Prof Usman Yusuf is a former Executive Secretary of National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). In this interview, he speaks on his arrest and detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as well as President Bola Tinubu’s two years in office, among other issues. ANAYO EZUGWU writes

You’ve had an interesting couple of months because you spent time in Kuje Prison. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened there and what led you to Kuje Prison?

Kuje Prison for me was just a retreat for rest, prayers and reflection. But seriously, on January 29 this year, at about 6.30pm, my wife came to my room and said there are some gentlemen that knocked and just walked into the house. They want to see me and they said I’m expecting them.

I came downstairs in my Jalabiya, no hat and flip-flop, and they said they are from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). They’ve come to take me to the EFCC. I said, guys, you haven’t even introduced yourselves. So, they just brought out their badge and said, they’re EFCC.

I demanded that show me a warrant of arrest but they said they don’t need that. I told them to allow me to go upstairs and change. They blocked me. They didn’t let me or allowed my wife to go upstairs and bring me some clothing. As we went outside, their bus was waiting.

The driver was sitting and the engine was running. And there were five armed mobile policemen, some deployed behind the house, thinking I would run. I we went in, and I was sandwiched between an armed policeman and a young operative.

They were hyping themselves as if they had captured the notorious Bello Turji. We went to the office of their boss, and he handed me a bunch of papers. What are these, sir? I asked. These are your charges. Well, I don’t need the charges if I don’t have my lawyer here. I told him.

The guy was waiting to go home and my battery had gone down, so I couldn’t call my wife to tell her where I was and how I was. And they wouldn’t let me call her. They just took me to the cells. Nobody had told me where I was going to stay, why I was there, how long I was going to be there. They just took me around the building to the cells. Well, a lot of them were youth.

They recognised me from the previous brouhaha in Nigeria. And they came up to me wishing me good luck and best wishes. I had serious headache because I had fasted for over 14 hours by then. I hadn’t eaten or drank anything. They brought me a sachet of pure water and tea. I drank and went to sleep.

The next morning, they called my name out, saying we were going to court. Before we came out of the building, they had placed their official photographer to be taking photographs of me without a hat in Jalabiya in flip-flop

. That was when I realized these guys are up to no good. All they’re interested is to demean me, dehumanize me, and weaken my spirit. They don’t know who they’re dealing with. We went into the bus, and I was jokingly telling them, guys, haven’t you forgotten the chains and the manacles. They busted out laughing and said it hasn’t reached to that. We went to court. They were not ready.

We had to come back to the EFCC again. And they upgraded me from four of us in the room to me alone in a cell. I was there in the EFCC for six days. After that, I was arraigned in court. And then the judge did not grant me bail. Her reason was that she wasn’t feeling well. I was put back to Kuje. I was in there for 24 days and denied bail.

Anybody’s excuse is wrong because bail is a constitutionally guaranteed right of an accused person, except if it is a capital offence or the person is suspected of terrorism. Mine was neither of those. I was denied bail deliberately by this government to shake me up. And I was put in Kuje for 24 days to silence me.

But no, I am no one to be silenced. In Kuje prison, I wrote my experiences and told this government that six days in Kuje and 24 days in EFCC and another 24 days in Kuje will not silence me.

All these conflicts you’re seeing, whether in Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsina or Zamfara, and even the IPOB issues, are all social problems. They’re not military problems and can never be won on the battlefield

The whole purpose is President Bola Tinubu trying to silence any dissent to his government and this is coming from a president who was a NADECO activist himself, who fought the military, who ran across the border and ran away from the military. And when he came back, he never gave neither Jonathan nor Obasanjo, not even Buhari, he never gave them peace.

He was criticizing them. Criticizing a government in a democracy is a legitimate right of every citizen but President Tinubu is trying to stifle dissent in this country. He’s also trying to make this country a one-party dictatorial state.

We are not going to let that happen. We’ll continue to speak up. We’ll continue to raise our voices because silence in the face of evil is itself evil.

What, in your opinion, informed EFCC essentially digging up this case eight years after you left office?

I’ll tell you. The first one is already explained. The EFCC is playing the attack dog of this government. If the current leadership of the EFCC had done its due diligence, it should know that I have a huge file in the commission.

During one of my suspensions, I was sitting in the room, I got a call from the acting chairman of the EFCC at that time, Ibrahim Magu. I never met him or spoke with him.

He called me over, come to the commission. I went to the commission, and in their conference room, he had assembled his senior staff.

He walked in briskly and after introducing himself and the gentlemen in the room, he said, Prof, hand over all papers, all documents related to any monies, any infractions by the Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs), banks or anybody, we will get their money back and he walked away.

True to his words, Ibrahim Magu’s EFCC swung into action and recovered billions from banks, from HMOs, for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

And he was gracious enough when they were transferring the first tranche of money, they got back to the then Executive Secretary. He mentioned my name and my effort. And he signed it himself, which is very unusual.

He didn’t have to sign it. It meant something. He signed it. It was that paper we tended to, quote, that if this gentleman was given a letter of commendation by this same commission for helping the commission to recover billions, and you’re telling me he stole millions.

