After wearing masks in public for three long years, many Japanese are signing up for smiling classes to learn how to smile again without looking awkward.

Smiling used to be a natural response, but apparently, three years of hiding behind a mask have left many Japanese unable to smile naturally. Some of them are now paying so-called smiling educators to teach them how to display their pearly whites again without looking awkward. They participate in specialized classes where they are taught how to stretch and flex various parts of their faces and even their neck muscles to smile properly and actually convey happiness without looking weird.

“A smile is only a smile if it’s conveyed,” Keiko Kawano, a radio personality-turned-entrepreneur, told The Japan Times. “Even if you’re thinking about smiling or that you’re happy, if you have no expression, it won’t reach the audience.”

Kawano said that she has taught smiling classes to around 4,000 people so far and has also helped train around 700 certified “smile specialists” since she started her work in 2017. However, demand for her services has skyrocketed recently after people started giving up the medical masks they have been wearing for the last 3 years.

“I’ve heard from people who say that even if they’re able to remove their masks, they don’t want to show the bottom half of their faces, or that they don’t know how to smile anymore,” smile trainer Miho Kitano said. “Some say that they see more wrinkles around their eyes after using them more to smile, or they feel like their face is drooping because they haven’t been using it as much as before.”

Smiling instructors like Kitano claim that exercising one’s smile is just like training other parts of the body. It’s all about the muscles, so exercising the expressive facial muscles is the most important thing.

A standard smiling education class begins with a stretching session, after which participants are asked to pick up small handheld mirrors and observe themselves as they follow the instructions of a trainer who teaches them how to flex their facial muscles to convey the warmest and brightest expression of happiness possible.

Interestingly, instructional smiling classes have been a part of Japanese culture for several decades, because of the people’s notorious difficulty to convey their feelings through facial expressions, but they’ve once again risen in popularity after the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions were lifted.

Oddity Central

Nigeria's state-owned oil company NNPC Ltd said on Thursday it had renewed a production sharing contract with Total, China National Offshore Oil Corp and others, a major step to resolving disputes on a deepwater oil block in the Niger Delta.

Oil Mining Lease 130 is located offshore Niger Delta at water depths of over 1000 meters. The block contains the producing Akpo and Egina fields and the Preowei discovery.

NNPC said in a statement that the agreements will pave the way "to firm up final investment decision on the Preowei amounting to USD$ 2.1 billion."

NNPC said the agreements would convert the oil mining lease into a petroleum mining licence, in line with a new law.

Nigeria has struggled with low oil production due to massive crude theft, pipeline vandalism and underinvestment. Oil majors in the country are leaving onshore operations to concentrate on deepwater projects.

Reuters

The court of appeal has ordered Ambrose Owuru, presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) in the 2019 elections, to pay a fine of N40 million for filing a frivolous suit to stop the inauguration of Bola Tinubu, president-elect.

Jamil Tukur, the justice who read the lead judgment of a three-member panel of the court, held that Owuru committed a gross abuse of the court process by filing a frivolous, vexatious and irritating suit to provoke the respondents.

Owuru had filed the suit in April challenging the outcome of the 2019 elections.

He asked the court to declare the president’s seat vacant and swear him in as the authentic winner.

In the suit marked CA/CV/259/2023, Owuru urged the appeal court to prohibit President Muhammadu Buhari, Abubakar Malami, the attorney-general of the federation and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), from going ahead with Tinubu’s inauguration.

He argued that he was the winner of the 2019 presidential election and had not spent his tenure.

Owuru maintained that Buhari has been usurping his tenure of office since 2019 because the supreme court has not determined his petition challenging the election’s outcome.

However, in its judgment on Thursday, the appellate court held that the appellant’s grievances against the 2019 presidential election were not only strange but uncalled for because they had been pursued up to the supreme court and were dismissed for want of merit.

The appeal court held that Owuru’s bid to resuscitate the case that died in 2019 was aimed at making the lower courts go on a collision course with the supremacy of the apex court.

The court ordered the appellant to pay N10 million each to Buhari, the AGF, INEC and Tinubu — the first to fourth defendants in the suit.

The Cable

Southern and Middle Belt Leaders (SMBLF), a coalition of pressure groups, says there are increased cases of killings and a rise in the cost of living in the country after the general election.

