Culture
Nigerian government approves three power sub-stations for Kano, Benue
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved contracts for the construction of three sub-stations in Kano and Benue States as well as for the extension of transmission lines in Umuahia, Abia State and Mbano, Imo State. The Minister of Power, Engr. Mamman Sale, announced this after the 37th federal virtual cabinet meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, on Wednesday. Sale said council approved the construction of three sub-stations, two in Kano State and one in Benue State. He put the cost for the extension of transmission lines in Abia and Imo States at $506,324.40 plus N34,034,000 local content. “On the amount for the construction of three sub-stations in Zaki-Biam, Benue State and Bichi and Kanyi, Kano State – the one in Zaki-Biam is $8.6 million, while the local content...
Attack of the Murder Hornets: Discovery’s New Doc Showcases Real Life Horror Story
It’s hard to overstate just how big the problem of the unexpected second villain of our global annus horribilis – the “murder hornet” – could be. Its body is the size of a bloated cheese-puff, its wingspan as wide as your palm. These rusty-orange-colored insects aren’t just the largest hornets in the world, they are apex predator wasps that made their presence known in late 2019 in Washington State after decimating (by decapitating) a defenseless colony of beekeeper Ted McFall’s western honeybees – 60,000 of them. Known formally as the Asian Giant Hornet, these big bugs – which rose to internet fame last May after a report in The New York Times – boast sharp mandibles, quarter-inch stingers and the ability to squirt out their toxic venom while flying by. Get stung by a dozen of these sucke...
Little Nightmares II Isn’t a Standard ‘Horror’ Game, Nor Does It Want to Be
It’s not easy to describe Little Nightmares and its sequel to someone who’s never played it before, but “Imagine if Tim Burton made a stealth-focused puzzle-filled platformer” probably isn’t too far off the mark. The 2017 title from Tarsier Studios (and its newly released sequel, Little Nightmares II) is definitely creepy — there’s no two ways about that — but it doesn’t rely on realistic gory visuals or sudden jump scares to do it. Instead, Little Nightmares visually looks more like a deranged Pixar movie or a non-holiday-oriented Nightmare Before Christmas than it does a modern horror game. But beyond the spooky, yet charming, appearance, Little Nightmares’ smooth gameplay and surprisingly deep narrative has earned it a surprisingly large dedicated fan base that eagerly awaited last mont...
Zamfara schoolgirls kidnap: President Buhari has failed Nigeria – Wole Soyinka
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Saturday said the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed Nigeria after terrorists abducted hundreds of school girls in Zamfara State. Soyinka spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Ogun award lecture and public presentation of ‘Chronicles of the happiest people on earth,’ the latest book authored by him. According to Soyinka, it is important for all to know that these were abnormal times, but that it seemed to him as times of shirking of responsibilities in key areas. “We cannot permit ourselves to accept the child hostage taking as a way of life, we just can not continue in this fashion, some thing drastic and meaningful has to take place and it has to be collective,” he said. Soyinka emphasised that ...
Wole Soyinka to Nigerians: Don’t accept child hostage taking as a way of life
Following the Friday abduction of over 300 school children in Jangebe in Zamfara State, Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, on Saturday warned Nigerians against accepting kidnapping of school children in parts of the north as a way of life. Soyinka who lamented that the government and security agencies have failed Nigerians, said he did not know what else to recommend as panacea to the nation’s “abnormal times.” The octogenarian playwright spoke in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, at the ANA Ogun award lecture and public presentation of ‘Chronicles of the happiest people on earth,’ the latest book authored by him. The event was put together by the Association of Nigerian Authors, Ogun State chapter in collaboration with Abeokuta Club. The 524 page book was launched by foremost indigenous ...
Nigerian telecoms’ workers issue 14-day ultimatum to Huawei
The Private Telecommunications and Communications Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PTECSSAN) has issued a 14-day ultimatum to Huawei Technologies Nigeria Limited to halt what it described as disregard and denial of workers’ fundamental rights to freedom of association as enshrined in Section 40 of the Nigerian Constitution. Speaking to journalists in Lagos, yesterday, the General Secretary of PTECSSAN, Okonu Abdullahi, said all efforts in the past to address all the labour-related issues confronting the workers in the company have been rebuffed by its management. According to him, “All our efforts in the past to address all the labour-related issues confronting the workers in the company have been rebuffed by its management. Ultimate of which is gross disregard and denial of workers th...
