More revelations have emerged why President
Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday sacked Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of five
agencies under the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH).
President Buhari after a meeting with a team from
the Global Fund for AIDS, TB and Malaria and Global Vaccine Initiative (GAVI)
in Abuja earlier on Tuesday
communicated the message to the CEOs through the
Attorney General of the Federation (AGF).
The agencies have been under investigation by the
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) after a report from the
Inspector General Office of the Global Fund accused them of financial
misappropriation and systemic inefficiency.
The agencies and their CEOs include: Prof. John
Idoko of the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA); Dr. Ado Gana
Muhammad of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA); Prof.
Innocent Ujah of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) Yaba, Lagos;
Dr. Abdulsalami Nasidi of the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC); and
Mr. Olufemi Akingbade of the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS)
The Guardian reliably gathered that the team from
GAVI and Global Fund insisted that President Buhari sacked the CEOs as part of
reassurances and conditions for continued funding of the suspended health
projects.
However, Buhari has approved the appointment of new
heads to the five critical Federal Government health agencies, even as the
National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) was
conspicuously left out.
Director of Press in the Office of the Secretary to
the Government of the Federation (OSGF), Bolaji Adebiyi, in a statement,
yesterday, gave the names of the new helmsmen as: Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu to head
the NCDC; Dr. Sani Aliyu as new Director General of NACA; Prof. Babatunde Lawal
Salako as new CEO of NIMR; Prof. Echezona Ezeanolue as new Executive Director
of NPHCDA; and Prof. Usman Yusuf as new Executive Secretary of NHIS.
Ihekweazu was before the appointment, the Managing
Partner of EpiAfric, a public health consultancy firm that focuses on Africa.
He obtained his medical degree at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1996 and
had worked in Berlin, Germany, the United Kingdom and in South Africa before he
established his consulting firm in 2014.
Aliyu is currently a Consultant in Microbiology and
Infectious Diseases at Cambridge University, United Kingdom. He got his medical
degree from Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria in 1993. Aliyu worked as a
medical officer at the State House Medical Centre, Abuja and from there moved
to Cambridge in 1998. He rose through the ranks until he became a Consultant in
Microbiology.
Salako is currently the Provost, College of
Medicine at the University of Ibadan. He graduated from the same University in
1986, a fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians in both Edinburg and London.
He is also a member of an International Panel of Experts, United States
Institute of Disease Control in Atlanta.
Ezeanolue is currently a Professor of Paediatrics
and Public Health at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, United States (U.S.).
He got his medical degree at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1995.
He did
his paediatric internship and residency at the Howard University, Washington
DC, US and obtained his Fellowship in Paediatric Infectious Disease from New
Jersey Medical School. He moved to Nevada in 2005 where he remains to date
practising Paediatric medicine.
Yusuf is currently a Professor of Paediatrics at
St. Jude Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. He graduated in medicine
from ABU and worked in the University Teaching Hospital from 1984 to 1989.
Yusuf worked in the United Kingdom from 1990 to 1995 from where he moved first
to South Carolina, U.S., where he rose to become a fellow in Paediatric
Hematology/Oncology in 1998. He is a Fellow of Royal Society of Tropical
Medicine and Hygiene, the West African College of Physicians and the American
Academy of Physicians.
Meanwhile, President Buhari said on Thursday that
despite Nigeria’s shortcomings, he was impressed with the patience and
steadfastness of the country’s leading supporters for healthcare delivery. He
said that the lapses that have characterised Nigeria as a nation would be
corrected.
“We are making genuine efforts to correct the
lapses. We are very serious about people behaving themselves, and being
accountable,” said Buhari while receiving a team led by Dr. Seth Berkley, Chief
Executive Officer of GAVI and The Global Fund in State House, Abuja.
“We thank you for deciding to re-engage with us,
despite our inefficiencies. You decided to be here, not minding our
shortcomings. There are other countries that would bring fewer problems. We
appreciate your commitment, and we will do our best to put ourselves in the
best shape to help us,” President Buhari said.
GAVI and Global Fund had in the last two years
alleged shortcomings and corruption, which was discovered by both by Nigerian
officials in the handling of grants from the Non Government Organisations
(NGOs) amounting to several millions of dollars. Only this year, Global Fund
suspended its Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) grants to NACA.
Berkley, who noted that the three focal points of the Buhari administration; security, economic development, and anti-corruption were critical to the future of Nigeria, had raised issues over the way donor funds for health care were utilised in the past.
He said Gavi and the Global Fund were disappointed
when forensic audit revealed systemic weaknesses and corruption in the
utilisation of funds given in the past, adding that there is now a “breath of
fresh air” under President Buhari’s leadership and fight against corruption and
they were willing to “close the books of the past, and look into future support.”
Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, who was
also at the event, disclosed that those indicted in the audit of the donor
funds in the past, which was done between 2010 and 2015, had already been
questioned by the EFCC, and would be arraigned in court soon.
Guardian
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