Prof Usman Yusuf is a former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS). In this interview monitored on Arise Television, he speaks on the arrest of minors involved in the #EndBadGovernance protest, the new Tax Bill before the National Assembly, among other issues. 

What is your perspective on the implication of prosecuting minors and your views on the legality and ethics of charging these young protesters for treason?

I won’t give you the legal angle because I’m not a lawyer, but I will talk about ethics and morals. Video clips were sent to me from no lesser place than outside the country. I didn’t see them. I got one sent from Chicago from an unknown number, and the other one from as far away as Brisbane, Australia.

I called the numbers. These guys were journalists. They had seen the clips before I saw them. And they were asking me: Is this real? Is this part of my school abductions?

I mean, watching this clip, to be honest, was heart-wrenching. The point I bring about this foreign journalist calling me is we do not know the damage this thing has done to us in this country.

The image of Nigeria and this government is dented by this. For us in the North, this is clearly reminiscent of the days, when you had mass school abductions by bandits. And we bring them out in this large number. Fortunately for us, the case we saw, arraigned by the Minister of Justice to a Federal Court, looks much worse than what we always get from bandits.

Even bandits take care of children better than our government. I mean, fellow Nigerians, these children, over 2,000 protesters were arrested during this #EndBadGovernance Protest, a protest that is the legitimate right of every citizen. Many were kept without their parents knowing where they were.

They were blindfolded. We are getting reports from those who were released. They were blindfolded and transported and detained in centres across the North.

These children were brought from Kano, Kaduna, Jos and Gombe to Abuja. What were their alleged crimes; treason, trying to incite mutiny and change of government by the military, waving Russian flag and causing regime change. This government is so jumpy and insecure because of what it’s doing to this country.

I mean, there’s no two ways about it. This government is trying to terrorise us and terrorise the most vulnerable amongst us, our children, and decriminalizing legitimate protests in this country. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a beneficiary of protest and agitation in this country.

And what his government is doing is trying to stifle any voice and the voices of children. President Bola Tinubu is not only our commander-in-chief but leader of a nation that is a signatory to treaties all over the world in protecting the rights of children.

He’s also the chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). What is he going to tell them? This is a blow and a huge shame to this country that we’re doing this to our children by the government. When we collect these children from bandits, we take them to the hospital and take care of them.

This government is trying to terrorise us and terrorise the most vulnerable amongst us, our children and decriminalizing legitimate protests in this country

But what did President Tinubu’s government do to these children that collapsed in the court of law? They took them back to jail and what did the Attorney General do when he came out? He said he was going to recall the file.

Excuse me, Mr. Attorney General, there’s no file to recall. What we Nigerians demand is immediate and unconditional release of all of these children. They need to be taken care of in the hospital. They need to be better nourished. All their medical issues need to be taken care of.

They need to be fully compensated for the pain and suffering this government has cost them. And their parents need to be fully compensated. And full investigation must be done as to who is responsible. The Inspector General of Police must take full responsibility for this because this disturbing act was done on his watch.

We are hearing reports that the police abducted children from cities in the North – Kano, Kaduna, Jos and Gombe – and illegally transported them for rendition in Abuja to unknown locations. Many of their parents do not know where they are. Their appearance in court was the first time they saw them.

So, President Tinubu by this action is terrorizing our citizens with the full complicity of the security services that swore to protect us and the courts that swore to uphold the law.

This is unacceptable. It’s not going to be accepted. The law is a noble profession, and I salute, and every Nigerian should salute the efforts of the lawyers of these children, who doggedly and pro bono defended these children.

Without them, we would not have known this. In the same breath, I am going to condemn, and every Nigerian should condemn the callous actions of the prosecuting lawyer and the prosecuting judge. The law, like medicine, is common sense. The judge should have known that these children needed medical care, not to be left lying on the floor in a court of law. Where are they?

How many have died? How many are going to die? We need to have a full account of this. These children must be reunited with their families and fully compensated. The president needs to address this nation and stop this criminality we are seeing. It’s not acceptable.

