Nigeria leads South Africa, others in online shopping

A recent survey has shown that Nigerians shop more online than other sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries.

According to GeoPoll, which conducted the survey on five African countries including Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda, Kenya and Ghana, said though there have been significant growth in online shopping on the continent, but SSA still don’t trust e-commerce sites.

GeoPoll is the world’s largest mobile survey platform, with a network of 200 million users in Africa and Asia.

According to the survey, 66 per cent of Nigerians buy items online every few months compared with 60 per cent in South Africa and 45 per cent in Kenya.

However, at least 55 per cent of Ghanaians and 51 per cent of Ugandans have never bought anything online.

The report discovered that many of those who had tried online shopping had only tried it once.

Among the top reasons cited for not frequently using online shopping sites were lack of trust, shipping costs, unsupported payment methods, or because a friend had a bad experience.

The GeoPoll revealed that many complained of unreliability of some sites, poor delivery and the purchase process. Others felt that there is no need for online purchases as the items were readily available at their local store.

The majority of shoppers in Kenya, Nigeria and Uganda paid on delivery for items bought online. However, in South Africa, 50 per cent of shoppers preferred to pay using their debit card and a further 26 per cent use their debit card for online purchases. Cash on delivery in South Africa is also the preferred mode of payment at 20 per cent compared to mobile money.

Already, eCommerce sub-Sector in Nigeria is estimated to worth $10 billion with some 300,000 online orders expected each day. The worth is projected to hit $13 billion by 2018.

Indeed, despite the economic gloom in Nigeria, eCommerce players claimed about 20 per cent growth in traffic at the just concluded ‘Black Friday’ sales.

The Black Friday, which ran between November 23 to 29, across different eCommerce platforms including Jumia, Konga, Yudala, Spar, Dealdey, Kaymu among others in Nigeria, is usually the Friday after the American Thanksgiving, and it is one of the major shopping days of the year in the United States.

Konga, through its Yakata 2016 sales, claimed to have witnessed the company’s biggest shopping period in its four year history. The online ecommerce giant revealed that it processed 155,000 orders totaling N3.5 billion within the sales period.

Konga Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Shola Adekoya, said: “Yakata 2016 has exceeded all of our expectations in terms of sales; we had been cautiously optimistic that we would improve on last year’s period, but with the Nigerian economy as it currently is, we had been conservative with our projections. However, it seems that there are hundreds of thousands of savvy shoppers keen to make their Naira go a little bit further at the moment; hence they came to Konga to find the very best deals.

Statistics from Jumia showed higher growth. The firm said it recorded 219.13 per cent session that is 4,919, 331 against 1, 538, 578 of last year. In terms of users, Jumia claimed 158.61 per cent (2, 117, 840 vs 818,929) and 93.3 per cent page views within the period.

Yudala also claimed to have witnessed huge traffic on the plaftrom, stressing that within the first 12 hours of its Black Friday, it recorded a sales of about N450 million.

Speaking to The Guardian, Vice President, Yudala, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, said people took advantage of the opportunity to shop immensely.

He pointed out that some people actually shopped ahead of the Christmas period.

Ekeh pointed out that between December 2015 and November 2016, prices of electronics rose by 60 per cent and some other items because of currency issues among others, “so people just latched on the opportunity of this Black Friday to shop ahead.”

CEO Jumia Nigeria, Juliet Anammah, said  Nigerians have not stopped buying but have instead, re-prioritised their shopping needs “and so retail stores are seeing more purchases in household items and children’s items rather than the regular impulse buying of clothing items.

According to a recent KPMG report, in seven sub-Saharan countries, e-commerce makes up one to three per cent of the gross domestic product, GDP, which is the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country annually. It is predicted to make up 10 per cent of total retail sales in key markets by 2025, with 40 per cent yearly growth over the next 10 years. The total retail economy is projected to grow rapidly, along with the population as a whole and its spending power per capita.

