WAKE UP: Before you call next time for NHIS’ Usman Yusuf’s head

By BASHIR ADEFAKA

But some of us who prayed to Him requested, “Oh Allah! We are all sinners in this country.  We are murderers, corrupt, thieves, wicked, kidnappers, hypocritical professionals; lawyers, journalists, security, etc, who hate to be brought before justice.  With this March 28, 2015 presidential election, if General Muhammadu Buhari is the man that you know will take us out of this complex situation, every effort of dark agents to subvert his victory should be frustrated.”  That was the prayer that brought Buhari to power.  But disappointedly, some of us who asked Allah for Buhari are already telling Allah He made mistake to have bequeathed Sai Baba to us and we are, for reason of self and personal pocket, gunning for people we knew the genesis of how they amassed their wealth to come back and override the decision of Allah over Nigeria. WAKE UP! O you people of Nigeria!”

Nigeria, so far is a country I have seen or hear of where people love to act on information without seeking to know about clarity of cause or asking questions.  It is also in the same country where people know who the thieves or looters are and yet queue behind them against people with requisite competence, integrity, moral and spiritual uprightness in struggle for self-stomach.

Still in the same country, Nigeria, I have seen people having answers and explanations to the same question all the times and yet would not be clear, hypocritically though.  These same people are those who take petition or allegation as conviction when it favours them but see prosecution of criminals as persecution of opposition politicians when it is to their disfavour.

Above all, it is in Nigeria people love point fingers to “United States of America, Germany, France, even Ghana, where things work and law is law and everybody complies or you get punished” and also point to “China where stealing of One million Yuan earns the thief or corrupt person beheading”, doing all of those finger pointing in disparagement of their own country.  But at the last count, they are the same people who do not make the law in their own country work, by the attitude of all the instruments of implementation (media practitioners, lawyers, business class, politicians, working class) which does not favour development.

Unfortunately, it is in the same country Nigeria that I have seen evil being louder than righteousness to the extent that anybody found to be above board trying to live his own life based on fear of God, integrity, moral and spiritual consciousness with mindfulness of fairness to all is ganged up against.

Since 2014 in the buildup to 2015 general elections that produced President Muhammadu Buhari as Leader of Nigeria, that has been observed in the attitude of the people of Nigeria not even the poor masses are excluded.  One must however be grateful that there are quite a great number of same classes of people who stand out clearly and are for anything positive for the love of country.

Whereas the evil ones employed the consciousness of all the instruments of implementation (media practitioners, lawyers, business class, politicians, working class) and therefore appear to be in charge or total control of the entire national space, those who stand for and queue behind integrity and uprightness for the love of country have got the unrestrictive social media to selling their course and they are more popular for that, so much that today, rather than the truth about Nigeria and its government coming from private sector-dominated media of the country, that has always since inception of Buhari’s government come from social media activists, NTA, Radio, TVC/Radio Continental and few online newspapers at home and foreign media.

Example of this unfortunate situation in Nigeria is the issue of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) brouhaha, which for about one year some learned Nigerians still claim they have no truth about.  The fact is that, those who lay this claim have been told the truth through those media (social media activists, NTA, Radio Nigeria, Voice of Nigeria, TVC/Radio Continental and few online newspapers) that Professor Usman Yusuf, Executive Secretary of the NHIS being badly painted in those (negative happy) media is actually not what was said about him but that he is the real person fighting for the poor masses for whose good health the NHIS was established.  But they chose not to believe on the excuse that those social media activists who tell them on Facebook or twitter are Buharists, NTA, Radio Nigeria and Voice of Nigeria are government media, TVC/Radio Continent are television/radio stations of ruling APC leader and that those few online newspapers are paid by Buhari to project him positively.  Although they that have chosen to believe in what the private-dominated media have told them projecting the course of the corrupt to the detriment of the anti-corruption President, his government and government agencies, they never give a clear cut as to what side they belong.  So much that even some of those that claim to be in support of the integrity-based government too are affected as they would fall only to be lifted again to continue.

Whether it took them up to one year to accept the truth that we had no stress embracing long ago is not issue, what matters now is that the truth has come, even though at a time those media and purveyors of twisted, misrepresented facts, carriage of hate speeches and fake news against the government no longer have hiding place.  The Islamic prayer line “Oh Allah, guide us to recognise the truth as truth and assist us to follow it; guide us to recognize falsehood as falsehood and assist us to abstain from it” is a great prayer.  Those who had to deliberately grope through the darkness of their own wishful act for one year to accept the truth about NHIS issue to now realize that Yusuf is actually not the corrupt person they have accepted him to be, of a surety, are from it.

