Author: Fridayposts

Osinbajo is wrong on VAT There is no other way to put it, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo is very wrong on his position on the Value Added Tax  which he considers as rather low and therefore plans to increase. The VP’s position is not new.  I suspect it resonates with a number of people in government and that is scary. On the surface and in theory, they may have a point which the VP articulated in Lagos last week at the National Forum on the Economy organised by a Lagos-based publisher. According to the VP, the dependence on oil-generated…

Lekan Sote The talk doing the rounds on the streets is that the water used in moulding the building blocks of President Muhammadu Buhari’s government was drawn from the river of apologia. That he, and many of the operatives of his government, are wont to apologise rather than do the job for which they were elected. Following are some instances of the apologetic streak of his government. The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission recently apologised, begging Nigerians to be patient with the electricity generating and distributing companies for the drop in the supply of electricity. They appear to be snowed…

Ihuoma Chiedozie, Enugu The Enugu State Governor, Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, on Tuesday said state governors who came into the office after the 2015 elections have less funds to work with. According to him, the prevailing situation was different from what was obtainable during the era of their predecessors in office. Ugwuanyi, who spoke while declaring open the first ever ‘Oganiru Enugu State Investment Summit’ at the Michael Okpara Square, Enugu, noted that unlike the current governors, the former state chief executives enjoyed access to excess crude funds. The governor bemoaned the impact of the decline in crude oil prices on…

TRENDS across the country tend to suggest that state governors have learnt little or nothing from the current downturn in the economy occasioned by the recession in the global oil market. Despite the drastic shortfall in revenues, resulting in their inability to pay workers’ salaries regularly, many of the governors still have their heads in the clouds even as citizens are being asked to make more sacrifices; this is most unfortunate.  No fewer than 27 of them, according to President Muhammadu Buhari, were finding it difficult to pay workers’ salaries. Ordinarily, this should be a time for sober reflection,…

Okechukwu Nnodim, Abuja Queues by motorists and other fuel users at filling stations failed to disappear in major cities across the country on Tuesday. The situation was the same in Lagos, Kaduna, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun and Osun states as well as the Federal Capital Territory, despite assurances by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation and the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. However, the NNPC announced that Port Harcourt refinery had commenced operations and was producing five million litres of petrol daily. Hundreds of motorists on Tuesday formed long queues at the few filling stations that dispensed petrol in Abuja, Lagos and…

Five-time World Player of the Year Lionel Messi insists Barcelona’s belief hasn’t been affected by a poor run of form as they travel to Atletico Madrid on Wednesday holding a precarious 2-1 first-leg lead in their Champions League quarter-final, AFP reports. A run of just one point from their last three La Liga games has seen Atletico close to within three points of Barca at the top of La Liga. “Our mindset remains the same,” Messi wrote on his official Facebook page. “We work hard all year to have a chance of winning trophies at the end of the…

CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday launched the company’s new Messenger platform beta at its annual F8 conference. The Messenger announcement was the first major initiative in the long-term vision he presented. Zuckerberg outlined a major push to incorporate artificial intelligence and bots into the Messenger platform. The revamped service will allow companies and individuals to develop more sophisticated and personal experiences through Messenger than ever before, ultimately transforming the app into a major communications and marketing tool. Source: Techy

International Data Corporation (IDC) has  attributed currency depreciation and political instability in several parts of Africa to be the main causes for the downturn in the 2015 enterprise hardware market in Africa. IDC quarterly server and disk storage systems tracker reveals that key markets in Africa like  South Africa and Nigeria  suffered a 5% year-on-year downturn in … The post IDC: Currency ‘affected Africa’s hardware sale in 2015’ appeared first on Technology Times. Source: Technology

Samsung has been granted a patent for a smart contact lens, according to news reports published last week. The lens is equipped with a tiny display, a camera, an antenna, and several sensors that detect movement and eye blinks. Eye blinks would provide the input, and a smartphone would be needed to process the images. A user blinks to take pictures or interact with data displayed on the smart contact lens. Sensors pick up the blinks and relay the commands they indicate to the user’s smartphone for processing. Source: Techy

Samsung Electronics says it has sold more than one million units of its curved monitor products worldwide. The first curved LED monitor – the 27-inch 4000R (curvature radius of 4,000 mm) SD590C model, was introduced by Samsung in September 2014, and the company says it has since expanded its line-up to include several additional curved … The post Samsung curved monitor crosses one million sales mark appeared first on Technology Times. Source: Technology