has shown.

Start out by finding hidden sources of sugar in foods you may not realize are sweetened, Katz told CNN in a prior interview.

"If I asked you to boycott all the desserts in your life, you would probably rebel or fail," Katz said. "But there is a massive amount of added sugar and sweeteners hiding in foods that are not sweet — in salad dressing, pasta sauce, bread, crackers, even salty chips."

By choosing products without sweeteners, he said, it's possible to reduce a person's daily intake of sugar or sweeteners "by a third, maybe even a half as many grams a day before we even lay a hand on anything that you actually expect to be sweet."

CNN

The cost of cooking one pot of jollof rice in Nigeria has jumped from N21,300 in September 2024 to N25,486 in March 2025.

This is about a 19 per cent increase in the price of the popular dish.

This was revealed in the latest SBM Jollof Index report titled “Staple Under Stress.”

According to SBM Intelligence, a research and communications group, it looked at how food prices changed between the last quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025.

The report disclosed that the rising prices of key ingredients like pepper, onions, turkey, beef, and rice are the main reasons for the increase.

The SBM Jollof Index tracks how much it costs to cook jollof rice, which is a common Nigerian meal, and uses it to monitor changes in food prices across the country.

The report said protein, especially turkey, remains one of the most expensive parts of the meal.

“Turkey now costs between N8,000 and N10,500 per kilo, a big jump from the N1,500 to N1,700 it cost back in 2016,” the report stated.

It also blamed the rise in food prices on insecurity in food-producing areas, which has made it harder to get farm products to markets.

It added that high transport and energy costs are also pushing prices higher.

The report looked at how much it costs to cook a pot of jollof rice for a family of five across 13 markets in Nigeria, comparing figures from September 2024 to March 2025.

While some areas saw stable prices briefly in late 2024, food prices went up again in early 2025.

“For instance, petrol prices have remained elevated, and electricity tariffs for Band A users have increased, adding to household financial strain. Insecurity continues to be a pressing concern, with incidents such as the killing of farmers in Benue, Borno and Plateau States disrupting agricultural activities and limiting the local food supply.

“The national average rose by 19.7 per cent, increasing from N21,300 in September to N25,486 in March, highlighting worsening food inflation and its deepening impact on household nutrition and spending,” the report said.

Punch

Air Peace has announced the suspension of all its domestic flight operations due to the ongoing strike by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet).

In a statement released on Wednesday, the airline cited the lack of critical QNH (barometric pressure) data—essential for safe landings—as the reason for grounding its fleet.

“Due to the ongoing NiMet strike and the unavailability of QNH reports required for safe landings, Air Peace has suspended all flight operations nationwide until the strike is over,” the airline said.

The carrier emphasized that passenger safety remains its top priority and promised to keep the public informed as the situation develops.

Prior to the announcement, Air Peace had warned of possible delays and cancellations due to the industrial action. It also stated that it is working closely with stakeholders to mitigate the impact on passengers.

NiMet staff began an indefinite nationwide strike on Wednesday over unresolved welfare concerns. These include the agency’s alleged failure to implement agreed financial allowances, wage awards, and backlog payments from the 2019 minimum wage review.

The striking workers also accused NiMet’s management of withholding essential documents, excluding certain staff from previous payments, and neglecting staff training needs in favor of executive retreats.

Palestinian president urges Hamas to lay down arms

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called on Hamas on Wednesday to lay down arms and hand the running of Gaza to his Palestinian Authority, part of efforts to answer international doubts over the authority's role at a key moment for the region.

Abbas was speaking at a leadership council where he is expected this week to name a successor amid pressure from Western and Arab powers concerned about the PA's ability to play a viable-long term role in peace efforts.

While Abbas had previously called on Hamas to put its forces under the PA's control, he has not done so since the start of the war in Gaza, when the militant group's gunmen attacked Israel, prompting fierce military retaliation by Israel.

Hamas killed around 1,200 people and seized about 250 hostages in its October 7, 2023 attack, according to Israeli tallies. Israel's campaign has killed more than 50,000 people, local health authorities say, and left much of Gaza in ruins.

Diplomatic efforts to craft a plan for Gaza's future have focused on pushing aside Hamas but Israel has also said it will not accept any role for the PA, which exercises limited autonomy in the West Bank.

"Hamas must hand over (its) Gaza responsibilities and hand over its arms to the responsibility of the Palestinian Authority and transform into a political party," said Abbas.

Hamas, which ousted the PA from Gaza during a brief civil war in 2007, has refused calls in recent months by Israel and the United States to lay down its arms.

PRESSURE TO NAME A SUCCESSOR

Abbas was speaking to the Central Council of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), which holds observer status at the United Nations as the legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and dominates the PA.

