By Usman Ibn A. Lapai Kaduna
Northern Youth Development Association in 19 Northern states has urged the Minister of Health to revert the suspension of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) Executive Secretary, Prof. Yusuf Usman, or From left: Special Adviser to the Lagos state Governor on Community and Communications, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan, Special Assistant to the Lagos state Governor on Community Aff airs, Alhaji Tajudeen Quadri and Director, Community Development Department, Ministry of Local Government and Community Aff airs, Mrs. Sherifat Ewumi-Dosunmu, during a press conference on the offi cial launching of a TV programme ‘Lagos Community Update’, in Lagos yesterday Photo: Sunday Eshiet face legal action. Addressing newsmen yesterday in Kaduna, NYDA Chairman, Imran Wada Nas, described the suspension as illegal and gave the minister 48hrs to change his decision or face legal action.
Th e group said Nigeria will never progress if innocent hardworking individuals are punished for only doing their jobs as expected of them. Imran said the minister forgot that he was not the person that appointed the NHIS Executive Secretary and therefore has no right to fi re or suspend him. “Th e NHIS Executive Secretary position has a tenure which means that the minister ought to have known that he cannot just wake up and suspend the Executive Secretary because they had a disagreement. “Th is is why we are calling on the minister to peacefully reverse his decision on the NHIS Executive Secretary or face legal action.
Because we as youth of this region we cannot fold our arms to watch our respective, incorruptible elder and a man of integrity being disgraced for refusing to be corrupt by given out returns to those in authority like the minister,” he said. He urged President Muhammadu Buhari and Acting President Osinbajo to immediately call the minister to order and to equally investigate his action against the suspended executive secretary. “We are also not comfortable with the 12-man committee set up to investigate the NHIS Executive Secretary because six of the committee members are believed to be corrupt and will not do justice to the executive secretary and also no staff of the NHIS is in the committee this shows the bias of those who set up the committee.”
