Monthly Archives: March 2017

***Calls for N50,000 minimum wage By Henry Umoru ABUJA- DEPUTY Senate President Ike Ekweremadu said yesterday that if corruption must be nipped in the bud, it has become imperative for the abolition of security votes presently being enjoyed by State governors and the executive, just as he called for the need to peg the minimum wage at N50,000.

Ekweremadu who decried a situation where the minimum wage was put at N18,000, while some State governors and executives could pocket as much as N2 billion under the cover of Security Vote, also called for the urgent decentralisation of the war against corruption if it must be worn and decisively too.

Ekweremadu spoke in Ibadan at the weekend, where he delivered the 4th National Public Service Lecture of the University of Ibadan Alumni Association, on the theme: Federalism and The Legal Framework for Combating Corruption inNigeria.

He also called for the decentralisation of the federal anti-graft agencies and urged the 36 states in the country, to make conscious efforts at setting up anti-corruption agencies, so as to complement the efforts of the federal anti-corruption agencies, in the fight against corruption.

In a statement by his Special Adviser, Media and Publicity, Uche Anichukwu, the Deputy Senate President noted that a situation where the two major anti-corruption agencies in the country, Independent and Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, do not have presence in the entire country, made the fight against corruption ineffective, adding that for instance, that the ICPC had just six zonal offices and nine state offices, in addition to its headquarters in Abuja, while the EFCC had offices in only eight states, apart from its headquarters in Abuja.

Ekweremadu insisted that these do not scratch the surface, as they are grossly inadequate for a vast area like Nigeria and leave the agencies highly overstretched.

On the way forward, he said: We need a far-reaching and in-depth reorientation. Importantly, Nigeria being a federation, the war against corruption must itself be devolved, and federalised, not centralised as is currently the case.

To this end, I wish to make the following suggestions: Decentralisation of federal anti-corruption agencies, establishment of State anti-corruption agencies, domestication of anti-graft laws, enthronement of fiscal federalism, decentralized policing, establishment of State orientation agencies, State social intervention/security schemes, State prisons, true economic reforms and public participation in the anti-corruption war.

Sadly, only Kano state currently has a state agency to fight corruption- the Kano State Public Complaint and Anti-Corruption Commission. This should be emulated, and urgently too, if we must make a headway in the war against graft.

Similarly, a Code of Conduct Bureau should be established in the states with a Code of Conduct Tribunal to handle cases of civil servants in the states and local government councils. Beside setting up such agencies, there is also the need for the states to domesticate auxiliary federal laws such as the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA), Fiscal Responsibility Act, among others, to help curb corruption. Rivers, Oyo, Anambra, Enugu, Ekiti, Lagos, and Ondo are the only States that have so far adopted the ACJA.

Ekweremadu who urged the country to discard the current arrangement of robbing Peter to pay Paul, to make the war against corruption more effective, since people are more likely to show more interest in how the money they truly worked for was being spent, than one thrown on their laps, for doing little or nothing, said, Entrenching fiscal federalism will replace the current feeding bottle arrangement where the centre holds tightly to the purse string and feeds the components, with a better arrangement that is predicated on self-reliance, hard work, enterprise, resourcefulness, ingenuity, taxation, transparency, and accountability.

In the various kindred/family meetings, the illiterate farmer or palm wine tapper becomes literate when it comes to how the fines and levies he contributed were spent because it is the product of his sweat, not a windfall from anywhere.

Listing the various mineral resources in the 36 States of the country, Ekweremadu noted that The good thing is that every State of the federation is sufficiently endowed to survive from its own resources and sweat.

When a man who earns N18,000, cannot buy a bag of rice, how then can such a person take care of his family? Does it make sense to him if you tell him not to find alternative means of catering to the needs of his family?

Is it not also possible to abolish the Security Vote and replace it with Contingency Vote so it can be appropriated and accounted for, he queried.

Ekweremadu, however, observed that while it is easy to point accusing fingers at the governing elites in public and private sectors, we must all embark on individual soul searching from the highest to the lowest rung of the social-economic strata.