Abbas, 89, took over the Palestinian leadership after the death of veteran PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 2004. He has for years resisted naming a deputy or successor but the war in Gaza has intensified pressure for him to do so.

Last month, Arab states proposed a post-war plan for Gaza to be temporarily run by a committee before being returned to the PA's control. The United States, European Union and Gulf monarchies expected to play a role in financing any post-war reconstruction of Gaza have repeatedly urged PA reform.

Abbas has criticised the Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which he said gave Israel a pretext to destroy Gaza. Israel launched its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza after the Hamas-led attack.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Trump says 'inflammatory' Zelenskyy statement on Crimea prolongs war with Russia

President Donald Trump slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s statement on Crimea, saying it was "very harmful" to peacemaking efforts.

"It’s inflammatory statements like Zelenskyy’s that make it so difficult to settle this war," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. "He has nothing to boast about! The situation for Ukraine is dire — He can have peace or, he can fight for another three years before losing the whole country."

Trump also rejected Zelenskyy’s red line in the Truth Social post, saying it was "not even a point of discussion," as the territory was "lost years ago" under then-President Barack Obama.

American officials have apparently floated the idea of recognizing Russia's control of Crimea, a territory that Russia seized in 2014, as part of a ceasefire proposal. This would also involve the freezing of current frontlines. 

In 2022, Zelenskyy said that the "Russian war against Ukraine and against the entire free Europe began with Crimea and must end with Crimea — and its liberation," Axios reported. He reiterated this stance on Tuesday, shutting down the idea that Ukraine would recognize Russian control of Crimea.

"Ukraine will not legally recognize the occupation of Crimea," Zelenskyy said at a press conference here on Tuesday, according to the Wall Street Journal. "There’s nothing to talk about here. This is against our constitution."

This is not the first time Trump has criticized Zelenskyy’s statements about the war. During their infamous meeting in the Oval Office on Feb. 28, Trump said that Zelenskyy’s "hatred" of Russian President Vladimir Putin was making it "very tough" to make a deal.

"You see the hatred he's got for Putin, it's very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate, he's got tremendous hatred," Trump told reporters. "And I understand that, but I can tell you the other side isn't exactly in love with, you know, him either."

Trump appeared to allude to the Oval Office meeting in his Truth Social post, calling Zelenskyy "the man with no cards to play." This echoed Trump’s remark during the tense February meeting in which he said that Zelenskyy didn’t "have the cards" to make major demands in peace talks.

While Zelenskyy has made his demands clear, it remains uncertain what might persuade Putin to agree to a ceasefire. Although Trump administration officials have stated that they have had productive conversations with Putin, they have yet to get Russia to agree to a ceasefire proposal.

Earlier on Wednesday, Vice President JD Vance suggested that the U.S. was prepared to walk away from peace talks if Ukraine and Russia did not reach a deal soon.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russia isn’t seeking Zelensky’s removal – Kremlin

Ukrainian officials in the future could legally challenge any agreements signed by Vladimir Zelensky, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Despite this, he said Russia is not demanding that Zelensky step down.

Moscow has repeatedly rejected Zelensky’s legitimacy since his presidential term lapsed last May. He has since postponed elections with successive extensions of martial law roughly every three months. Ukraine’s parliament supported the latest extension last week.

In an interview with French weekly Le Point published on Wednesday, Peskov was asked whether Russia was demanding the Ukrainian leader’s resignation.

”It’s not one of our demands, but even if an agreement were signed with Zelensky today, people could come forward later in Ukraine and legally challenge his legitimacy,” the spokesman said.

”This is in relation to martial law and certain articles of the Ukrainian Constitution... The role of the Rada is enshrined in the constitution, not that of the president,” Peskov added.

Moscow maintains that the Ukrainian constitution allows Zelensky to transfer presidential authority to the current speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, the Rada.

Russia does not insist on the Ukrainian leader stepping down as a precondition to starting bilateral talks, Russian President Vladimir Putin said late last year. However, any final document would have to be signed with the de jure leader of Ukraine, he said.

”But if we ever get to the point of signing a document, it can only be done with the representatives of legitimate authorities, that is the bottom line,” Putin said.

Russian officials have also pointed out that another hurdle to potential talks between Moscow and Kiev is Zelensky’s decree banning any negotiations with Putin.

No direct talks between Russia and Ukraine have taken place since the collapse of the Istanbul negotiations in 2022. Then UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson convinced Kiev to stop diplomacy and keep fighting, according to the head of Kiev’s delegation, David Arakhamia.

