Abuja Bloggers

When HTC released its One M7 in 2013, it not only proved that makers of Android smartphones could create phones that were as beautiful as Apple’s, it also pushed competitors like Samsung and LG to finally build handsets that weren’t made of creaky plastic. But with the phones it released since then, HTC seemed to stop innovating, and it quickly fell behind the competition. Which brings us to the new HTC 10. Available for preorder for $700 and on sale in early May, the 10 is the handset that HTC hopes will win you over again and make you forget about Apple’s iPhone 6s and Samsung’s Galaxy S7. Sporting a sleek new look and packing a vastly improved 12-megapixel camera, the 10 stands a fair chance of doing just that. Design and size When HTC unveiled its One M9 last year, the company took a lot of heat for failing to make any meaningful changes to the handset’s design. It was as if HTC simply copied and pasted the plans from 2014’s M8, made a few small tweaks, and called it a...

It’s official, 2016 is the year of virtual reality. But you probably can’t afford it. Systems like Oculus Rift (from Facebook) and HTC Vive (from HTC and Valve) are too pricey for many of us. That’s because in addition to the Rift and Vive’s already hefty price tags — they sell for $600 and $800 respectively — they also require you to have a high-end PC, which will cost you at minimum another $1,000. But there’s a dark horse in the virtual reality wars: Sony’s PlayStation VR . Formally announced back in March, the PSVR is both less expensive than its rivals — bundles run $500 — and doesn’t require a hardcore PC to operate; instead, it runs off your standard PlayStation 4. (The standard PSVR pack will cost $400, but it won’t include the Camera or Move controllers. To get those you’ll have to get the special pre-order bundle for $500 — or else you could presumably purchase everything separately.) I spent some time with the PSVR during a recent press event in New York, and bel...

At 26, I was ready for marriage – mentally, psychologically, spiritually, physiologically – but my pocket was not! As the Academic Staff Union of Universities is wont to say: My take-home was not taking me home. In spite of that, I was counted among the lucky few who got a job shortly after graduation. Many saw me as privileged because I went to work in suit and sometimes the office car took me to meetings and events. However, since my salary was not enough to sustain me, I felt it would be selfish of me to bring in a girl to join me at that time. Having a child then would have worsened a bad situation. I was not looking for a billion naira. I just wanted to have enough funds to take care of the basic needs of a family. And I didn’t want my family to take care of my wedding or to feed my children and clothe my wife for me. So, I waited. I eventually got ready at 32 and married at 33. That was late by my expectation, but that was the earliest I could marry. I wish I was re...

The one-time slave turned abolitionist Harriet Tubman was named Wednesday as the new face of the $20 banknote, the first time an African American has featured on US currency. A sweeping redesign of the US bills to be unveiled in four years will also protect Alexander Hamilton’s central place on the $10 note, once thought threatened until Broadway’s hit hip-hop musical “Hamilton” made the 18th century US finance chief a modern-day star. Hamilton’s latter-day successor, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew, announced the changes slated for the $5, $10, and $20 notes after more than a year of lobbying and polling, with heavy pressure for a female figure to take place on a US banknote. An open poll of more than 600,000 people had strongly favored Tubman, a hero to African Americans for her escape from slavery in Maryland in 1849 to help run the legendary Underground Railroad that helped thousands of slaves flee to freedom in the 19th century. The announcement brought widespread cheers. ...

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission said in Abuja on Tuesday that it had detected 37,395 ghost workers on the payroll of the federal civil service. The News Agency of Nigeri a reported that the Acting Chairman of INEC, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, announced the figure at an anti-corruption sensitisation programme. Magu said that apart from the widespread procurement frauds in Ministries, Departments and Agencies, the issue of ghost workers was a source of serious concern for the commission. He said that current investigations by the EFCC had revealed that the Federal Government lost about N1bn to ghost workers recently. “The EFCC has uncovered 37,395 ghost workers in the federal civil service. And investigation is still going on. “Our investigations have so far revealed that the Federal Government has lost close to N1bn to these ghost workers. “The figure will definitely increase as we unravel more ghost workers buried deep in the federal civil service payrolls,” he...

The Kaduna State Chapter of the Pentecostal  Fellowship of Nigeria, on Tuesday, said the over 5,000 pastors in the PFN would rather obey God than obey the proposed preaching bill currently before the state House of Assembly when passed into law. The state PFN chairman, Prof. Femi Ehinmidu, who spoke at a stakeholders’ roundtable conference in Kaduna, expressed concern on the bill being sponsored by the state government. Ehinmidu told the state government to be ready to jail the over 5,000 pastors in the state’s PFN if the government believed it could muzzle the citizens to pass the bill into law. He argued that the bill remained a recipe for crisis in the state when passed into law. Ehinmidu pointed out that unless the government carried out wider consultations among critical stakeholders, the bill, which he claimed started on a faulty note, was bound to fail. The Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, has, however, cautioned religious leaders against politic...

If you have diabetes, what I’m about to share with  you in this post could prevent you from having a premature heart attack, save your eyesight, kidneys, legs, and nerves—even save your life. www.healthvitalneeds.com Diabetes has a devastating effect on virtually every system in the body. This is what sets the stage for a variety of diabetic complications. But, as I will explain, this devastation is largely preventable if you consistently do the following: Avoid High Fat Animal Diet (Such as Red Meat and The Fats in Meats) There is an enzyme called GnT-4a.This enzyme is responsible for enabling the production of Insulin from the pancreas. When this enzyme is not available, insulin production is altered.  www.healthvitalneeds.com Scientific studies have found that eating high amounts of animal fats like red meats from cows, goats, dogs, lambs etc disrupts the production of this hormone, hence limiting or making the production of Insulin less lik...