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Corruption: Abolish security votes, peg minimum wage at N50,000 Ekweremadu - Vanguard

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During the 1960s such a revolution took place in social and sexual attitudes that the decade will always remain the Swinging Sixties.

After it, nothing was ever quite the same again. Huge swathes of bigotry were swept away. Some good traditions also went but the overall effect was to give us a fairer and more tolerant society. But seen from 50 years later, it was a decade of noisy revolt.

I suspect we are now going through an era of quiet insurrection. Lord Heseltine has announced he will in his dotage lead a campaign to destroy Brexit (if he can) and restore the age of national subordination to the One-Europe dream under nonelective government to which he and others have dedicated their lives. He and his peers (in every sense) are needless to say very elderly now.

Clearly there are some working people who support the Euro-Federal dream.

But the fanatics are the ones we see dominating the headlines and hardly one has ever done a hands turn of manual work in their lives.

Broadly, I call them all the luvvies and they are outraged at being contradicted by us proles. The attitude of the Remoaners after that devastating referendum of June last year is of uncontained outrage.

Pro-EU measure after measure was passed into law without a vote and that was all right.

Then finally the people were allowed to speak and, according to Lord H and his mates, we said the wrong thing.

Now their version of events is that we all turned xenophobic, anti-European, chauvinist, nationalist, populist, even neo-fascist. But we havent.

They have the chicken-and-egg sequence the wrong way round. Every society, across the ages and the longitudes, has had two components, one large and one small.

The large one is the broad masses of the people (the BMP) and the tiny one an amalgam of vested interests called the elite, or the establishment.

In a healthy society the establishment treats the BMP with respect. This is wise. It prevents insurrections and bloody revolutions such as the French or Russian versions.

In return the BMP treats the establishment with trust. When that breaks down, national dissatis faction ensues.

The people become surly, the elite fearful and defensive. What has happened here, which Lord Heseltine cannot understand, is that the socalled great and good are not trusted any more. They have lied to us too many times.

The luvvies may demonstrate, noisily screaming with their placards and headlines, but the BMP has quietly used its only weapon the vote after all those years.

Standing alone in all those voting booths, pencil poised, we did not turn anti-foreigner or anti-world. We just asked: What do those lying so-and-sos want us to do?

Well, we will bleeding well vote the opposite. So out went the Old Etonian, in came the vicars daughter.

Out went call me Dave and in came Prime Minister will do nicely. If Lord Heseltine and his cronies think they can order us about any more, they may be heading not for the abolition of the Lords but its root and branch reform.

EPA

It was done in 1999 when the 750 hereditary peers were culled down to 92 and it can be done again with 700 created peers reduced by internal vote to 300.

Lord H should become aware we are not in a subservient mood any longer. Perhaps our time will later be called the age of insurrection. We want our country back; from Brussels and from him.

TOO traumatised by the shambles at the Oscars I switched my attention to the stars that the ceremony always attracts.

It was quickly noticeable that for many the theme was to emulate the glamour of the celebrities of yesteryear.

Particularly successful was model Karlie Kloss (no, me neither) who was a ringer for Sophia Loren circa 1960.

My mind went back to the time when her pout and cleavage adorned the inside of my locker during National Service 60 years ago. Balmy days!

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ANALYSTS who study these things have now estimated that Vladimir Putin is worth a truly staggering 160billion (yes, billion), making him far and away the richest man in the world.

Given that he has never had a salary more than that paid to the president or prime minister of Russia there appears to be a slight mathematical problem here.

It is no secret that all dictators make themselves immensely rich by scalping their own countries economies but 160billion is abusing the privilege. Nor is it just one man.

The whole Kremlin machine is so mired in corruption that not a single business deal or government contract goes through without the machine taking its cut.

But there is a price to pay for such institutionalised corruption. When oil and gas prices were going through the roof, there was money to burn so glorious promises of jam tomorrow could be made to the Russian people. But that was then, this is now.

