Switching on the lights at NHIS

By Istifanus Bature

It’s time to switch on the lights at NHIS. Time to expose the pseudo reformer. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) is in the news again for the wrong reason. This time around it has assumed a dimension like no other. Commenting on this topic took me a while especially as it concerns the NHIS. Nothing seems to be working there. The only news you hear from NHIS in the past five years is worrisome. This is what has become of the NHIS since Dr. Dogo Muhammad, its former Executive Secretary left the scene in 2012, at the behest of the Goodluck Jonathan government, lest I add that not for incompetence, but for political reasons by refusing to renew his appointment despite the glaring successes being recorded. This is not the crux of this article. 

The crux of this article is the suspension of the Executive Secretary of the NHIS, Prof. Usman Yusuf, which in my opinion has been long overdue. As a start, his appointment was a fundamental error because he was not only clueless on healthcare financing, he also lacked in administrative experience from the resume he currently parades as a professor of hematology, pediatrics, and oncology who has supposedly canvassed the whole continent. That claim is to be researched on a later date. His questionable days in the United Kingdom at Christies Hospital and Holt Radium Institute in Manchester is a topic for discussion on a later date.

Mallam Yusuf ran the scheme in the past 11 months abysmally.  I am equally afraid to add that one of the first things he did was to appoint his younger brother Hassan Yusuf, as General Manager, Legal of the NHIS and his niece a level 8 officer from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to the NHIS on grade level 13. Where is that done?  Only in the National Health Insurance Scheme. He not only violated all known procedures for recruitment into the civil service in Nigeria, but he also bragged about it. “I am only answerable to President Buhari who appointed me. I don’t have any business with the Minister of Health” The NHIS under Mallam Usman Yusuf was characterized by a flagrant disregard for civil service rules, insubordination, and contractual scam, and ethnic and religious nepotism.

As part of efforts to reverse the poor health indices and ensure universal health coverage in the country, President Muhammadu Buhari kicked off the revitalization of 10,000 primary healthcare centers (PHCs) nationwide by inaugurating Kuchigoro Clinic, Abuja, as a model on the 10th of January 2017. This model was supposed to be financed by NHIS since attaining universal health coverage was one of the core mandates of the NHIS since inauguration. But guess what? The NHIS Executive Secretary refused to even look at the viability of the project or the impact it would have on the poor, especially women and children in rural communities. Till date, he has refused to attend to any document relating to the reactivated Primary Healthcare Centres across the country.

While it might be argued that it doesn’t fall under the purview of the NHIS to fund such an initiative of the Federal Ministry of Health, it can thus be stated that the overall impact of such an intervention and coupled with the fact that it was a directive from the President ought to have given the NHIS boss a sense of reasoning. But it didn’t. And in any case, it was geared towards attaining universal health coverage, which is indeed one of the mandates of the NHIS. But all of that doesn’t mean a thing to Usman Yusuf and his gang of ethnic and religious chauvinists.

The NHIS under Usman Yusuf was not only a beehive of personal aggrandizement, but it was also a reign of shady deals with one of his closest ally named Shehu Mahdi, the owner of Dialogue Group of Companies Limited based in Kaduna. Most of the deals at the NHIS were given to cronies of Shehu Mahdi, who was reported to have bought a house for the Executive Secretary in Kaduna and a gift of N50, million upon his appointment as Executive Secretary of the NHIS. It didn’t stop there. Interestingly, this is the same Shehu Mahdi that in 2013 rose to the defense of former Comptroller General of Customs, Inde Dikko over allegations of non-remittance to the federation account.

Another enjoyable escapade of the suspended NHIS boss was the issue of the NHIS e-library project that was awarded to Promatrix Global Resources Limited at the cost of N28, 922,000.00 ( Twenty-eight million, nine hundred and twenty-two thousand naira). The infractions in the deal were too glaring. One was that the said company was paid in advance, two is that the company owned by one Salisu Garba, a stooge of Shehu Mahdi. Worrisome also is the fact that the said company has no company website, no office in Abuja and no evidence of competence. The only known address of the company is No 5 Lata Tombai Close, Malali, Kaduna.

On the other hand, Shehu Mahdi, the suspended executive secretary crony, owns Dialogue Global Links Ltd with specialization in “Development of E-Library and Database and ICT Education through customized and tailored training.” This same company was awarded a contract of over N400, 000.00 (Four Hundred Million naira) for ICT training by the suspended executive secretary.

The atrocities of the NHIS executive secretary are too much that it would take a day or so to thoroughly dissect them. Impeccable sources also hinted that Usman Yusuf’s claim on being a professor is questionable. He has not also been in active employment before his appointment as Executive Secretary of NHIS. Sources hinted that he has been around the country for an upward of three years before his appointment hanging around and feeding on close friends and associates including Alhaji Shehu Mahdi of the Dialogue Group of Companies. Little wonder why the Dialogue Group of Companies executed major contracts in the NHIS under Usman Yusuf?

Back to his lack of respect for constituted authority. The suspended NHIS Executive Secretary came on board with a clear motive to instill nepotism and religiosity in the NHIS. One of the first things he did was to carry out a mass transfer of key NHIS personnel to NHIS state offices regardless of your competence. And guess what? He brought in 15 people that were later tagged the group of 15 northerners as secondment without the knowledge of the supervisory ministry. This much the minister of health admitted before a Senate hearing on the secondments. The other anomaly with the supposed secondment is that because they are coming in from the mainstream civil service, they are ordinarily expected to report to the NHIS one level lower, but the Executive Secretary did waive this off and instead promoted most of them three steps higher. For example, someone on grade level 8 was given grade level 13. Someone on grade tier 1 was given grade level 15, and so on and forth. Why? Because he is from Katsina state and was appointed by Mr. President and therefore his words are yes and amen.

Secondly what he did was simply a new recruitment and not secondment. In the case of secondment in the public service, which also means transferring of service, the practice is that the date of first appointment and date of current appointment are not supposed to be the same since it is assumed that they are merely transferring service.  But in the case of the NHIS, the both dates were the same for all 15 of them. An example is that of the general manager, legal, Hassan Yusuf, who is also his younger brother. In his records, the date of the first appointment was 10th November 2016, and the date of current appointment was also 10th November 2016.

It is also ironic that despite the show of arrogance and disregard for constituted authority, the suspended NHIS boss has been running from pillar to post soliciting the support of a major traditional ruler in the north to intervene. His crony, Alhaji Shehu Mahdi is also reaching out to the mighty in a bid to save his cash cow. It is also understood that an option muted is to whip up ethnic and religious sentiments by playing of the ethnicity of the minister of health and the Ag. President and labelling his suspension as a “Yoruba” agenda against the north.

How this would play out remains to be seen. The atrocities perpetrated by Usman Yusuf in eleven months are unimaginable. It is hoped that the committee would do a quick and good job. This is another parable of goats and yam.