Nigeria is in Intensive Care Unit, Under APC, Says Ex-NHIS Boss

•Declares next elections referendum on Buhari’s administration

•Insists Tinubu cannot absolve himself of alleged APC failures

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

A former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof. Usman Yusuf has said Nigeria is presently in an intensive care unit, even as he maintained that the 2023 elections would be a referendum on the eight-year stewardship of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

Yusuf, who spoke during an interview on Arise News Channel, THISDAY’s broadcast arm, also maintained that the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate in next month’s election, Bola Tinubu, cannot distance himself from the failures of the current government.

“The next election will be nothing but a referendum on the eight-year stewardship of the APC. They came on the back of three things: That they are going to improve the economy, they are going to improve security and they are going to fight corruption.

“On all three counts, they have failed, not only failed, they have failed woefully. And we will say it again,  we’ll continue to say it, APC’s Bola Ahmed Tinubu is the grandfather of APC. Nobody in APC will absolve himself or herself from the mess that APC has put us through,” Yusuf a staunch Abubakar Atiku supporter said.

According to him, Nigeria at the moment requires a rescuer, one who is experienced and not a rookie, given the bad state of the country.

“These are very serious times and Nigeria is in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU). It requires a good physician. I’m a doctor of 41 years and counting. When you have a patient in the ICU, it requires an experienced doctor, not a rookie. 

“You request somebody who is healthy, who is visionary, who has been there, who understands Nigeria and Nigerians. That person, undoubtedly for me is Atiku Abubakar,” Yusuf opined.

Still on the alleged mismanagement of the country by the current administration, Yusuf added that Buhari has borrowed massively for which Nigeria’s future generations will continue to pay.

According to him, while Buhari inherited a debt of N7.8 trillion in 2014, his administration would be leaving the country indebted to the tune of over N77 trillion. 

“This government is leaving us with our children and grandchildren indebted to the tune of over N77 trillion. Now we are servicing our debt by more than we get. So Nigeria is broke,” he argued.

Yusuf maintained that the government also failed in its constitutional responsibility to secure Nigerians and ensure their welfare.

The former NHIS boss stated that the president has been promising the same thing, that is, to take a 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years, but has instead thrown more people into poverty.

“The president has inserted these in several of his speeches; the vice president will be reading it over the teleprompter, but they have just been talking. They have failed as far as the economy is concerned.

 “For me this is real, I go back to Katsina where I come from and I see poverty. In many villages, if you take out a N1,000, go to the village square and ask for change, nobody can give you change. Our people are poorer today than they were before the APC government came in. Anybody associated with APC cannot absolve himself,” he posited.

Today, he stressed that Katsina has become a huge Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp, with bandits pillaging the land.

“We had never seen IDPs before this government came in. Today, my city is filled up with IDPs. We gave Buhari 1.2 million votes in 2019, and Lagos gave him half of that. What we have to show for that are death and destruction.

“Our villages have been plagued, women raped, cattle rustled and our people killed. And this is the story not only in Katsina. From Adamawa to Zamfara, we are still counting our dead every day.

“This is security. We are talking about farming and agriculture. Our people cannot go to the farm because of insecurity, bandits are occupying their land. Even if they go to the land, they have to pay levies. In some places in Zamfara, they burn farm products.

“The primary responsibility; constitutional responsibility of government; of government is to provide security and for the welfare of the people. On that count, this government has failed,” he insisted.