In a communique issued after a meeting with various stakeholders from the regions, on Wednesday, the coalition expressed concerns over the rising insecurity in the country, noting that agencies and state governors were not showing commitment to addressing the challenge.

“We express shock at the escalation of killings, pogroms, and total destruction of entire communities and means of livelihood in several targeted areas in select states since after the 2023 general election, mainly in Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Southern Kaduna, Kebbi, and various states of the Southeast, where hundreds of armless citizens are being slaughtered daily,” the statement reads.

“Note with grave concern that the nation’s security agencies have continued to show unwillingness to decisively deal with the perpetrators of these monstrous acts, or rather, deliberately turned a blind eye to the atrocious occurrences, thereby exposing the country to a seeming state of war.

“It is shameful that non-state actors are allowed to openly tote dangerous weapons about and rampage the country unhindered.

“Condemn in unmistakable terms, the cavalier and totally nonchalant attitudes of the outgoing governors of some states over the collapse of security in certain parts of their states, which has continued to exacerbate the worrisome situation, and hope their successors will show greater commitment to the welfare of their citizens who are the victims of this sad situation.

“Further warns that the continuous abdication of government’s primary and abiding constitutional responsibility of safeguarding the lives and properties of its citizens is an irresistible signal to Nigerians to exercise their inalienable rights of self-defence, by all means.

“Again deplores the inhuman plight of thousands of indigenous people in the Middle Belt states driven out of their homes and have now become internally displaced persons (IDPs) for years as well as several other internally displaced persons in different parts of the country, left to live in conditions that impinge on their human rights as citizens of this country.

“Hence, calls on the federal government to, without any further delay, facilitate the return and reintegration of these Nigerians to their communities.”

ELECTION OUTCOME AND JUDICIARY

The group said the judiciary should be cautious as Nigerians were monitoring the election petition proceedings, adding that the outcome of the trial must be in line with the constitution.

“With regards to the 2023 general election, SMBLF commends Nigerian youths for their courage and astuteness in expressing their interest in the future of this country and calls on them not to become discouraged by some of the seeming outcomes,” the group added.

“Accordingly, calls on the youths of Nigeria to remain undeterred and emboldened to carry their foresight of building a new Nigeria to fruition, and to note that the struggle for the needed change has just begun.

“SMBLF strongly urges the nation’s judiciary to be aware that all Nigerians are watching with very keen interest the ongoing judicial processes at the presidential election petition tribunal as well as various election tribunals across the country.

“Further cautions the judicial arm, at all levels, to be mindful of the fact that the present process is a true test of our effort at building a country based on the rule of law and respect for our constitution.

“It is the expectation of Nigerians that the outcome of the processes will be a reflection of the provisions of the constitution of the country, which must be sacrosanct, and the rights of all affected parties upheld based on the provisions of the laws of Nigeria.

“SMBLF notes with serious concern, the continued snowballing level of indebtedness being incurred by the federal government, particularly the recent request for a $800 million World Bank loan, and calls on the federal government to rescind that request.

“Decries the rising cost of living in the country and the hyperinflation rate, confining a vast majority of ordinary Nigerians to a dire state of survival.

“Implores government at all levels to take urgent, practical steps to rejig the economy, check inflation and help improve citizens’ well-being and prospects.”

Signatories to the communique were Edwin Clark, an Ijaw national leader, Ayo Adebanjo, leader of Afenifere, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, president-general, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Worldwide, Pogu Bitrus, national president, of Middle Belt Forum, and Emmanuel Essien, national chairman, Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF).

The Cable

Adamu Adamu, has confessed that he was a novice in education sector when President Muhammadu Buhari appointed him Minister of Education in 2015.

Adamu, who is the longest serving minister, stated this at a valedictory session with officials and heads of parastatals of  the Ministry on Thursday.

He said he was forced to apply wisdom by appointing some professors of education and other good hands, with the help of the officials of the Federal Ministry of Education to enable him kick off and make progress.

“I didn’t know anything about education sector when I was appointed Minister except superficially. But when Buhari decided to make me Minister of education, I called some people to assist me work on policy document on education because I was novice in the sector. I shared my idea with them and they assisted me greatly, and I remain grateful to them for these years,” he said.

