Babagana Zulum, the Borno State Governor, has visited some public healthcare centres undercover to expose corrupt health officials extorting unsuspecting individuals.

After the visit on Thursday, Zulum said he found some officials collecting between N8,000 and N10,000 from patients for free healthcare services.

The governor had asked Juliana Bitrus, the state’s health commissioner, to join him on a 10-seater bus that is usually used for airport services.

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According to Issa Gusau, the governor’s spokesperson, Zulum visited the hospital without a convoy, leaving everyone surprised.

“Not even the health commissioner knew the governor’s plan,” Gusau said. “Zulum headed straight to the newly established and fully equipped primary healthcare centre at Gwange II ward in Maiduguri and found that some workers were collecting between N8,000 and N10,000 before diagnosing and treating patients of common ailments like Malaria.”

While narrating his experience after the mission, Zulum decried the high level of corruption and ineptitude demonstrated by the staff of the health centre.

“The staff we met here (at Gwange II, PHC) confirmed that they collect between N8,000 to N10,000 from patients to treat malaria,” he said. “In fact they have turned this government health centre into a private hospital, and this is why the centre has been deserted by people who mostly do not have the money to access services here. The workers just collect money and put it in their pockets.”

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He also lamented that the same primary healthcare centre had only one medical professional on the ground to attend to patients, despite having 29 health workers on government payroll.

“You can imagine that at 2:00 pm, this primary healthcare centre we built and fully equipped is empty (because of extortion and lack of medical staff). This level of impunity cannot be tolerated. The earlier we address it, the better for all of us,” said the governor.

Meanwhile, Zulum is not the first Nigerian executive to investigate corruption undercover. On October 18, Isa Idris, the acting Comptroller General of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), also disguised as an applicant for an international passport at the Lagos State Command, Ikoyi, after which he alleged that some officers of the service offered to engage in shady deals with him.

Like Prof Zulum, the Immigration boss said his unscheduled visit to Ikoyi was to confirm the allegations against officers of the immigration offices in Lagos, including Ikeja and FESTAC town.

Although many critics said the undercover tactics of these two leaders were political, others praised their approach to exposing corrupt government officials.