Fox News/RT

Most times, in our self-absorption, we assume that people are talking about us. When some of us enter a social gathering, we are so self-conscious in our exaggerated self-importance that we think that all eyes at the party are centred on us especially so, if we believed the designer-dress we adorned was the rarest attire in town.

Actors, writers, newscasters, musicians and other artistes engaged in various genres of the performing arts belong in this category of people who believe that the world owes them attention and notice.

Politicians, notorious for flaunting their presence on captured citizens also belong in the category of people who believe that they are always the centre of people’s attention.

Another category of people are the nouveau riche, those who suddenly stumbled on wealth and thought that everybody in the gathering ought to recognize that a billionaire has arrived as one of special dignitaries. They believe the gold or golden chain dangling on their chests should be evidence enough of the wearer’s status!

No! You are the one noticing yourself! You are the one who assume, it is an assumption, that you are being noticed and everybody else in the gathering had suspended their lives to watch you.

Human beings are generally pre-occupied with various degrees of challenges in their personal lives that they hardly bother to expend their thoughts on other people. They are not concerned about your presence.

What is most laughable is for people in their 70s and 80s, or even beyond that age bracket still craving for recognition. Most human beings that are talked about or discussed in serious circles are people who had made their marks in their 30s, 40s or in few cases, in their 60s. If at age 70 or 80 one is still under the illusion that the life that had passed them in their mid-life could still be lived in the evening or sun-set of their lives, they must be living in a fool’s paradise.

This brings me to the kernel of this essay. We are talking of people who live in self-delusion that members of their families, members of their extended families, members of their villages or old acquaintances and former colleagues are talking about them. Wherever they are, they are constantly enamoured with the thought that someone somewhere or some people somewhere must be talking about them.

Some people, maybe they make an unusual appearance in a newspaper story, or they appear in the footnote of television news or they are just appointed or elected as an official of an organization [which no one other than the members of that organization knows anything about]  begin to nurse this self-elevated feeling that they have suddenly become ‘talk of the town’.

It is a serious matter.

Quite a number of people on the other hand lose their confidence, their self-esteem because they suspect that other people are talking about them. It could be a sign of inferiority complex or a total lack of self-confidence when a woman feels shy to walk straight to the altar in a church gathering or when someone is called upstage to receive a prize and he or she starts shuffling their feet. It is a thought in their subconscious that suggests to them that everyone in the gathering is talking about them.

It is a carry-over of this kind of mind-set which makes some people gloat at the airport or at any group-event and they start screaming at whoever is perceived to have crossed their redline with rhetoric like ‘Do you know who I am?’ Comeon! If you don’t know who you are, who cares?

People who spend a life time imagining that other people are talking about them should please learn some modesty or if such a feeling is due to lack of confidence, they should buckle-up and dismiss the notion that the world cares about them.

There are millions of organizations, NGOs and other agencies all over the world with their leaderships and Chief  Operating Officers and it is therefore ludicrous for a leader of any of such organizations to believe that the world is talking about them.

There are presidents, prime ministers and heads of state whose countries are hardly recognized on the world map. Yet, some of these back of the wood leaders believe that the world is talking about them. And so it is with some village champions who delude themselves with the thought that they are the centre of discussions in various homes in the country.

Pathological insecurity which drives some people to crave for attention also makes people feel that they are being talked about at gatherings or even behind their back.

Please relax.

Nobody is talking about you!

** Tola Adeniyi, veteran journalist, is Chairman/Managing Consultant, The Knowledge Plaza

For a sermon that urges people to “understand their terrain”, it is ironic how many things Pastor Poju Oyemade got wrong in his message that compares realities between Nigeria and the USA. Most of the blowback to the respected pastor focuses on the controversial claim that Nigerian doctors are trained with a mere N500,000, but his sermon contains the same fallacious claims Nigerian leaders make when they relativise their country with advanced economies. It is one thing for the average talker on social media to construe subsidised medical education as a government charity to doctors, but it is another thing when a cleric repeats it. How come those who mouth these things never stop to ask why the government at the state and federal levels chooses to subsidise rather than demand full monetary value?

Nigerian universities, public or private, cannot come anywhere close to medical training in US schools simply because of affordability. For an under-producing economy, there is a practical limit to what can be charged if you want people to be able to afford medical training. Already, we are a society short of doctors; erecting any more financial barriers in their training system will be hugely detrimental. It is in the interest of the government and society to keep the costs of doctor training low enough. Can the existing arrangement be better structured to enhance value for the parties involved? Absolutely! But we cannot progress by making misleading arguments that fail to weigh the current calibration of interests by the parties involved.