The minister appreciated the President who found him worthy and trusted him with such a responsibility, “even when I was apparently not ready and unprepared for such task”.

He said: “I was busy making recommendations and suggestions to the President on who to appoint into his cabinet in 2015. All of a sudden, he announced my name to my surprise and that was it. We worked together till 2019.

“In 2019, I approached the President, and suggested that he reshuffle his cabinet because, in the eyes of many, it was unusual in our society for a President to work with same Ministers for four years. Buhari had graciously allowed his Ministers to stay in office for four years. Ordinarily, Ministers stay in office for two years before they are reshuffled.

“But I know him very well and I knew it will be difficult for him to do that. But I decided to make it easy for him by promising to bring people that would do the job better for me and others who served as Ministers in the first tenure,” he said.

“I promised him that I will give him names of competent people from at least, 19 northern states. So, I suggested to him to drop all the Ministers that worked with him in the first tenure including me, but I knew it would be difficult for him. But to confirm that I can do the job, I gave him a name from Bauchi state whom I had expected him to replace me with in the cabinet. That was how Maryam Katagun became Minister of the Federal Republic.”

He said he brought her to replace him and somehow but surprisingly, the President kept her and also kept him.

“Up till now, he never explained to me why he did that. However, I remain eternally grateful to the President for trusting me with such responsibilities. He has shown me love and trust over the years. In 1994, when he picked up assignment in Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), he gave me an offer to work with him as Personal Assistant. That was how I found myself in Abuja,” the outgoing Minister said.

Adamu appreciated other people that worked with him particularly the Ministers of State that worked with him.

He said particularly Goodluck Opiah, who served briefly as Minister of State for Education and described him as a brother whom he worked closely with to achieve the desired results in education sector.

Daily Trust

Herders in the country have lamented that President Muhammadu Buhari failed them.

The herders under the umbrella of the Coalition of Pastoralists Association of Nigeria said Buhari never had an engagement with herders since he took the oath of office.

The Vice President, Tabital Pulaaku International, Nigeria Chapter, Auwal Gonga stated this while addressing journalists in Abuja on Thursday.

Gonga was flanked by the National President, Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria, Baba Ngelzarma, and President General, Fulbe Global Development and Right Initiatives, Salim Umar.

He said, “He never engaged stakeholders. Even if he thinks he can’t engage us, we have members who are former ministers, and former governors among us. One of them is Isa Yuguda, why can’t Buhari call him and engage him? It is wrong for the government to have done so and that is why they have failed.” he said.

Gonga called on the incoming administration to do better in uniting herders and farmers in the country.

“We are calling on the new government to change policy and strategy. It should create a ministry of livestock. Tanzania, and Cameron among others have it. We believe this coming administration will do well to unite both the farmers and the herders. Unfortunately, our brother Buhari failed.”

Umar, however, denied that the herdsmen were responsible for the killings in Plateau, Oyo, Gombe, and Benue, among others, adding that their members were also victims in the crisis.

He called on the security agencies to arrest and prosecute all those involved in the heinous crime.

Umar said, “We call on the state governments to note that activities of the vigilante in the past had only resulted in more heightened reprisals from bandits who have been unleashing terror in the surrounding areas.

“The security agencies in charge of these areas should do more to protect the innocent people who are continuously harassed by bandits. We believe the security agencies have the wherewithal to put a stop to this dastardly act of cowardice against unarmed civilians.”

Punch

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

The head of the Russian private military contractor Wagner claimed Thursday that his forces have started pulling out of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine and handing over control to the Russian military, days after he said Wagner troops had captured the ruined city.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, a convicted criminal and Wagner’s millionaire owner with longtime links to Russian President Vladimir Putin, said in a video published on Telegram that the handover would be completed by June 1. Russia’s Defense Ministry didn’t confirm this and it wasn’t possible independently to verify whether Wagner’s pullout from the bombed-out city has begun after a nine-month battle that killed tens of thousands of people. Prigozhin said his troops would now rest in camps, repair equipment and await further orders.

Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said Thursday that regular Russian troops had replaced Wagner units in the suburbs but that Wagner fighters remained inside the city. Ukrainian forces maintain a foothold in the southwestern outskirts, she said.