NHIS people don’t know. Nigerians don’t know. I was in control of more money in the NHIS at that time, real solid cash than most governors.

If I wanted to steal money, I would have done that. My fight in the NHIS was public at that time. When I came to the NHIS, nobody could tell me how much money NHIS had.

The year prior, September 2025, the Federal Government had given a directive that all MDAs should transfer the monies from commercial banks to the TSA and the Central Bank.

So, I commissioned an independent financial firm to audit all NHIS accounts. When they presented the report to me, over 13 commercial banks were holding NHIS money in their vaults, illegally, over N100 billion.

That is N100 billion of Buhari’s time, not Tinubu’s N100 billion. I compiled that report and gave it to all the officials. I presented that to my board. I showed it to my minister. I gave it to everybody that needed to know. So, it is that money that Magu’s EFCC was recovering.

My fight with the HMOs was public, was fierce, was messy, because they were not doing what they were supposed to do. They were holding onto people’s money. Money they were supposed to pay for people’s health. So, my fight with them was very public. And my file in the EFCC and ICPC, even the presidency, everywhere, I didn’t come to Nigeria to steal money. I had better things to do.

I wasn’t brought up that way, and I don’t bring my children up that way. People that steal money in government do not talk. They do not speak up. They are quiet. So, you don’t come after them. So, it’s now President Tinubu’s time, oh, this guy is talking too much. Get this guy, go to the EFCC and dig something up.

I’m not one of those politicians, who are stealing money that you dig up things and shake up and silence. Speaking up; we’ll continue to do that because it’s our responsibility as citizens. We have seen a better Nigeria. In Nigeria, we owe a debt of gratitude too. What we are seeing now, we will not allow to continue.

Why did former President Buhari let you go as Executive Secretary of NHIS?

Well, I had a sit-in with President Buhari. I was suspended in twice because I did not allow those that wanted to partake in the buffet of corruption I met.

I didn’t allow that and they were fighting me all over the place, from the unions who were their foot soldiers, to the HMOs, to the banks, to the ministry, to the National Assembly instead of them to do what is right and do the job of the NHIS.

The NHIS has the potential to do a lot of good. The NHIS is the CBN of health care. It has the potential to positively impact our people only if that potential is harnessed.

But nobody wanted to harness that. Everybody wanted to take part in that corruption but I refused. That was my fight. Unknown to me, a cleric went and spoke with the president, and I would hold the name of that cleric. That was when he came back from hospital. You need to listen to this gentleman. I went and sat down with the president.

And I told him: You gave me this job without knowing me, without ever seeing me. And I made a promise to God Almighty, not to you that I was going to be a good custodian of that which I’m entrusted with. That is what I’m going to do. You have the power to fire me now before I get out of this room.

My honour and integrity, I have earned over my lifetime and I will fight anyone, who tries to impugn that. And my fight now, that is going to court, is a continuation of my fight in the NHIS. Anybody trying to impugn my honour and integrity, which I’ve earned over my lifetime, I will fight fiercely.

And I will unapologetically do that fight, just like we did in the NHIS. We’ll continue to do that. At the end, the Department od State Services (DSS) advised the presidency. You better handle this NHIS case because it was heating the polity. Things were getting hot. So, what did they do?

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) at that time gobbled up a committee they called Presidential Committee and they called everybody. This was photographed. If they want to check it, they can go and check it. They called me. They went to the minister. They called the board. They called HMOs.

They called staff of the NHIS. President Buhari wanted to have a clean slate. I think he didn’t have the stamina to continue the fight. When I came, I thought the fight against corruption was real. So, he let everybody go. He didn’t only let me go. He let the board go. And the minister did not come back the second time.

So, it was a clean slate for everybody. So, for me, fighting corruption, I’ve been in the trenches. And I’ve been doing that and we continue to do that and speak up against injustice and tyranny.

What’s the failure of NHIS, particularly, when we talk about the current state of Nigeria and what it should be?

When I came into the NHIS, there were many stakeholders. The NHIS is supposed to be the regulator of health insurance. Other stakeholders are, of course, the HMOs, who are the middlemen. We do not give hospitals money directly. We give these middlemen the call, HMOs, to give to hospitals.

The HMO; even in America, they are not popular. So, these guys just went and copied and pasted. If you do not know how to paste, do not copy. They just copied and pasted whatever they want to do.

So NHIS on top, the regulator, the HMOs, that are supposed to be the middlemen, the hospitals that are supposed to take care of the patients, the ministry that is supposed to supervise us, the National Assembly that is supposed to oversight everybody, and of course, the person who nobody is talking about.

The biggest stakeholder is the patient, the person we call the enrolee, who is lost in the shuffle. So,when I came, nobody is talking about the enrolee, the patient. They go to hospitals. They are not being treated with honour and dignity. They deserve.

They are treacherous lepers. Why because NHIS was not paying. Why is NHIS not paying? It’s because NHIS gives money to HMOs three months in advance? I don’t think anybody in this country, not even the president, gets paid three months in advance. They get paid three months in advance to pay hospitals. They don’t pay. They were not paying.

