Prof Usman Yusuf, former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), In this interview monitored on Arise TV, he speaks on rising violence, terrorists attacks in northern Nigeria, malnutrition among children, hunger and impact of government’s economic policies, among other issues, ANAYO EZUGWU writes
Now, how would you describe the kind of violence we saw in some parts of the north, which was a horrific event on its own, but its ripple effect seems to be even more devastating. Now, can you walk us through the direct and indirect ways such an attack disrupts an entire community, the food chain, and also tie that with the alarming rise in malnutrition, particularly among children?
So what happened in Unguwan Mantau was, as you mentioned, horrific. And the honest truth is that it’s one of many, just one too many. About 100 of these terrorists rode into this village on their motorcycle at dawn and gunned down 32 worshippers in the mosque, having their morning prayers.
And they came out and gunned down 20-something more. As of today, we are told that the total death toll is about 55 villagers. So how can any human being make sense of this atrocity? No one can. And we are pained, all of us. I am from Katsina.
There is nowhere in the world, and I’ve been around the world, there is nowhere in the world I would rather be and spend my last days than in Katsina. But this is where we were, so 100 terrorists on a motorcycle, three on each bike, rode into a village. One would ask where is everybody, where are the police?
Where are the soldiers? Where are the community watchguards, the state vigilante? And they put roadblocks in and out of the village. And they spent hours doing this dastardly act.
And they carted a lot more into the forest. So, how can any human being make sense of this? And nobody is taking responsibility. The primary responsibility of any government is to protect life and property. If they cannot do that, then that government has no need to be a government. It is not a government. So these people, and of course, the state governor was on vacation.
The deputy governor who was deputising for him wrote a letter, an SOS letter to the president, who himself was in Japan and had not formally handed over to his vice president. So that Unguwan Mantau and the whole of Katsina State was left until the president came back. I mean, this was not only very sad, but a failure. We like it or not, there’s no way of spinning it. Security agencies, the Federal Government, the state government, failed the people of Unguwan Mantau and the people of Katsina.
End of story. And the earlier we start making people take responsibility rather than reinforcing failures, the better. And I’ve said it repeatedly the war on banditry can never be won on the battlefield. There is a definite role for the military, but there is never going to be a military solution to banditry. All the problems are local. Solutions must be found locally.
Why did this, this good for nothing kids go and do this? What is the local issue? And I’m bringing this up because recently Katsina indigenous here met in Abuja with chairmen of local governments of 10 local governments in Katsina. As we speak now, Katsina State, Borno State is safer and more secure than Katsina. 24 out of our 34 local governments are under siege by bandits.
That is 70% of Katsina. We met with 10 chairmen of local governments in 10 frontline states here in Abuja to hear what they are doing locally. And to be honest, I was very impressed with how a lot of these young chairmen were tackling security issues, unique security issues locally. The Federal Government and the state government and security agencies do not understand the local issues are bringing big plans from Abuja.
That is why they haven’t worked and will never work over the last several years. Importantly, you mentioned security in Nigeria. We are thinking is buying drones, buying guns, buying bombs, buying this. No. The fuels of insecurity, no nation, Nigeria will never be safe if we don’t take care of the fuels of insecurity.
What are they, poverty, hunger, out of school children, drugs, illiteracy, youth unemployment, corruption, and bad governance. You don’t take care of this, you’re buying bombs and Tucano jets, we are not going to take care of that. I’m a doctor, you don’t have a diagnosis you will never write a prescription.
And that’s all we’ve been doing. Kinetic, kinetic, kinetic, kinetic, where has that gotten us over the last 12 years? We have not sat down to understand what the problems are. And in the north and all over this country, this is the mistake we’ve been doing all this while. You cannot take care of insecurity in any community if you exclude traditional rulers and clerics.
Governors come, came yesterday and they think they know everything. Traditional rulers, clerics and elders in each community must be involved. And the presidency needs to take charge. If I am the Commander-in-Chief, I will demilitarize this fight on banditry.
You cannot take care of insecurity in any community if you exclude traditional rulers and clerics. Traditional rulers, clerics and elders in each community must be involved
And invest a lot more on social issues. And take care of, soldiers have a role, I know that because I was in the forest with soldiers. And they gave us a backup and we know the role and the responsibilities of soldiers. Soldiers are essentially, the military, essentially and the role of the military is to provide an enabling environment for peace to happen.
They are not the ones to reconcile communities, fighting communities. We’re just throwing them into communities that have been fighting.
General Lagbaja, our late chief of army staff said it. The military is essentially tired. They are deployed all across these 36 states and the FCT. Soldiers are stressed. Many of them are developing PTSD and resorting to drugs. From training, depot in Zaria, they are shipped to war front.
We all need to come in, but we, everybody needs to come in and help the military ease this thing off. The military, how many do we have? We have local governments in Katsina, whole local governments. What the police have is 30 unserviceable rifles. Then you are saying you don’t have security.
How can you have security? So we need to take care of social issues. We need to change the way we are fighting this banditry. We need to bring everybody in and reconcile communities. And I’ve seen that from what the good job this young local government chairman are doing in Katsina and finding peace locally. We must do that.