Despite the condemnation that this has rightly generated what about those who are not minors; are you also saying that the crimes they committed should be ignored? The second part is about the minors; don’t you think that this speaks to a larger concern, particularly in the North, about out-of-school children?

You are preaching to the choir but you are not going to give any excuse, any excuse to anybody for this nonsense we’re seeing. Nobody, no government should be responsible for what we are seeing. So out-of-school, in-school is no excuse for this.

There are those that we elected, in states and federal, that are supposed to take care of these children, and they are the ones you should bring to this chair and ask those questions of. I am here to protest against what the Federal Government has done to our children.

Whether you are a baby or a 90-year-old, you have the right to protest, and nobody should criminalize protest, and that is what this government is doing. Give nobody any excuse for this. If you want to talk about out-of-school children we’ll make it another day and we will call the governors of all the states. But don’t make that as an excuse.

I am not holding forth for any government, but no government should give us any excuse for what we are seeing. I’m not talking the legal; there are lawyers to do that, I’m here to talk about the fundamental human rights of these children that have been violated. I’m here to talk about children who should not have been there.

I’m here to talk about if there are problems in Kano, Katsina or Kaduna, they should be prosecuted there, not children blindfolded and transported in the middle of the night in black Maria by Gestapo police to Abuja. It’s not acceptable, and the world should know that. We must all raise our voices.

These children are being accused of treason for raising the Russian flag but some Nigerians are wondering if these malnourished children are the ones pushing for regime change?

Why the children are there is the failure of government at all levels, local, federal and state, and the failure of communities. We all went to school.

Our parents were not wealthy. From the commonwealth of our people, our education was paid for. We went into the world and competed favourably because leaders of that time invested in us.

That is why today, each time we raise our hands, we pray for three people, our parents who departed, our teachers who taught us well, and our leaders who invested in us. You can’t say the same of leaders of today. It is the failure of government, it is the failure of leadership that we have these children all over.

The last Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, said has been the longest-serving Minister of Education and he’s not proud of it because during his time, we have over 20 million Nigerian children out of school. So it’s the failure of government, and that’s what we’ve been talking about. Corruption and bad governance, this is what we have since the arrival of democracy in this country.

What is your take on the pushback from Northern governors on the Reformed VAT Tax Bill before the National Assembly?

Northern governors met in Kaduna to talk about VAT and they want to accrue more money. Let me say that they were not there for us and the country or the region. They were there because they were not going to get more money. But this is the truth about VAT; VAT is a consumption tax.

If Dangote has a cement factory in Obajana, Kogi State, he doesn’t pay VAT in Kogi; he pays VAT in Lagos because Lagos is his headquarters. Many of the oil companies are in the Niger Delta region. That’s where they have their operations, but their headquarters are in Lagos. So, they pay VAT in Lagos. What has Lagos done to earn that?

Lagos is getting all of that money and now you say that money is yours. No, it isn’t. Lagos is what it is today thanks to Nigeria’s commonwealth. All the infrastructures were built by the Nigerian commonwealth, the ports, the bridges and everything. If anybody asks you, you must pay.

So people need to be sensible. There is this thing they call the old Zulu adage, Ubuntu, ‘You are who you are because of me.’ It’s common humanity. But there is this selfishness of ‘it’s me’ and the President is following that. It’s raising an antenna alarm in the North.

What the President essentially is doing is trying to pool all the resources to the South-West, particularly Lagos. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, but the President needs to hear the pulse of the North, the pulse of our people. Dangote is paying VAT in Lagos with his factories in the North.

Yes, the President has sent a bill to the National Assembly about his tax reform and that is his right as the executive. But it is the right of our representatives to reject the bill and we are watching them very closely. It is the right of our representatives to fight for us and kill that bill if it does not do well for the people they are representing.

End of story. There is no argument. This is what democracy is all about. President Tinubu, on his own, cannot do things without reverting to the National Assembly and we have our representatives there that we will hold accountable. That’s how much I will say about this

[New Telegraph]