Despite constant military provocations in the Baltic, English Channel and Middle East the Russian economy is creaking like a barn door.

The ordinary Russian just soldiers on in poverty. Lucky old Vladimir to have such a docile and donkey-patient populace.

MUCH of the country was consumed last weekend by the annual Oscars ceremony a saturnalia of mutual and self-adoration.

Those mystified by the term La La Land had to watch only for a few minutes. When you think about it, acting is a very odd profession.

There are only two jobs in the world where the protagonist will say absolutely anything if paid to do so. One is that of lawyer but that is not a loved profession.

A barrister in court will do all he can to send a man he knows privately is innocent to jail or to set at liberty one he knows is guilty as hell.

It is his job but he does not have columns of fans clamouring for his autograph afterwards. Then again, there are only two callings in which the practitioner tries to persuade you he is someone he is not.

One is actor, the other is conman. The latter is caught and jailed.

The former is given statuettes. What is fair about that?

MORE than half of the Lords think they have the right to amend the Bill that will authorise the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50.

It is what the upper house is there for, we are told. But do they really have that right? Every Bill coming up from the Commons is the policy of the incumbent government which is a political party.

Such legislation is indeed susceptible to emendation under the constitution.

But this Bill is the first in history that is not the product of a political party, with which their lordships have the right to agree or disagree.

This Bill derives from the verdict of the entire British people.

(The 1975 referendum advocated no change, so there was no Bill to enact its finding. Hence fi rst time in all our long history.) This Bill alone is not a party political decision. It is the voice of the British people. The Lords should leave it alone.

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LIFE is rarely fair. A plump goalkeeper is fired for eating a meat pie on camera during a game.

It seems the club was offended that those who had bet he would do so won some money. Surely the pie company now owes him a supply of the product as compensation.

If he thus gets any larger, he might be restored because his enlarged frame will fi ll the entire goalmouth.

Not their right

MORE than half of the Lords think they have the right to amend the Bill that will authorise the Prime Minister to trigger Article 50.

It is what the upper house is there for, we are told. But do they really have that right? Every Bill coming up from the Commons is the policy of the incumbent government which is a political party.

Such legislation is indeed susceptible to emendation under the constitution. But this Bill is the first in history that is not the product of a political party, with which their lordships have the right to agree or disagree.

This Bill derives from the verdict of the entire British people. (The 1975 referendum advocated no change, so there was no Bill to enact its finding.

Hence first time in all our long history.) This Bill alone is not a party political decision. It is the voice of the British people. The Lords should leave it alone.

AN ELDERLY lady in my village needs help around the house and employs a cleaner from Romania.

This young girl experienced severe pain from her sinuses. She went to our NHS, which she was perfectly entitled to do as she pays income tax and national insurance.

They would be delighted to treat her but sometime next year. So she motored across Europe to her home in Bucharest and was treated by a specialist within a week.

Then she motored back. I have the impression something has gone wrong. This was not what Nye Bevan envisaged.

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We are sick of being told what to do, says Freddie Forsyth - Express.co.uk

Hull's role in freedom and the abolition of slavery is part of its history we are fiercely proud of.

So it is no surprise it will feature heavily in Season 3 of the City of Culture 2017 programme.

Hull 2017 have promised an 'incredible' next six months of events after revealing their plans at the start of March.

As well as performances from Jeff Lynne's ELO, festivals and a celebration of equality and diversity, there are many performances and artworks heading to the city.

Here you can find ten of the top events which will be coming to the city this summer.

Hull 2017's third season will see the reopening of Hull New Theatre following its 1m rebuild, the most significant since being opened in 1939 as a successor to the Hull Repertory Theatre Company.

You can enjoy several performances from The Kings of Hull which sees the return of John Godber and the classic story of the trailblazing Jane Eyre.

From September 18, Hull New Theatre.

This is a ten day celebration of colour in Humber Street Gallery and Fruit Market, with installations by some of the most exciting creative figures in contemporary art, design and architecture using the specialist coloured paper Colorplan from Hull company G F Smith.

