NIGERIANS AND SCHEMING

In the Nigerian environment everybody is a schemer, your blood relative is scheming to defraud you or have you kidnapped so that the ransom can be shared with his/her hired perpetrators, government’s programs are called schemes, not plans or programs, your pastor or imam is scheming to have your only car tithed to him/her, your lecturer is scheming to have you in bed whereas your selected representative is scheming to claim 65 percent of the National budget as salaries; housing, health, car and constituency allowances as remuneration for passing no bills in 4 years.

Nigeria instituted a National Health Insurance Scheme without a “National Hospital Scheme”, a “National Ambulance Scheme” or a “National Prescription Scheme”. By naming programs schemes, there are no concrete evaluation yardsticks because a scheme has negative connotations just as a schemer has negative connotations.