Trump names critics of China, regulation for economic posts

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday named billionaire Carl Icahn, a vocal critic of what he calls government overregulation, to serve as a special advisor to overhaul “strangling regulations.”

He also tapped Peter Navarro, an outspoken China critic, to head the White House National Trade Council, a new office that will oversee trade and industrial policy, in the latest sign he is moving ahead with plans to overhaul US economic policy.

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The 80-year-old Icahn, known as an aggressive, activist investor, will not serve as a government employee, will receive no salary and will not be bound by ethics rules requiring him to divest his investments.

He said President Obama had crippled America’s business owners with what he says is more than $1 trillion in new regulations and over 750 billion hours dealing with paperwork. “It’s time to break free of excessive regulation and let our entrepreneurs do what they do best: create jobs and support communities,” he said.

Icahn is already reported to have helped Trump pick candidates to fill his cabinet, including a climate-change denier to head the Environmental Protection Agency.

“Carl was with me from the beginning and with his being one of the world’s great businessmen, that was something I truly appreciated,” Trump said in a statement.

“He is not only a brilliant negotiator, but also someone who is innately able to predict the future especially having to do with finances and economies,” the real estate billionaire added. “His help on the strangling regulations that our country is faced with will be invaluable.”

Trump’s appointment of Narvarro signals he is also moving to reshape relations with China after having heightened rising tensions between the world’s two largest economies with a series of snubs and criticisms.

A professor at the University of California, Irvine, Navarro’s books include “Death by China,” in which he criticizes Beijing for waging economic war by subsidizing its manufacturing industry and blocking American imports.

– No government experience –

Trump’s promise to return US manufacturing jobs that have moved abroad by cutting federal regulation and attacking what describes as unfair competition from China provided a central pillar of his campaign platform.

He described Navarro as “a visionary economist” in a statement, saying the brash investor would “develop trade policies that shrink our trade deficit, expand our growth and help stop the exodus of jobs from our shores.”

Like many of Trump’s picks for his future administration, both Navarro and Icahn are staunch loyalists of the divisive president-elect who have no experience in government.

Icahn is a New York City native like Trump. He began his career on Wall Street in 1961, and has held substantial or controlling stakes in numerous American companies over the years, including RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Philips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Revlon, Time Warner, Motorola, Chesapeake Energy, Dell, Netflix, Apple and eBay.

He also owned the last glitzy Trump casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Trump Taj Mahal, until it finally failed and closed last month after going through two bankruptcy reorganizations since it opened in 1990.

Icahn took over the casino in 2014, but said it had lost $350 million over just a few short years.

Woman Dies After Tree Falls on Wedding Party

A woman was killed and five others were injured when a large eucalyptus tree fell on a wedding party taking photographs at a Southern California park Saturday, authorities said.

Several people were trapped under the tree at Whittier's Penn Park, the Los Angeles County Fire Department said.

Video from the scene showed fire crews using chain saws to cut through the downed branches.

Four of the injured suffered scrapes and bruises, officials said. A 4-year-old girl was listed in critical condition due to head trauma, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Witnesses described hearing a loud crack and seeing people run from the area.

The tree could have been weakened by California's ongoing drought and recent heavy rain could have contributed to its fall, officials said.

An arborist will assess the area Sunday, officials said.

Update 12/19, 11:00 p.m.: A relative has confirmed Monday that the woman killed by a falling tree during a wedding party in Whittier's Penn Park was 61-year-old Margarita Mojarro, the mother of the bride.

“Margarita’s daughters loved their mom so much, they were always calling her and she was always there to help with anything,” the woman's son-in-law, Guadalupe Cuevas, told People. “She was a very supportive mother, friend and neighbor.”

Since the incident occurred, the park has been closed until officials can determine if it is safe for visitors and no other trees are at risk of falling.

Mark Cuban: If I lost everything and had to start over, here's what I would do

Mark Cuban knows how lucky he is. He's a self-made billionaire, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and a star of the hit ABC reality show "Shark Tank," though he started out as the child of a blue-collar family from Pittsburgh .