So, I assembled all the chief medical directors of hospitals in Calabar. I told them ladies and gentlemen, I’m in the midst of friends, and I can take liberty to speak the truth. Patients are complaining that you are not taking care of them. And consistently what I heard all over is HMOs are not paying us.

And I gathered HMOs here in Abuja. I told them there’s a new sheriff in town. You must pay everything. And what I did was, and all of them, almost all of them, their licenses had expired three years prior.

When I asked people in the NHIS, would CBN deal with any bank that is not licensed? Would a doctor go and practice if he’s not licensed? Their licenses had expired. So, I did reaccreditation.

I’m criticizing President Tinubu’s government because there is no government worthy of criticizing than this one. It’s a government that has shown us more suffering than we’ve ever seen

One of the conditions of reaccreditation is that every HMO, even if you serve 1,000 hospitals, go to that CMD of each of the hospitals get me a letter of non independences signed by that CMD.

And then they started scrambling. They were going to pay off whatever debt they had. CMDs were calling me and blessing me for all of this.

So, we were not doing well as a regulator because the feeling was the NHIS, we allowed all of the shenanigans to go ahead.

The hospitals were not treating our patients well. We give NHIS money. Up to today, go and check, NHIS money sustains all tertiary hospitals in this country. The money NHIS gives them, it’s a lot of money, but they were not using it for the purpose it was supposed to be, taking care of patients.

They were using it to buy SUVs or build stuff. So, I had to read the riot act to ourselves that we have failed as a regulator. The HMOs, you cannot continue what you’re doing. You must pay up all the debt to hospitals. Hospitals, you must treat patients better.

And the ministry, of course, they wanted a piece of that. The National Assembly, they wanted a piece. So my fight was all over. But it was a good fight and I will do the same again if I have a chance.

Now that you seem to have concluded that what happened to you was a witch-hunt, will you still be able to constructively criticize the government without you garnishing it with the fact that you are convinced that what happened to you was a witchhunt?

I’ve been criticizing President Buhari since I left government and President Buhari is from my state. So, criticizing government is a constitutional right of every person.

So, I’m criticizing President Tinubu’s government because there is no government worthy of criticizing than this one. It’s a government that has shown us more suffering than we’ve ever seen.

So, even when I was in Kuje, when they thought they would lock me up 13 hours in a cell, I was able to write and criticize and express my right.

What would be your candid assessment of the first two years of President Tinubu’s administration zeroing down on economy, quality of life, insecurity and energy?

This time last year, when they were just celebrating the first year, I came out and I wrote. My summary then was the government of destitution, deceit and hopelessness.

They came with Renewed Hope. Well, now this is the second year, you want us to talk about energy, you want us to talk about economy and you want us to talk about security.

Let’s talk about energy. There was a report the other day that Katsina, Kano and Jigawa states have only two hours of electricity. Well, the Aso Villa itself is giving up on the national grid, and spending N10 billion of our money to go solar.

The Minister of Power is jumping up and down, grading A, B, C, without any sense. He’s saying if you are on Band A, you will have 20 hours of electricity. It’s all not true. I am on Band A; I’m getting no electricity. So, this part of the deceit is just continuing. There is no strategy at all.

You just talk today and tomorrow, you think we haven’t been to school. We’ve been to a lot of schools and we can tell fiction from fact. This is where we are.

Since President Buhari’s time, we’ve been talking about security because we risk our lives. I and Sheikh Gumi, we went into the forest to meet many of these guys.

Some of them have been killed. Why did we do that, risk our lives at a time when the government at that time and the military and the NSA did not want us to get involved?

We did that because it’s our land, it’s our people, and it’s our responsibility. I made a presentation to all the service chiefs at that time who are generally gracious enough to allow us to talk.

This is not a military problem. The banditry I know is not a military problem and it can never be won on the battlefield. All these conflicts you’re seeing, whether in Benue, Plateau, Kaduna, Katsina or Zamfara, and even the IPOB issues, are all social problems.

They’re not military problems and can never be won on the battlefield, We are putting the military in very unwinnable situations. The role of the military is to provide an enabling environment for dialogue to happen. Military goes in there, woo, and comes out.

But nobody is there to take care of the problem. It’s not the military that created this mess, it is politicians. The military is brought to clean up after the mess of politicians. The military is deployed all over the 36 states of this country and the Federal Capital Territory.

How many do we have? Boko Haram has lasted over 16 years and banditry over 11 years. Which military can stand this elasticity? Late Chief of Army Staff General, Taoreed Lagbaja, said it that his soldiers are getting battle fatigue. They are getting posttraumatic stress disorder and some of them are resorting to drugs.

Understandably, these are young men and many of them from depot training are shipped to war front. Many have never seen the barracks. We are putting the military in unwinnable situation. Many of these conflicts are not for the military. You send the military to Benue, Plateau, Sokoto and Katsina. What are they going to do? Who will they kill?

When we were young; this was the job of the mobile police. When the mobile police come into town, the bad guys know that a new sheriff is in town. But now, where are mobile policemen? They’re all here guarding the politicians, their wives and friends.