Prigozhin’s Bakhmut triumph delivered a badly needed victory for Putin, whose invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has lost momentum and now faces a Ukrainian counteroffensive using advanced weapons that Kyiv’s Western allies have provided.

According to top Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak, that counteroffensive is already underway. He said Thursday that it should not be anticipated as a “single event” starting “at a specific hour of a specific day.” Writing on Twitter, Podolyak said that “dozens of different actions to destroy Russian occupation forces” had “already been taking place yesterday, are taking place today and will continue tomorrow.”

Prigozhin has long feuded with the Russian military leadership, dating back to Wagner’s creation in 2014. He has also built a reputation for inflammatory — and often unverifiable — headline-grabbing statements from which he later backtracks. During the 15-month war in Ukraine, he has repeatedly and publicly accused the Russian military leadership of incompetence, failure to properly provision his troops as they spearheaded the battle for Bakhmut, and failure to credit his troops for their successes and sacrifices.

Wagner’s involvement in the capture of Bakhmut has added to Prigozhin’s standing, which he has used to set forth his personal views about the war’s conduct.

“Prigozhin is … using the perception that Wagner is responsible for the capture of Bakhmut to advocate for a preposterous level of influence over the Russian war effort in Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said.

His frequent critical commentary about Russia’s military performance is uncommon in Russia’s tightly controlled political system, in which only Putin can usually air such criticism.

Seth Jones, director of international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Prigozhin appears to be pressuring the Russian Defense Ministry to take a more active role and responsibility in Bakhmut but he questioned whether regular troops are capable of taking over from Wagner.

“If you pull those forces out of Bakhmut, you lose your entire sort of first line of offensive and then defensive operations, because the Russians aren’t going to use — haven’t used -- their seasoned military forces” for major advances, he said. “You don’t want to waste well trained capable forces in areas where they’re likely to get killed. So removing them would almost certainly allow the Ukrainians to retake territory.”

With Russian forces suffering high casualties and their inability to integrate their, forces, he added, they “just they look miserable.”

Nikolai Petrov, senior Russia and Eurasia research fellow at Chatham House, was skeptical about Prigozhin’s claim the Russian military will take over.

“Nobody knows if that will happen,” Petrov said, adding that Prigozhin is a “populist and he’s playing the cards of hatred” against ineffective Russian military commanders.

Earlier this week, Prigozhin again broke with the Kremlin line on Ukraine, saying its goal of demilitarizing the country had backfired, acknowledging Russian troops had killed civilians and agreeing with Western estimates that he lost more than 20,000 men in the battle for Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, Russia unleashed a barrage of Iranian-made Shahed 36 drones against Kyiv in its 12th nighttime air assault on the Ukrainian capital this month but the city’s air defenses shot them all down, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday.

The Kremlin’s forces also launched 30 airstrikes and 39 attacks from multiple rocket launchers, as well as artillery and mortar attacks across Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said.

At least one civilian was killed and 13 others were wounded in Ukraine on Wednesday and overnight, the Ukrainian presidential office said Thursday.

In other developments Thursday:

—Russia attacked a dam on the Vovcha River in Karlivka, 40 kilometres (24 miles) west of Donetsk, destroying it and raising a flooding risk for three villages, Gov. Pavlo Kyrylenko said. The villages might be evacuated, he said on Telegram.

— Russia and Belarus signed a deal formalizing deployment of Russian nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory. Control of the weapons will remain with Moscow. Putin had announced in March that his country planned to deploy tactical, comparatively short-range and small-yield nuclear weapons in Belarus.

— A U.K.-based technology firm says pro-Russia hackers faked the location data to form a giant letter “Z” — a symbol of Russia’s war in Ukraine — in the Black Sea. Geollect says location data for commercial ships has been remotely spoofed so vessels near Crimea appear to form a 65-mile (105-kilometer) long “Z” on open-source maritime tracking sites. Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014. The false location data increased the risk of collisions, the firm warned.

—A total of 106 Ukrainian prisoners of war have been released in another major exchange with Russia, chief Ukrainian presidential aide Andriy Yermak said. The eight officers and 98 soldiers released fought in the battle for Bakhmut. The bodies of two foreigners and a Ukrainian were also returned to Ukraine. Prigozhin posted a video of himself standing next to two wooden coffins, one draped with an American flag and another with a Turkish flag. Prigozhin said the bodies were being handed over to Ukrainian forces and provided the American’s name but the State Department couldn’t confirm it, pending an investigation and due to privacy concerns. Russian officials confirmed the swap, without providing any details on how many Russians were returned.

