Tinubu’s health insurance will cover 87 million Nigerians in first two years - APC chieftain

President-elect Bola Tinubu has targeted providing health care insurance for at least 87 million Nigerians in his first two years in office.

This was announced Monday in Abuja by Oyakhilome Bello, APC United States national youth leader in Abuja.

According to the APC youth leader, Mr Tinubu will ensure that 40 per cent of Nigerians benefit by deploying the mandatory National Health Insurance Scheme, noting that the president-elect planned to achieve this expansion by increasing the financing available for the Basic Health Care Provision Fund and the Vulnerable Group Fund recently established by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The scheme, he added, was to insure the health of vulnerable Nigerians.

Mr Bello added that Mr Tinubu planned to decentralise the social health insurance scheme to bring all Nigerians under a central national scheme to be managed by the National Health Insurance Authority.

The APC chieftain advised Nigerians to check their vital signs regularly to live healthy and longer. He gave the advice at a medical outreach sponsored by Ade Omole, the director of diaspora of the dissolved APC Presidential Campaign Council (PCC), to support a political pressure group, Patriots in Defense of Democracy.

Mr Bello stressed that vital signs monitoring was crucial for living a healthy and long life because it “gives us a glimpse into our overall well-being and signal early signs of an infection as well as prevent a misdiagnosis.”

The group had, since March 26, been holding a pre-inauguration daily hangout at the Abuja Unity Fountain for Mr Tinubu, who is widely believed to be battling an undisclosed ailment, sometimes appearing as a bumbling, inarticulate figure.

Tosin Adeyanju, the group’s convener, said the hangout was in solidarity with the mandate given by Nigerians to Mr Tinubu on February 25. He explained that the hangout aimed to redirect the ongoing narratives about the presidential election and the emergence of their principal as the president-elect, which will continue until May 29, when Mr Tinubu would be sworn in.