In an era where the digital landscape evolves at breakneck speed, Nigeria’s Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris, has issued a rallying cry for journalists to stand firm as the last line of defense against the tidal wave of misinformation. Speaking at the maiden Emporium Leadership Lecture and Awards in Abuja, the Minister, represented by VON Director-General Mallam Jibrin Baba-Ndace, emphasized that in a world dominated by social media “clicks,” the true value of a professional journalist lies in their ability to provide context. He urged media practitioners to steer clear of the reckless trend of ethnic or…

It is deeply unsettling when the halls of power, meant to be bastions of reason and policy-making, become stages for shadow-play. Earlier this year, a conference at the European Parliament concerning the very real, scientific challenge of nanoplastics was co-hosted by a group that defies conventional categorization. AllatRa, a Ukraine-founded organization now based in the US, is widely characterized as a religious cult. Their rhetoric is alarming: they have historically predicted total human extinction by 2036, attributing it not to the scientific consensus of carbon emissions, but to a pseudo-scientific cocktail involving nanoplastics and a mystical “cosmic cycle.” While mainstream…