— The Russian Foreign Ministry announced that five Swedish diplomats are to be expelled from the country. A statement said the decision is a response to Stockholm’s “openly hostile step” to declare five employees of Russian foreign missions in Sweden “personae non grata” in April. Moscow additionally announced its decision to close its consulate in Goteborg in September, as well as its “withdrawal of consent” to the activities of the Swedish consulate in St. Petersburg. Russia and Western countries have often expelled each other’s diplomats since the war began.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Kiev regime must cease to exist – ex-Russian president

There is no doubt that Ukraine has no future in its current form, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, outlining three possible scenarios for the collapse of its statehood and assessing the risks of renewed conflict in Europe and a global war.

“This conflict will last for long. For decades, probably. This is a new reality,” the former Russian leader, now the vice-chair of the national security council, told journalists upon wrapping his visit to Vietnam earlier this week.

“It is necessary to destroy the very nature of the Nazi government in Kiev,”Medvedev added, claiming that otherwise the conflict could drag on perpetually, with “three years of truce, two years of conflict, rinse and repeat.”

In a Telegram post on Thursday evening, Medvedev elaborated that the collapse of Ukraine’s statehood is inevitable, and could either happen quickly, or through a “relatively slow erosion, with the gradual loss of remaining elements of sovereignty.” He went even further to outline exactly how he believes the “Kiev regime” would cease to exist.

In the first scenario, parts of Western Ukraine will come under control and eventually be annexed by the neighboring European Union states, Medvedev claimed. The remaining “no man’s land” wedged between Russia and the EU protectorate will become the “new Ukraine,” still striving to join NATO and posing a threat to Russia. In that case, he believes, the armed conflict will shortly reignite, likely becoming permanent with a risk of quickly escalating into a full-blown world war.

In the second scenario, Ukraine would get a government-in-exile but de-facto cease to exist, with control over its entire territory split between the EU and Russia. In that case, according to Medvedev, the risk of world war is “moderate,”but the “terrorist activity by Ukrainian neo-Nazis” on the territories annexed by the EU neighbors would drag on.  

Medvedev said he would prefer the third scenario, in which Ukraine’s Western territories voluntarily join their EU neighbors, while the Eastern and some central regions exercise their “right for self-determination sealed in Article 1 of the UN Charter.”

Officials in Moscow have said repeatedly that the root cause of the ongoing crisis in Ukraine stems from decades of Western disregard of Russian national security. Back in 2021, the Kremlin made an attempt to push NATO to negotiate on long-standing political and defense grievances, but was ignored. In late February 2022, Russia launched its military operation to curb the threat, and now calls for a neutral, non-aligned status for a demilitarized and denazified Ukraine, insists Kiev drops its plans to join NATO and the EU and demands Kiev confirms its non-nuclear status.

Medvedev was president of Russia between 2008 and 2012, and then prime minister until 2020. Currently, he serves as the deputy head of the national security council, which is formally chaired by President Vladimir Putin. Despite his prior reputation as a moderate liberal, he has been far more hawkish on Ukraine than the official Kremlin.

** Ukrainian attacks on Russian nuclear plants foiled – FSB

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has said it intercepted a Ukrainian saboteur group that was planning a terrorist operation on two nuclear power plants in the country ahead of May 9, when the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany is celebrated.

The suspects were aiming to destroy more than 30 pylons bearing high-voltage lines linked to the nuclear power plants, the FSB announced in a statement on Thursday.

Before being detained, the Ukrainian agents were able to blow up one transmission tower and mine four others on power lines leading to the Leningrad nuclear plant near St. Petersburg, according to the statement.

They also placed improvised explosive devices at pylons connected to the Kalinin nuclear power plant in Tver Region, 350km northwest of Moscow, it added.

Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, which according to the FSB was behind the plot, hoped that the sabotage “would cause the shutdown of nuclear reactors, disruption of routine operations of the nuclear power plants, and deliver serious economic and reputational damage to Russia,” the statement claimed.

The FSB said two Ukrainian citizens were arrested, while another, who is believed to be in Belgium, was placed on the wanted list.