If you were to sit down in the situation room with the NSA, governors and local government chairmen, what are the things that you will highlight so that Unguwan Mantau does not become a problem of Nigeria?
I mean, the arrest of the leadership of Ansaru while commendable, and I said it repeatedly, it should be done and handled quietly and silently. Because these bad guys, I mean, we’ve invested a lot of time in going into nine states since President Buhari’s time, five, six years ago. And I was involved with the rescue of the train victims. The train was busted by Dar es Salaam, and they are the same guys that busted Kuje prison.
What I’m saying is handling security should be done quietly. These guys, they watch TV, they are on TikTok and they watch us, whatever we say, we need to be very careful. And what we say here, they’re simple-minded criminals. They think we are daring them if we’re saying, we killed this guy. Well, I ask the question, everybody, and Unguwan Mantau and Katsina and Zamfara will ask is, well, you’ve killed them. How is that translated into security?
So my first thing is the leadership should handle issues of security quietly. And the other thing, General CG Musa, an excellent general, the leader of fighting men and women, was given an interview the other day. He said he was advocating the fencing of Nigerian borders.
And he was saying, after the Unguwan Mantau, that people should learn self-defense and all that. I have a friend in the United States, his name is Steve. In Washington D.C., he called me and asked me, who is this general? And I told him, he’s a Joint Chief. In America, that’s what they call them, five-star general, Chairman Joint Chief.
He said, and he’s saying this? I said, yeah, he’s saying this. He said, Usman, get out of town. What he’s telling you is that you’re on your own. The point I’m making, our top leadership, military, intelligence, and political, are not talking to you and I, simple folks. They are talking to the world. And the world sees them the way they don’t think they are being seen.
That is why I say our leadership should talk less and work more. Let their work show, instead of talking. People should take responsibility for their lapses. Number one, we cannot continue reinforcing failure. We cannot always say it is the blame, or it is this, this, this. Somebody has to take responsibility for that. We are not seeing that. So do things quietly, someone must take responsibility, the role for the military in banditry, that which I know.
We must de-escalate the military and do a lot of social, take care of social issues. 90 per cent of the funding is to the kinetic, whereas 90 per cent of the issues that are driving this are non-military. We should invest a lot more in that. Number two, we have to find a way to involve the clerics and the traditional rulers and the elders in each community.
And the presidency needs to be involved. Involved in what way? Not just giving money to the military, go kill, we are bombing, where has it gotten us? We’ve been doing this for the last 12 years. The military needs to sit down, the President, Commander-in-Chief needs to sit down with all his security chiefs. Guys, we’ve done this for 12 years, where are we? How many more years are we going to continue doing this? Shouldn’t we do things differently?
And by differently, we must get onto the table. The United States has been fighting Taliban for God knows how long, they had to sit down. Israel, as we speak, is dropping bomb on Gaza while he’s talking to Hamas. You must sit down and fight, especially we are all Nigerians. All these Fulanis are not from the sky. The teams they are fighting are not from the sky.
The Hausas are not from the sky. We are Nigerians. The military, that’s not what they are trained for. The last thing a soldier wants to do is to kill his own. So we must find a way to sit down, deescalate this, stop the bloodshed, and chart a way to peace. We are not going to do that by dropping bombs or guns. So this Rambo tactic needs to be deescalated. Elders, traditional rulers, clerics need to get involved.
The governors need to stop talking, we’re not going to do this, we’re not going to do this. The presidency needs to come and call all the governors and say, guys, this is what I want as the president, and this is what I need to be done.
The presidency needs to empower clerics and traditional rulers locally to get involved. That’s the only way, because all the pockets of problems are local. How many soldiers do we have, less than 300,000, look at the space of Nigeria, they’re all over the country, 36 states, and they are frustrated.
And what the top military hierarchy, C.G. Musa and the former army chief, Buretai was advocating lockdown of the country like we did during COVID-19. These are signs that they are vocalizing the frustrations of our fighting men. We’re overstretching them and we need to listen to the Christ for help. We really need to. We all must come in, they are our soldiers and they are our children. We are throwing them into this.
The Fulanis, the Hausas, the Tivs, the Mangus, they are all our children and the Igbos. Why can’t we, don’t we have elders to come and settle down and bring peace? We can do this with the help and support of the presidency, with the backing of the military, we can do this. Honestly, cheaper and with less cost to lives of Nigerians. Unguwan Mantau was very sad. It’s a time to do things differently.
What do you think are the possible solutions to these systemic failures that allow a security crisis to so quickly morph into a humanitarian crisis of this magnitude?
So, decisions need to be taken up front. I’ve had the privilege of presenting to the previous military leadership here in Nigeria at DHQ. We’ll disagree with the military, but they are the ones that make it possible for us to come here and sit down and talk or sleep at night because they are putting their lives on the line for us.
They are our children. They are our brothers. They are our sisters. When we talk about getting them out of this crisis, we’re talking about getting our children out of this. And all of us need to be involved. We’ve been saying military, but it’s not for the military alone. So we need to open our eyes and say, guys, let’s do things differently. What have we been doing? Do a post-mortem of what we have done. What are the successes?
