A former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA), Prof. Usman Yusufm said on Saturday no reasonable person in the Northern part of the country would ever subscribe to the Muslim – Muslim ticket again.
Yusuf, who spoke at a one day Consultative Forum organized by a political pressure group, Tafjyan Matasan Arewa (Northern Youths Movement), in Bauchi, advised Northerners to stop blaming anyone over the present economic and security situations in the region.
The problems, according to him, were self-inflicted and deliberate injury perpetrated by the leaders for personal gains.
He said: “No Northerner should blame anyone for our current situation. We brought it upon ourselves. In 2015 we voted out the administration under the pretence of Boko Haram. Today, where are we? We had Muhammadu Buhari as President for eight years, yet, the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road is not completed.
“Today, billions of Naira has been earmarked for the Lagos – Calabar coastal highway. Who are we to blame for this? Ourselves of course. Our children cannot go to school, the farmers cannot go to the farms because of insecurity, banditry. Who are the bandits, who are the Boko Haram? Now, we have another Lakurawa, who are these people? Our people of course.”
“I can hear discordant voices all over the Northern region of betrayal, the question is who betrayed who? Out of the over eight million votes President Bola Ahmed Tinubu scored in 2023 general elections, over five million came from the North. That means the North chose to be betrayed.
“In 2015, it was the same North that voted for Muhammadu Buhari as President. He spent eight years, he could not complete a viable project in the region but this present administration within one year, go and see what it has done for the other side of the country.
“All we can do is to sit idle and cry that we have been betrayed. We have people in the National Assembly, they do not talk for the North since the exit of people like Gudaji Kazaure. Whatever happened to the North was caused by the Northerners.”
“We used to have good leadership in this country, leaders who built good schools, roads, hospitals and other infrastructure not minding who was where, there was no discrimination in them, their focus was the people, the country.
“It was when I came in to government that I realized that it was not the work that should be done but how the money must be shared. All my efforts to let them know that the funds allocated to NHIA was for good of the people fell on death ears, but it had to be shared.
“If you don’t know, let me tell you that eight governors put us in the present situation in the North. They assiduously promoted the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket. It did not only brought the present administration but brought out sharp division in the North, between Muslims and Christians who were before now brothers and sisters.
“There is serious acrimony in the North because the indigenous Christians are saying the Muslims brought problem for them. I am convinced that no reasonable Northerner will do Muslim – Muslim ticket.”