The three men were allegedly recruited by Ukrainian intelligence in September last year and underwent training at camps in the Kiev and Nikolaev Regions of Ukraine. They illegally crossed into Russia in Pskov Region from Belarus, which they had entered from Poland, the agency said.

Russian operatives discovered caches prepared by the suspects, containing 36.5kg of C-4 plastic explosives, 61 foreign-made electric detonators, 38 electronic timers and two Makarov pistols with ammunition, the statement read.

Two Russian citizens were also detained on suspicion of providing means of communication and vehicles with fake license plates to the Ukrainian saboteurs, the FSB added.

AP/RT

Fresh fighting threatens Sudan's week-long ceasefire

Sporadic clashes between Sudan's army and a paramilitary force spilled over into Thursday, puncturing the relative calm in the capital Khartoum and raising the risk of a week-long truce deal crumbling as concerns grew over a humanitarian crisis.

The ceasefire, monitored by Saudi Arabia and the United States, was reached after five weeks of warfare in Khartoum and outbursts of fighting in other parts of Sudan, including the long-volatile western region of Darfur.

The fighting - centred on a power struggle between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) - has worsened a humanitarian crisis, forced more than 1.3 million people to flee and threatened to destabilise a fragile region.

The U.S. State Department said the ceasefire monitoring mechanism on Sudan had detected possible breaches of the agreement on Wednesday, including observed use of artillery, military aircraft and drones.

Washington also warned that Russia's Wagner mercenary group has been supplying the RSF with surface-to-air missiles to fight Sudan’s army, saying it was "contributing to a prolonged armed conflict that only results in further chaos in the region."

The army relies on air power while the RSF has spread out and taken cover in Khartoum's streets.

It is unclear whether either side has gained an edge in recent weeks. Clashes between the rival factions broke out again on Thursday in Khartoum and neighbouring Omdurman, eyewitnesses said, as well as the strategic city of El Obeid to the southwest.

The health ministry said some 730 people had been killed and 5,454 injured, though the real number is likely much higher.

Militia were also besieging Zalingei, capital of Central Darfur State, U.N. Darfur coordinator Toby Harward said. Telecommunications have been cut off and gangs roaming the city on motorcycles have attacked hospitals, government and aid offices, banks and homes, he added.

The same has happened in the West Darfur State capital El Geneina, where residents have had communication cut off for days after as many as 510 people were killed.

FAILED CEASEFIRE

The ceasefire was agreed on Saturday following talks in Jeddah. Previous truces have failed to stop the fighting. In statements late on Wednesday, the army and RSF accused each other of violating the agreement and launching attacks.

Reuters could not confirm the battlefield accounts.

"We have continued to see violations of the ceasefire," State Department spokesperson Matt Miller said in a briefing, saying the breaches included observed use of artillery and military aircraft and drones, credible reports of air strikes and sustained fighting in the heart of the Khartoum industrial area, as well as clashes in Zalingei.

He said Washington was continuing to engage with both sides and pressing the parties on alleged violations.

"We retain our sanctions authority and if appropriate we will not hesitate to use that authority," Miller said.

World Food Programme Executive-Director Cindy McCain said there was a need for increased public and private sector funding for relief.

"In the meantime, the conflict has to stop and we need help from the world community to make just that happen, otherwise we are going to lose another generation of Sudanese," McCain told journalists in Berlin.

The conflict erupted in Khartoum in mid-April as plans for an internationally backed political transition toward free elections under a civilian government were set to be finalised.

U.N. humanitarian agency OCHA said agencies were ready to deliver aid to more than 4 million people, but bureaucratic blockages and security issues were hampering distribution.

Out of the 168 trucks ready to deliver assistance, just a small number were on the move from Port Sudan to Gadaref, Kassala and Al Gezira, an aid official told Reuters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a statement that anaesthesia and antibiotics and other medical supplies it had donated were now being distributed to seven hospitals in Khartoum, where only 20% of facilities are functioning.

"Hospitals also urgently need water, electricity and a safe environment for their patients and staff. We appeal to the parties to respect the work of medical personnel. Lives depend on it," said ICRC Sudan head Alfonso Verdu Perez.

Many residents are struggling to survive as they face prolonged water and power cuts, a collapse of health services and widespread lawlessness and looting.