How can we improve on the successes? I was very impressed with the 10 local governments. Issues, the local issues are different in each of the states, in each of the local governments, so if you bring big plans from Abuja, we’re going to blanket this, we’re going to, you don’t even understand local issues.
How can you solve a problem? You do not first you need to understand your enemy and the local issues. You don’t understand you keep throwing bombs at whom. So these are the problems. We need to understand and the leadership up in Abuja here need to sit down and say, guys, we must involve everybody, it’s not only the military.
Talking about the malnutrition, let us not delude ourselves. The malnutrition, yes, insecurity is part of the reason why we have malnutrition. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the economic policies of this government has brought cruel hunger on the land. You remember a year and a half ago, this government was just six months in office.
When I came here with the billboard of severely malnourished children, you were questioning whether they were Nigerians, and we do credit to you. During the break, you went and Googled medicines on frontier data and came back online and said, yes, medicines on frontier is raising the alarm.
There is hunger in the land. Medicines on frontier have said that they are seeing over 200% increase in the number of patients they are admitting in their feeding centers, predominantly in the north. And they brought data that in Kebbi State they are admitting 400 severely malnourished children daily into their feeding centers.
Yes, insecurity is part of the reason why we have malnutrition. Let’s be honest with ourselves, the economic policies of this government has brought cruel hunger on the land
That is 2,800 severely malnourished children weekly. And in Katsina State they brought the same data that 652 children died in the first six months of 2025 from severe malnutrition. I raised the alarm. I’m old enough. I was a young doctor then in 1983 and 1985 during Ethiopian farming drought, where over a million people’s lives were lost.
I am warning the presidency and the government that we are heading there if this government does not take serious action. The Vatican lent its voice and said there is severe hunger.
Nigerian Red Cross said, brought out a report 5.4 million Nigerian children in nine security challenged northern states are facing severe malnutrition, in the north central, Benue and Niger, in the northeast Yobe, Borno and Adawama, in the northwest, Kano, Katsina and Zamfara. This is severe malnutrition predominantly brought about by the harsh economic policies of this government. This is the reality. It’s not that there is no food in the market. People do not have the means to buy this food.
The government, what the government has been doing, essentially has been denying. There was an editorial by Daily Trust about hunger in the land. What did the presidency do? The next day came and issued weak rebuttal. The government is in denial. Mr. President, listen, the fact is there is hunger in the land. Your policies have brought hunger in the land. If your advisers are not telling you the truth, that is the truth.
Al Jazeera, two, three days ago, brought out a documentary about malnutrition in Katsina. And BBC also brought out that documentary. Mr. President, this month in September, you will be going to New York, the United Nations General Assembly. The international press will confront you about the hunger in Nigeria. This is not something you can hide. They are seeing it. Your economic policies need to be human. They are not. You need to govern with the milk of humankind. I don’t see that.
The government is disconnected from realities of our people. Labour Union is in trouble. Universities are going on strike. The salary of a professor cannot buy him anything. And workers are not able to feed their family. Children are not going to school. And we are in denial. Largely, the sudden and severe malnutrition we are seeing is largely because of the economic policies of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
If nobody is telling you, Mr. President, the world is telling you, the Vatican, the Red Cross, Medicines on Frontier, American Embassy here wrote a piece saying governors are not doing what they need to do with their money. People are suffering because they are afraid. They can see the danger that our leadership is not seeing.
And I’ve said it repeatedly. There is no military and there is no police force that can quell the anger of a hungry people. Hunger has a national security implication that our government is not realizing. There is hunger in the land, Mr. President.
What do you think should be the position of Mr. President and the presidency at this time and do you think that Katsina is failing as a state and that Northern Nigeria is gasping for breath?
In pediatrics, we say the child is the barometer of the family. You go into a household or you go into community, you look at the children, you can find the temperature.
Are they happy? Are they rich? Is there hunger? Hunger starts showing in children. And then the women, the most vulnerable part of our society.
And this is what we are seeing. So, and it’s not only restricted to the North. I advise everybody to visit the local pediatric ward in this country, from Abia to Zamfara, and see malnutrition, severe marasmus and kwaishoko, because the parents are not able to feed the children.
It’s a lot more pronounced in the North because of the insecurity. And largely, I will say, because of the irresponsible governance we are seeing. All the governors, what do they do? When the president visits, what do they do? They keep dancing instead of telling the president the truth, he visited Katsina State, all they were doing was dancing, the same Katsina where 652 children died.
He came to Kaduna, they were dancing, went to Nasarawa, the same thing. Of course, Niger State governor is the chief dancer. His state is one of those places where 5.4 million children are facing severe malnutrition. The governors are not telling the president the truth. All they are doing is engage in crass sycophancy.
Then we are in serious struggle. Mr. President, they are deceiving you. People are not happy with you. There is hunger in the land, particularly in the North. And they’re just watching these governors bring their paid crowd and keep dancing to you.