In addition to the affordability, countries where they charge far more for medical training are incomparable to Nigeria in terms of training facilities and amenities. Do we want to compare Johns Hopkins Medical School with even our UCH, where their electricity supply was cut off for 100 days plus? It was just in January that medical students at UCH protested the prolonged power outage. When you listen to the heartbreaking accounts of how they coped during that dark period, you will be amused that someone thought comparing us with a country where no one worries over something as basic as electricity makes for a logical argument. Doctors at Johns Hopkins pay more, but their training also returns value for money. Can the same be said of Nigerian doctors? How many times has Poju heard of doctors in the USA going on strike over salaries, like they frequently do in Nigeria? Even our leaders know the difference, and that is why successive presidents opt for foreign hospitals rather than local ones staffed with N500,000 trained doctors!

Some of the arguments that Poju made in that video reprise what you read on social media by netizens, given to blindly defending Nigeria. One of them is that Nigerians work harder abroad while those at home are shiftless. He specifically said, “If you ask a Nigerian to do two jobs, he will curse your life out.” Really? Does the opportunity to take multiple jobs exist for Nigerians as it does for their counterparts elsewhere? To have a society where people can take multiple jobs, you must also have a productive economy that rewards. When the pastor looks around in his Lagos abode and sees the thousands of people who leave their homes at 4am to return at night, does he think they remain poor because they do not do enough?

Since the pastor’s data on Nigerians’ work culture is anecdotal, let me offer him one too. The other day, a well-meaning activist shared a video of herself scolding a mother who had brought her underage daughter to assist her in her sweeping job at 5am. We later learned from that poor mother that she leaves her home in Oworo by 3am to resume at the job at Ikoyin by 5am, and for a salary of N19,800! Will Poju agree that such a woman’s poverty is a consequence of her not taking a second job or driving for Uber? I can offer him more examples of how Nigeria’s problem of undervaluing labour contributes to the poor work culture. Once, I wrote a column on the poor remuneration of labour in Nigeria and I was shocked when several readers got back to me with figures of what they earn across sectors. The details were so ridiculous; I do not know how possible it is to survive on those salaries. For people to raise families on those amounts, they must already work on multiple fronts.

Before we accuse Nigerians of laziness compared to their immigrant counterparts, let us be sure that we have provided them with similar opportunities, but they failed to take them. Each time I think of the Oworo-to-Ikoyi woman’s 11-year-old daughter who joins her mother to do a menial task for a pittance, I wonder how exhausted she must be by a life that has not even started! If she grows up to despise work, some privileged person who does not know where she has been will compare her to her mate in the USA and conclude she is “lazy”. I am admittedly sensitive to an unnuanced comparison between Nigerians at home and abroad.

Poju made an important point about “employment data”, which he says does not capture the reality of Nigeria’s underground economy. I agree with him on that score. Truly, we can make a legitimate argument that the mathematics of “less than a dollar per day”, which international organisations use to count the number of poor people in the third world, focuses too much on what we lack at the expense of what we have. Those measurement scales are designed to be universal and can therefore elide the complexities of people’s lives in their respective countries. Yet, that should not becloud the reality of the harshness of our economic situation. If we decide to calibrate our own barometer for calculating poverty in the country, it should be to more accurately pinpoint where the problem lies and how it might be addressed, rather than being merely defensive against external agents.

We are a society so invested in faux patriotism that when we challenge poverty figures, we do so simply to contend with the international organisations that calculated them and not necessarily because we have developed a better understanding of the problem. You will hear economic advisors share spurious examples, such as the price of a bottle of Coke in the USA or how much a plate of food in Lekki Phase One costs. Those are unsophisticated understandings of what constitutes poverty in the world and its realistic effects in a modern world. Even Poju had yet another anecdote of a woman who bought wigs to prove that Nigeria might not be as poor. If a person can invest enough capital to sell wigs at N250,000 each, can she really be classified as part of the country’s informal economy system?

The people who feel the effects of these issues keenly and express their angst on social media are not, contrary to Oyemade’s wild assertion, being “programmed to hate their country”. That claim misunderstands the social terrain that precipitates these discussions and the issues that will not disappear simply because people engage in some syrupy positive speak. It is not self-hatred, expressing frustrations with your country. Those who act otherwise are not necessarily patriotic; they are just partisan. Many of them will turn coat the day the government they dislike comes to power.

It is also a part of the expression of our citizenship to stand up to a country that diminishes us. James Baldwin once said, “I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticise her perpetually.” As a cleric, Oyemade must also know that not every prophet in the Bible spoke peace to Israel at its crucial moments. Some denounced their homeland with curses. Was that (self-)hate or exhortation to righteousness? Those who still criticise Nigeria do so because they care and do not want to see it drown in injustices. I will take that over their indifference any day.

Punch