Nigeria, April 24 -- 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 t...