But if he lost everything overnight, including his wealth and his house, the entrepreneur says he could do it all again. His first step would be to go out and get two gigs.

"I would get a job as a bartender at night and a sales job during the day, and I would start working," says Cuban, in an interview for a recent episode of the podcast "How I Built This."

He isn't sure he could become a billionaire again. "To be a billionaire, you have got to get lucky," Cuban says.

But he's certain that he could turn seven figures. "Could I become a multimillionaire again? I have no doubt."

Cuban knows that he is a good salesperson. He learned that early on in his life. In his teens he was selling baseball cards and stamps. One of his first jobs out of college was selling computers and software. "I was the best," he says. "I crushed it."

Naturally, if forced to start over, he would draw on that talent.

"Knowing what my sales skills are and the products that I am able to sell, I think I could find a job selling a product that had enough commissions or rewards for me," says Cuban.

From there, Cuban would get enough money in the bank to be able to start his own business, and the rest would be history.

Men will be able to marry, have sex with robots soon – Scientists

Sex with robots is “just around the corner”, an expert told a global conference in London this week featuring interactive sex toys and discussions on the ethics of relationships with humanoids.

“Sexbots” are a staple of science fiction — the idea of robots as sex partners is explored, for instance, in recent films and television series like “Ex-Machina” and “Westworld.”

But some specialists believe the first animated lovers made of metal, rubber and plastic, programmed to provide sexual bliss, will take a step into reality just months from now.

“Sex with robots is just around the corner, with the first sexbots coming… some time next year,” artificial intelligence expert David Levy told the International Congress on Love and Sex with Robots at Goldsmiths, University of London.

US California-based company Abyss Creations next year will start marketing sex robots that are billed as life-like, with the ability to talk and move like humans.

Ultimately, Levy said, people should entertain the thought of marriage with robots as early as 2050.

The conference in London showcased some of the latest developments in robotic sex toys, such as gadgets which allow couples to kiss, no matter how far apart they are.

The “Kissenger”, which attaches to your mobile phone, contains sensors to detect the pressure of a kiss and transmit it to your partner’s device in real time. It has been under development for several years.

Now students at Tokyo’s Keio University are developing the “Teletongue”, aimed at providing “remote oral interaction” and designed to be “kinky”, according to co-creator Dolhathai Kaewsermwong.

It allows couples to send licking sounds and sensations through cyberspace using a “lollipop”, creating an “immersive experience”, she explained.

– ‘Moral panic’ –

Lynne Hall, of the University of Sunderland’s school of computer science, in northeast England, said that robots could create “a fantastic sexual experience”.

“There are lots of benefits to sex with robots… it’s safe, you never catch any disease, you can control it,” she told the conference.

She rejected the idea that robots would replace or threaten sex with humans, however.

“We are somehow fed by moral panic… ‘It’s disgusting… nobody will ever have sex with a human again’,” Hall told the conference.

“But people are regularly watching porn… and they are still having sex with humans,” she said.

Levy, the author of “Love and Sex with Robots”, from which the annual conference takes its title, said marriage to robots would be the next logical step.

“As sex with robots becomes more and more commonplace… we shall come face to face with the very real possibility of marriage to robots,” the former international chess master said.

And why not?

Robots of the future will be “patient, kind, protective, loving”, never “jealous, boastful, arrogant, rude,” Levy said — “unless of course you want them to be”.

“All of the following qualities and many more are likely to be achievable in software within a few decades,” he added.

Levy is convinced that rapid changes in attitudes to sex and marriage in recent years point to a world where “more and more people come to accept sex and love with robots”.

– ‘Robot personhood’ –

In his vision, robot parents could become a social norm, with laws to acknowledge “robot personhood” and make marriage and parenting by humanoids more than just a fantasy.

“The time is fast approaching when the theoretical debate must evolve into laws, and the consequences of those laws will be staggering,” he said.

