Tinubu’s government deliberately denied me bail to shake me up… all to try and silence me. But I am not someone who can be silenced
Professor Usman Yusuf, who served as NHIS’s Executive Secretary before President Bola Tinubu took office, has claimed that the current administration is trying to silence him by using the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as a weapon because he dared to criticize the government.
Yusuf claimed in a Sunday appearance with Arise Television that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) had detained him recently in an effort to quiet him.
“This government deliberately denied me bail to shake me up… all to try and silence me. But I am not someone who can be silenced.”
Yusuf was brought before the Federal Capital Territory High Court in February by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to face a five-count accusation of alleged fraud. He pleaded not guilty.
During his account of the sequence of events that led to his arrest, Yusuf stated that EFCC agents broke into his residence on January 29 without first presenting a warrant for his arrest.
“As they entered the house, they announced that they were searching for me and asserted that I was anticipating their arrival.
“They did not reveal their badges until much later.”
He detailed the manner in which the agents stopped him from changing his clothes and barred his wife from presenting him with other garments.
Yusuf further related how, as he was being transported, the officers treated him “as if they had captured a notorious criminal like Kachalla Bello Turji,” who was a notorious bandit leader.
Yusuf was held in jail by the EFCC for a period of six days prior to his arraignment. After his arraignment, he was denied bail, which he deemed to be an unconstitutional action. “Bail is a constitutionally guaranteed right for any accused person, with the exception of cases involving terrorism or crimes that carry the death penalty. “My case was neither of those things.
“The whole purpose was for the government of President Bola Tinubu to try to silence any form of dissent. This is coming from a president who himself was once a NADECO activist, someone who fought against the military dictatorship.”
In 2016, Yusuf was given the position of executive secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) by the former President Muhammadu Buhari. As a result of charges of corruption, he was initially suspended in 2017 and then again in 2018 by the health minister and the board of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). He was ultimately dismissed from office in 2019.