The Blurry World of Billie Eilish
Filmmaker R.J. Cutler – best known for his work on documentaries such as The War Room, The September Issue, and Belushi – recalls that there wasn’t much he really knew about Billie Eilish when he was invited to meet her and her family at their L.A. home several years ago. And it didn’t matter. As he remembers the brief drive up the 101, he says he knew about “Ocean Eyes” – the 2015 song that Eilish and her brother, producer Finneas O’Connell, had uploaded to SoundCloud, catapulting the pair to millions of streams and the attention of record labels – and that she was local. But beyond that, he was going in relatively blind. Whether through some directorial instinct, brilliant luck, or some combination of the two, Cutler would spend two years, from 2018 to 2020, following and capturing...
Gombe governor suspends Mai Tangale selection process
Gombe State governor, Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya, has suspended all proceedings leading to the selection of a new traditional ruler of Tangale Chiefdom until peace is fully restored to the troubled area which has seen days of violent protests. This follows confirmation by the state’s commissioner of Police, Maikudi Shehu confirmed that three persons have been killed during the crises. The police commissioner who spoke when the governor led some members of the government on assessment tour of the destruction of lives and property in Billiri local council area said: “So far we have arrested 10 suspects and we are still counting. About three people died during the cause of incident.” Meanwhile, governor Inuwa Yahaya during statewide broadcast yesterday shortly after returning from Billiri that th...
The Extraordinary Harper Lee
When I was growing up, interesting young female protagonists were thin on the ground, especially ones who looked and thought and sounded like me. Enter Scout Finch, disheveled, scrappy and precocious, she leapt off the page and into my heart, compliments of Nelle Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird was published in 1960. Instantly successful, it won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and would go on to become the classic of American Literature, selling thirty million copies. So far. A staple of high school English classes, despite its dark adult themes of domestic violence, racism, and rape, To Kill a Mockingbird continues to sell about a million copies per year. Lee grew up in a small, southern town, the child of an attorney father and a distant mother who struggled with mental illness. Lee’s r...
Elder Scrolls Online’s Comeback Story Continues With the Blackwood Chapter
When Elder Scrolls Online launched back in 2014, there were a lot of doubts about how the massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) would survive in a world where even the most established games in the genre were struggling to keep an engaged player base. But 7 years, 1 major game-wide revamp, 5 chapter expansions, and 16 DLCs later, ESO is still going strong while many of its competitors are wrapping up their content or implementing new gimmicks to lure back old players. Part of ESO’s appeal is its connection to the Elder Scrolls universe that millions of gamers already know and love thanks to games like Skyrim, Morrowind, and Oblivion, while its lack of a monthly subscription or level requirements make it a much more friendly option for casual players. Of course, that’s aid...
Call of Duty: Black Ops and Mass Effect Composer Jack Wall Enjoys the Increased Competition of Today’s Gaming Industry
Jack Wall’s career as a video game composer is likely what most musicians dream of when they decide to get into the gaming industry. He’s crafted soundtracks for dozens of games on the planet since his 1998 start and is the only person trusted with scoring classic series like Mass Effect and the Call of Duty: Black Ops games. Sprinkle in titles like Myst III and IV, Jade Empire, The Mark of Kri, and the classic known as Disney’s Extremely Goofy Skateboarding, and Wall’s discography rivals any composer’s in terms of both success and variety. With a minute to breathe between the best-selling launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and the long-awaited release of the Mass Effect trilogy soundtracks on vinyl to accompany May’s Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, Wall spoke with SPIN to discuss ...
Nigerian government berates Amnesty International over call for service chiefs’ prosecution
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has berated the Amnesty International (AI) over its call for the arrest and prosecution of former Service Chiefs AI had in its recent report, called for the arrest and prosecution of the service chiefs at the International Criminal Court (ICC) for alleged human rights violation in the prosecution of war against terror in the North-East region. Speaking on “Politics Nationwide,” a Radio Nigeria programme monitored by newsmen on Tuesday in Abuja, Mohammed said the global human rights protection organisation should “shut up because it had no proof of crimes committed by the Nigerian military’’. He said the country was fighting an unconventional war with insurgency that had no rule of engagement, adding that this was a double jeopard...