The International Organization for Migration says more than one million people have been displaced within Sudan and 319,000 have fled to neighbouring countries, some of which are similarly impoverished with a history of internal conflict.

Reuters

After weeks of being at daggers drawn over the results of the last general elections and with only days to the inauguration of a new government on May 29, one of Nigeria’s three biggest pastimes – food – appears to be bringing people together again. 

On a good day, the country swoons over football or music. In the last two weeks, however, Nigerians up and down the food chain have been flocking to the pot of 27-year-old Hilda Bassey Effiong, fondly called Hilda Baci, who is on the verge of confirmation as the new holder of the Guinness World Records for the longest cooking time. 

Nigeria’s president-elect Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the two other leading contestants – former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) – who have not seen eye-to-eye since the February 25 presidential poll, all lined up nicely behind Hilda’s kitchen from May 11 to 15, invoking the national can-do spirit on social media. For a moment, they buried the hatchet. 

Also, celebrities riven by partisan politics, friends and family, and ordinary folks, defied at least two nights of heavy downpour in Lagos to cheer Hilda. A country deeply divided by the outcome of the elections appears to have found a common ground in Hilda’s recipe. 

After four days of dicing, marinating, boiling, frying, baking and grilling, Hilda toppled the 87 hours 45 minutes individual cooking record set by Indian chef, Lata Tandon, three years ago. The Nigerian set a new record of 100 cooking hours, with 55 recipes and more than 100 meals. 

Yet, when Hilda first announced she was going to challenge the record it sounded like a joke, even to her. “I’ve been obsessed about the Guinness Book of Records,” she told TVC, a Nigerian TV station. “It was out of obsession that I randomly asked my brother about five years ago who the holder of the world’s longest cooking record was.”

In a country where four in ten are poor, attempting a record in most fields is a long shot. Hilda had seen misery upfront, especially during Covid-19 when she supported less privileged communities in Lagos with 3,000 meals at her own expense and came down with the virus. She certainly does not belong in the class once controversially described by President Muhammadu Buhari as “lazy youths.”

Her mother, Lynda Ndukwe, eked out a living from selling food in open space before she later started “Calabar Pot”, a makeshift eatery in Abuja’s middle-class working area. 

Mrs. Ndukwe struggled to put her children through school and by the time they finished, she had barely enough left in the tank. All she could offer any adventurous child at this time were her prayers and best wishes, though once when Hilda competed for a beauty pageant, her mother parcelled traditional costumes to her over hundreds of miles. 

Though Hilda had tried to make a career as supporting actor, TV presenter, restaurateur, and Big Brother Africa left-out, if she was ever going to get a shot at her dream of toppling Tandon, the cook-a-thon record holder, she needed to be in form, a far cry from where she was two years ago.

She was having weight problems and had undergone liposuction, a process which she later described as one of the darkest periods of her life. To come through that period and announce a plan to challenge the world’s record holder, a task that would test even the very fit seemed like a bridge too far.

Yet, Hilda was willing to try. Before her surgery that year, she competed in the continent’s hottest culinary warfare – that triangular title race among Senegal, Ghana and Nigeria over a dish of long-grain rice mixed with spicy stew aptly named the Jollof Face-off Competition. 

Hilda, representing Nigeria, beat Ghana’s Leslie Kumordzie to win the prize money of $5,000, which seeded her dream for a modest online restaurant service, “@Myfoodbyhilda”, with the tagline, “Made with love”.

But love alone won’t pay bills. Or make dreams happen. Hilda took her fate in her own hands and left Abuja, her comfort zone where she had been with her mother, on a journey to the unknown. 

“Moving to Lagos was definitely a turning point for me,” she told The Nation newspaper in an interview shortly before she announced her cook-a-thon date. “The challenges I faced pretty much prepared me for this point. I did a nine-to-five and worked two jobs at a point. I worked as a cook. When I quit, I started my own show on DSTV. It was called ‘Dine on a Budget.’”

Lagos, Nigeria’s hustle capital described in local folklore as the teaching place of the laggard and slothful, taught Hilda more than how to dream big. It instilled in her the appetite to pursue her dream and also opened her up to a wider network. 