For now, however, sexual relations with humanoids are a step too far for many.

Emma Yann Zhang, a PhD student at London’s City University who worked on the Kissenger prototype, believes there is still a long way to go before people will accept the idea.

In a pilot study conducted by the Imagineering Institute in Malaysia, partnered with City University, participants were asked about their perceptions of sex robots, including the potential for intimacy and attraction.

Although many were open to the possibility that humans could be attracted to robots, “when asked ‘would you have a robot as a lover?’, most of them said ‘no’,” said Zhang.

Hall agrees that the “paradigmatic change” suggested by Levy is “not going to happen for a very long time”.

In the meantime AI enthusiasts will be watching closely to see how quickly the new generation of sexbots fly off the shelves next year.

Rohr plots physical, tactical approach to Cameroon game

Super Eagles’ Coach, Gernot Rohr, plans to adopt a physical and tactical approach when Nigeria meetsCameroon in a two-legged Russia World Cup qualifier next year, reports owngoalnigeria.com.

To succeed in his plans, Rohr has called on his players to match up to the physical and robust style of play of the Cameroonians.

Although the manager believes that been physical won’t be all his team needs in the tie, he, however, doesn’t want his team to be bullied by the Cameroonians, when both teams clash in September.

Nigeria currently holds a four-point lead over second placed Cameroon, and the trip to Yaounde will provide ample opportunity for both teams to consolidate their position as leaders of the group.

“We know what to expect fromCameroon, they are very physical. That is how they love to play; we have to be ready to match them in that regard. But being physical won’t be enough, we also have to be technical in our approach,” Rohr said.

“We have the players to carry out the task of getting a positive result against Cameroon. All we have to do is to stick to our game plan, when the game comes up and not play into their hands,” he added.

Meanwhile, Rohr has aimed a dig at previous coaches of the team, who are fond of questioning the players’ commitment and discipline.

Rohr, who has secured three wins in his first three competitive games as coach of the team, believes that previous coaches of the team were being economical with the truth as regards players’ discipline and commitment.

“If you believe what you read about the players as said by previous coaches, you won’t want to call up some players, but so far I have not noticed any of what they complained about in the players.

“They are very easy to manage, maybe because have managed at club level in the past but I find them very dedicated and committed to our cause of qualifying for the World Cup in Russia.

“We have had isolated cases of players crossing the line while in camp, but it is expected with adults, and how you handle that matters a lot. Mikel has also been helpful in that regard,” Rohr said.

FG secures N46b World Bank aid for mining development

The Federal Government through the Ministry of Mines and Steel Development has secured $150 million (N45.7 billion) aid from the World Bank to develop the mineral sector.

The aid is for Mineral Support for Economic Diversification (MSSED) or MinDiver programme.

The Minister of Mines and Steel Development, Dr. Kayode Fayemi who disclosed this in Abuja said the ministry was working with the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, the Nigerian Stock Exchange and other institutions to assemble a $600 million investment fund for the sector by the first quarter of 2017.

According to Fayemi: “We have secured support from the World Bank for the funding of $150 million Mineral Sector Support for Economic Diversification or MinDiver programme. A critical component of the support is to provide technical assistance for the restructuring of the Solid Minerals Development Mining Investment Fund.

“The fund will also help to bring back on stream previously abandoned mining projects like tin ore, iron ore, coal, gold and lead-zinc among others.”

The minister said the sector had witnessed positive developments in the last one year, including a major improvement in the ministry’s contribution to the Federation Account to about N2 billion in 2016, up from N700 million in 2015.

He added that increased productivity in mining had also led to significant discovery of mineral deposits, notably high-grade nickel recently in Dangoma, Kaduna State by an Australian company operating in Nigeria.

Fayemi further revealed that government had constructed 10 prototype mineral buying centres across the country for specific industrial minerals.

“These are to serve as standardisation centres to enable cooperatives and operators to receive fair premium for their efforts,” he said.