Former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), Prof Usman Yusuf, has said that the sufferings inflicted on citizens in the last five months by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led Federal Government are quite worrisome.
He stressed that they were having serious, devastating effects on the people, regardless of their ethnicities, faiths or geographical origins.
He said that Nigeria’s economy was in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) with high inflation, high debt burden and costs of serving it, dwindling foreign reserves, high cost of governance, insecurity, and persistent corruption, among others.
He specifically said that there would never be security in any society without addressing the drivers of poverty, hunger, insecurity, corruption, bad governance, rise in the cost of living, illiteracy, drugs abuse, youth unemployment, and, proliferation of arms.
Prof Yusuf noted that, unfortunately, the President Tinubu’s administration and previous governments have been in denial about the presence of these drivers.
Yusuf particularly said that it must be understood that no military in the world could bomb away poverty, illiteracy, hunger or grievances, adding that state governors bore huge responsibility for the current state of insecurity in the country because they controlled its drivers.
The Professor of Haematology oncology and bone marrow transplantation noted that State Governors had worsened poverty by emasculating Local Governments Councils by holding onto their funds and therefore called on the governments at the federal and state levels to, as a matter of urgency, address the drivers of insecurity first, if it desired to tackle the security challenges in the country.
Yusuf said that that these wwre very challenging times for Nigeria with a nose-diving economy, rising inflation, biting increase in the cost of living, insecurity all across the land and a president whose legitimacy was in question.
He noted that Nigeria was not sharply divided along ethnic lines but, increasingly divided along socio-economic lines, saying; “The state and federal governments must as a matter of urgency, address these drivers of insecurity first.
“The governors should work collaboratively and consult all local stakeholders because all problems are local, and the solutions must be found locally.” [Source: Sun]
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