On July 2nd , 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari sacked Prof. Usman Yusuf from
his position as Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme
(NHIS). The President sacked Prof. Yusuf following recommendations from a
panel set up by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation in December
2018 to investigate allegations of fraud and misdemeanours leveled against him by
workers of the organization. The panel, having found him culpable, recommended
that the president dismiss him from office.
Earlier, a similar panel set up by the Federal Ministry of Health in 2017 also found
Prof. Usman Yusuf guilty of corruption and mismanagement of about NB1billion
(N919million) and recommended his sack from office.
“Following the recommendations of report by an independent fact-finding panel on
the NHIS, President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the termination of
appointment of the Executive Secretary, Prof. Usman Yusuf, who has been on
administrative leave and has approved the appointment of Prof. Mohammed
Sambo as the new executive secretary,” the Director, Media, Federal Ministry of
Health, Mrs. Boade Akinola stated while announcing Prof. Yusuf’s sack,
As Executive Secretary of NHIS, Prof. Usman Yusuf was in a rare and
unique position to activate positive developments and needed reforms in
the nation’s health sector especially primary health across the 36 states of
Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The above was realizable
because NHIS was more than adequately funded by the government due to
the importance accorded to the scheme.
But rather than work for Nigeria and its people, Prof. Yusuf mindlessly
concentrated on enriching his pockets, diverting monies meant for
providing infrastructure and human development of primary health care into
personal use in order to fund and bank-role his opulent lifestyle that
provoked workers of NHIS who revolted and called for his probe. It is
necessary to state that Prof. Usman Yusuf is one of those to be held
accountable over the sorry state of Nigeria’s health sector especially the
very critical primary health subsector of the nation’s economy.
Since he was sacked and disgraced from office on grounds of corruption,
fraud and other related financial crimes, Prof. Yusuf has been in hiding,
probably enjoying the huge amount of money he made as the boss of a
very critical sector like the NHIS.
But like every Tom and Jerry, Prof. Yusuf has come out of his hiding place
and found the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to make public speech,
believing that Nigerians must have forgotten who he is and how he
shortchanged the nation by diverting money meant to fix the health sector
into his private coffers, as submitted by two different panels that
investigated and found him guilty of corruption.
Recently Prof. Yusuf shameless granted interview to a media platform
where he ‘passionately’ talked about the coronavirus pandemic and the
need for prudent management of resources meant for the pandemic. He
also criticized some states for the level of infection.
Reading his interview, anybody who does not know Prof. Usman Yusuf and
his track records especially his unwholesome activities, a little part of which
were revealed by the two panels that investigated his corruption-ridden
tenure in NHIS would think that a saint granted the interview.
But do you blame Prof. Yusuf? He must have thought that, like everything
we do here, the people must have forgotten his various atrocities against
the Nigerian state among which was enriching himself with resources
appropriated by government and entrusted into his hands to fix the nation’s
health insurance scheme.
Prof. Yusuf can now talk in the public because over two years of his sack
due to corrupt practices, he is still walking as a free man instead of been
arrested, tried, and convicted to rot in jail where he rightly belonged. If the
Economic and Financial Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt
Practices Commission (ICPC) were up to their callings, they would have
picked Prof. Usman Yusuf since he was sacked to show example to others
who hold public offices that the wages of corruption is jail.
It may even be that by making public statements and granting interviews,
Prof. Yusuf is scheming to get a new appointment from the Federal
Government, probably related to the COVID-10 pandemic, and why not?
Didn’t they say that anything goes in Nigeria?
It would be recalled that while he was the chief executive officer of NHIS,
workers of the Scheme staged industrial protests several times accusing
Prof. Yusuf of corruption and diversion of public funds, among others
crimes.
One of the protests took place on October 2018, when NHIS senior
workers urged the Federal Government to sack Yusuf due to his corrupt
tendencies.
The workers had, at a press briefing, under their umbrella Association of
Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria restated some of his misconducts, adding
that he had earlier been suspended from office the previous year. They
accused him of refusing drop his corrupt tendencies after his recall from
suspension handed over to him by the then minister of health, Isaac
Adewole.
Bonaventure Melah, a former Managing Editor of Daily Times Newspaper is the
Publisher of African Leadership Scorecard News and Magazine E-mail
bonamelah@gmail.com Mobile 08036062975