After operating from a tiny restaurant in the first two years, using mainly home delivery service, she opened her first big spot in 2022 with four staff and kept her fire burning by offering online culinary lessons. She even awarded cash prizes to the best performing students. 

By March this year when Hilda officially announced her intention to challenge Tandon’s record, she had amassed both a culinary army of supporters and some experience for the task. She also spent hours in mental and physical drills. But as she would find when the cook-a-thon started, the taste of a marathon is in the grind.

“I almost gave up six hours after I started,” Hilda told LEADERSHIP. “I was tired and couldn’t go on. But I was encouraged by my mother who stood by me for 14 hours and gave me strength.”

Her mother and the country were rooting for her. In five days, her Instagram followers grew from 50k to 1.2m. In the days after she reached the 100 hours mark, the accolades and offers of endorsement have not stopped coming. 

“One of my biggest goals is that I want Nigerian recipes to be propagated across the world,” she said. “I want it to be a normal thing to make Egusi (melon) soup in an American environment, to walk into any random supermarket and find Nigerian ingredients. I also want to inspire young people, especially girls.”

Yet, even before her dish is cold or her record is confirmed by Guinness World Records, which sometimes takes up to 12 weeks, competitors are snapping at her heels. 

Two chefs – Liberian Wonyean Aloycious Gaye, and Kenyan chef Maliha Mohammed (who twice broke the cooking marathon record), have signalled they would challenge Hilda, drawing Nigerian trolls who are angry that competitors can't wait to rain on Hilda’s parade.

The culinary queen is obviously offering her cheerleaders what is absent in the menu of politicians. And they’re not in a hurry to leave her table.

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

Entrepreneurs tend to have common personality types. Entrepreneurs are known for their go-get-em attitude, for looking before they leap, and for taking risks!  With big risks come big successes, but also major failures. 

So what happens after we fall? How do we keep our entrepreneurial drive intact and take another swing at a potential home run? Let's face it, failing is hard, and it's even harder when what failed was something that matters to you. We all know our businesses are our babies! 

So yes, any career setback is like taking a punch to the gut. Whether it is a small project that didn't do as well as we'd projected, a new office remaining in a weakened state, or an entire business tanking, it qualifies as a hit – and one we won't want to take quietly. 

So here is a list of ideas to help you stay positive, keep that fire in your belly, and stay motivated to try again. 

Don't beat yourself up 

First, don't beat yourself up. Now is not the time to feel ashamed, resentful, or even regretful. Now is the time to focus, analyze the situation, get the right people in place to help you, and turn things around. The reality is, we've all been there. 

When no matter how hard you try, and how many paths you seek out, you just fall short of success. Life, and business, are a series of peaks and valleys, of wins and losses. If you had never tried, you wouldn't have failed - that may be true. However, I can guarantee that you would also have never moved forward. 

The simple fact is you can't be good at everything. You need practice. You need trial and error. You need to fail to grow. So instead of thinking of it as an embarrassing situation, think of it as an invaluable lesson that you would never have learned otherwise.  

Keep it in perspective 

Look at the big picture here, even if this failure affects your entire career, keep it in the category it belongs in. Contrary to most entrepreneurs' beliefs, work is not life. There is an opportunity here to highlight, flag, and memorize this fact. 

This failure does not define you. In fact, it may just be the kick you need to get yourself to the next level. Tough times are part of the deal. This is a journey in which the most valuable lessons are hard-earned. And this allows you to...

Celebrate the good moments. Draw on the feeling of when you first started this adventure of entrepreneurship. Does this disappointment take away all of the small victories? Savor those feelings for when you fail again because let's be honest, none of us have only had one setback. 

Get back on track

So what's next? What are you going to do to not let this happen again? Where do you see yourself at this time next year? Allow the time to grieve, to examine the details, to allow questions to bubble up, and then once you have a sense of closure, it's time to get back on track. 

Here is the part where you pick yourself up and dust yourself off. Even if all you can plan is one step at a time, you need to move in the right direction. Take this as the opportunity it is. Maybe you need to merge onto a different highway right about now. 

Perhaps it's time to invest in yourself and find a mentor, take a course, or learn a new skill. Who knows when the next idea will strike and you will be on the road to your own entrepreneurial success story. Make space for that idea to flourish and then do what we do best, go for it!

Inc