Also revealed at the launch of Paper City will be the launch of an international survey to discover the world's favourite colour.

From June 30 to July 9, various locations.

From July will be a biographical exhibition on Philip Larkin at the University of Hull, where he spent three decades as librarian. It promises to lift the lid on the life of one of Hull's most influential creatives.

Curated by Anna Farthing, and featuring unseen letters, photography and personal possessions, the exhibition will explore connections between Larkin's life and his work in Hull. Complementing the exhibition, this year's Philip Larkin Society Distinguished Guest Lecturer will be acclaimed British artist Grayson Perry on July 5

From July 5 until October at the University of Hull.

Read more: 10 must see events in Hull 2017 season two Roots & Routes

For generations in Hull, fortunes were made and a distinct way of life was created by the city's fishing community. But the freedom to make a living came at a cost for relying on the resources of the North Atlantic Ocean.

Seafaring communities on both sides of the Cod Wars reflect on confrontation, co-operation and loss in this film and photography exhibition.

From July 15 to September 24 at the Hull Maritime Museum.

From September, Hull will host one of the world's most prestigious awards, the Turner Prize. The exhibition of the four shortlisted artists' work will be held at the Ferens Art Gallery until January 2018, and is free.

From Damien Hirst's cows in formaldehyde to Anthea Hamilton's 16ft sculpture of a bare bottom, this provocative exhibition always generates debate.

From September 26 to January 18, at Ferens Art Gallery.

The Northern Ballet and CBeebies have teamed up for this fantastical ballet with a wonderful wizard, and a story that takes you from a world of greyness to one of brilliant technicolour.

The Great Blueness will premiere with live performances in Hull before being shown on CBeebies to pre-school children and their families across the UK.

From August 14 to August 19 at Airco Arena.

More news: BBC Radio 1 DJ Nick Grimshaw and Kings of Leon members attempt a Hull accent

International pioneers of site responsive performance dreamthinkspeak present ONE DAY, MAYBE, which they say will conjure a "kaleidoscopic dreamscape" where live performance, installation and cutting edge technology combine to create a vividly dystopian vision of a world spinning out of control.

Deep within a hidden office complex in the city centre, a mysterious new Korean technology company is about to change the way you view the world.

From September 1 to October 1. The location is still to be revealed.

As part of LGBT 50, a week-long festival signifying the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Humber Street Gallery will host The House of Kings and Queens.

This will exhibit especially commissioned photography by Lee Price. Captured in Sierra Leone, where homosexuality remains illegal, Price's powerful images offer a glimpse into The House where inhabitants can live without oppression, exposing what it means to be gay in Hull's sister city Freetown.

From July 27 to September 24, at Humber Street Gallery.

Taking place in different locations with inspiration from a famous Hull street, Land of Green Ginger is designed to infiltrate everyday life.

An exciting cohort of artists, including Lone Twin, Davy and Kristin McGuire and Macnas will be spinning myth and magic across Hull neighbourhoods, transforming places which can feel unnoticed into places of possibility, where "Acts of Wanton Wonder" can occur.

Artists have described it as the antidote to boredom; and have promised astonishment, delight and curiosity to spread across Hull as each chapter leads on to the next.

Visit http://www.hull2017.co.uk for further information.

Known internationally as 'Theatre of the Struggle', the theatre challenged the apartheid regime and became a powerful voice for freedom and emancipation.

Their production of The Suitcase will have its UK premiere at Hull Truck Theatre. It is a short story by Es'kia Mphahlele, that follows a young couple from the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal who seek a better life in the city, soon to realise that urban life is cold, cruel and unwelcoming.

From August 31 to September 9, at Hull Truck Theatre.

Visit http://www.hull2017.co.uk for further information on all the events.

Read more: The Royal Ballet will open Hull New Theatre after 16m refurbishment

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10 must see events in Hull 2017 season three Freedom this summer - Hull Daily Mail