Thank God, since no Nigerian Media was ready for that long to give the NHIS ES the opportunity of self-explanation of what happened, like I said, a foreign media, BBC, has just allowed him and those who had called for the head of that brilliant leadership in Yusuf due to their hypocrisy are now saying “Ha! Had we known!”  God forbid!

Don’t forget that if President Muhammadu Buhari had not been a man of his own mind, your “Ha! Had we known!” would not have meant anything as the nation’s giant stride towards an all-inclusive recovery put in place by the President would have been truncated.  That is why Senator Babafemi Ojudu told me in one of our media interviews during his days at the National Assembly that “The day Nigerians begin to see their today as better than their yesterday, the country will be great again”.

Now we know that Executive Secretary of National Health Insurance, Professor Usman Yusuf, in summary as aired by British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Hausa Service on Tuesday October 23, 2018, is simply another Muhammadu Buhari (Mr. Integrity) with mind to make change in the country for the people of the people of the country.

Some of those things he said, as simplified by Ayo Ojeniyi on his Facebook post, include:

1. The Board has no Constitutional authority to suspend me.
2. The NHIS Agents borrowed money and refused to pay back. Billions. They wanted deals with me, I refused. I REQUESTED FOR THE MONEY.
3. I have given many whistle blows to EFCC and  ICPC and billions recovered from agents. The records are there.
4. If I am Corrupt let them whistle blow me to EFCC, ICPC also. Let me be captured red handed.
5. Nepotism, favourtism to who? No evidence, just rumours. Let the list be sent to anywhere for investigation. I will testify.
6. Heavy expenses named against me, but not in our books!!!!!
7. I will not Obey a corruption order.

“Na waaaa oooo, ireeee ooooo kabiti!!!!” Ayo Ojeniyi screamed.

In his own comment, Edward O Adeyemi EXPLAINED: “Prof. Usman Yusuf of NHIS is the actual cause of all his troubles.”  And he gave his generally reasonable reasons, “Check it out:

1. He changed quarterly payment of capitation to HMOs to monthly, making it difficult for HMOs to put billions of enrolles money in fixed deposit accounts (yielding interests).
2. HMOs to provide letters of non-indeptedness (monthly) from healthcare facilities as a precondition for payment of capitation by the NHIS.
3. Delisting of many HMOs for failing to meet up with the rigorous reaccreditation requirements.
4. Big boys own HMOs; Mac-Ferma HMO David Mark, Precious HMO Pius Anyim, Hygeia HMO Eyitayo Lambo, Evon HMO Ndidi Elumelu…. and many more.
5. Forced HMOs to refund  to NHIS 1% private insurance regulatory charges that accrued into billions of Naira over the years.
6. Delisted the largest HMO in Nigeria; Police HMO.
7. Made Nigeria Custom Services to pay billions of Naira of free health insurance they enjoyed over the years. They paid to the last kobo.
8. Instituted disciplinary action against Mr. Egwu GM-Finance brother in-law to Board Chairman Dr. Enyantu Ifenne who was found guilty in a corruption allegation.
9. Cut off all the stomach infrastructure of greedy union executives, who fed fat from enrollees money.
10. Healthcare Facilities are smiling now, while HMOs are not finding it easy meeting up with stringent regulatory requirements.

NOW THAT WE ALL KNOW

Now that we all know that our sentimental, bias, emotional perspectives (ethnic, religious, political, self) to everything Nigeria is causing the backwardness and underdevelopment that have made our situation look complex for long before President Muhammadu Buhari came in to help, it is hoped that we still now begin to stand right.

If Allah wanted to look at our bad attitude, He would never look in our side and would have allowed us to rotten in suffering till the end of human existence.  But some of us who prayed to Him requested, “Oh Allah! We are all sinners in this country.  We are murderers, corrupt, thieves, wicked, kidnappers, hypocritical professionals; lawyers, journalists, security, etc, who hate to be brought before justice.  With this March 28, 2015 presidential election, if General Muhammadu Buhari is the man that you know will take us out of this complex situation, every effort of dark agents to subvert his victory should be frustrated.”  That was the prayer that brought Buhari to power.  But disappointedly, some of us who asked Allah for Buhari are already telling Allah He made mistake to have bequeathed Sai Baba to us and we are, for reason of self and personal pocket, gunning for people we knew the genesis of how they amassed their wealth to come back and override the decision of Allah over Nigeria.

WAKE UP! O you people of Nigeria!