How Suspended NHIS Boss Illegally Recruited 15 Northern Relatives, Friends as GMs
ICPC grills cronies
New details have emerged on how the suspended Executive Secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof. Usman Yusuf, allegedly defied the federal character policy that saw him illegally recruiting over 15 family members and friends into the top echelons of the agency.
Sources informed THISDAY yesterday that Yusuf, on assumption of office 11 months ago, showed a brazen act of nepotism and disdain for people that are not of his Hausa-Fulani ethnic stock or his family members by expelling them from the NHIS headquarters, of which over 90 per cent of them were mostly southerners and Christians.
“The executive secretary came and polarised the NHIS and turned it into a northern agenda. He has a morbid hatred for Christians and non-northerners including detribalised and moderate northerners who opposed what he was doing were thrown under the bus. For example, one of those brilliant senior officers who opposed him was the GM Human Resources, Mr. Lawal Tinau and he was exiled to Maiduguri as a result of that,” a source alleged.
One of the key allegations and grouse against the embattled executive secretary was the expulsion of some of the brilliant senior officers (mostly southerners) and their replacement with his relatives and cronies.
According to sources, one of the those recruited from outside the service was his brother as the General Manager Legal Services and his niece who is said not to be above Level-8 staff but was given a position above level 15 in the agency with humongous allowances and salaries.
“He is today deceiving members of the public and whipping up ethnic sentiment. Who told him the NHIS money belonged to the North,” a concerned staff queried.
Speaking with THISDAY on a condition of anonymity, a staff of NHIS accused Yusuf of handpicking people, especially family, friends and cronies to do his bidding, including the current Head of Insurance Division as well as the General Manager ICT.
The staff explained that “when Yusuf came on board, he went outside the scheme to recruit 15 people in secondment without due process. All of them where from his constintuency. He hired his brother as the GM Legal as well as his niece, a very young girl, who should not be above level 8 was immediately jacked up to level 15 with allowances paid up front till December.”
Also speaking to THISDAY on the matter, a whistle blower described the suspended NHIS boss “as a major ethnic bigot whose first mission on resumption was ethnic cleansing.
“He unilaterally seconded 15 northerners in a nepotistic and ethnic move. He singlehandedly seconded 15 General managers to the scheme without due process. After government directed that he revert to the status quo, he flouted the instruction. After eventually letting go of the illegal secondment, he was still paying the ex GMs from NHIS purse. They have not refunded the upfront he paid them as we speak because he told them not to do so.”
THISDAY also learnt from a union leader within the scheme, Omomeji Abdulrazaq, who admitted that some of the actions of Yusuf which bordered on abuse of office had been a contentious issue for a long time.
Abdulrazaq noted that while the union would not take side in the fight between the embattled NHIS Executive Secretary and his supervising Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, he must however answer to the allegations levelled against him bordering on fraud, nepotism and outright abuse of office.
Meanwhile, a Coalition of Civil Society Groups (CCSG) has condemned actions of the suspended NHIS over his refusal to obey the suspension handed down to him by Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole.
The group also frowned at the ethnic and biased intervention on the suspension of the Executive Secretary of the NHIS by the Northern youth groups and the House of Representatives.
In a communique issued at the end of their meeting in Abuja yesterday and signed by the President, Bassey Etuk Williams and Secretary, Abubarkar Ibrahim, the group said it was imminent to respond “to correct the manner in which organizations engage or respond to national issues and to condemn the ethnic correlation attached to issues of governance.”
They argued that “the 48 hours ultimatum given to the Minister of Health to revert the suspension of Yusuf, or be sued by the Northern Youths Development Association and the biased call for his immediate reinstatement by the House of Representative formed the crux of the deliberation.