Inyang, who narrated his ordeal to SaharaReporters said that based on the announcement made by Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on March 6, 2019, on the National Television Authority (NTA), he developed massive healthcare income-generating strategies that could generate N20 trillion per annum but the government used his intellectual property without due copyright permission or attribution.
A Nigerian youth, Rotimi Olayiwola Inyang, has lamented that he is frustrated and depressed following President Muhammadu Buhari government’s alleged blatant copyright infringement of the healthcare premium generating strategy he developed.
Inyang, who narrated his ordeal to SaharaReporters said that based on the announcement made by Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, on March 6, 2019, on the National Television Authority (NTA), he developed massive healthcare income-generating strategies that could generate N20 trillion per annum but the government used his intellectual property without due copyright permission or attribution.
Speaking with SaharaReporters, Inyang maintained that he is not a lazy Nigerian youth, (referring to President Buhari’s comment some years ago that Nigerian youths are lazy), saying that he is only being defrauded, frustrated and ruined in no small amount by the Nigerian government.
Inyang explained that on March 6, 2019, Osinbajo, while featuring on NTA, called on all Nigerians to come up with the best income-generating strategies to finance free healthcare for all Nigerian citizens.
According to Inyang, the Vice President lamented that the strong desire of the Nigerian government to achieve free healthcare for all Nigerian citizens was recurrently being financially constrained.
The Vice President further elucidated that the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was greatly underfunded.
“Hearing this, my undying Spirit of patriotism got ignited and I swung into action of ruminating and excogitating a series of ingeniously massive income-generating strategies to the tune of N20 trillion per annum, to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
“To validate my authorship of this great work, I submitted the blueprint of this elegant, lucid and thought-provoking massive annual income-generating initiatives as required and requested, to the Nigerian Copyright Commission (NCC) for registration, on the 14th day of May, 2019.
“After 28 days of painstaking perusal of this annual massive income generating initiatives by the Nigerian Copyright Commission of the Federal Government of Nigeria, I was issued a Copyright Registration Certificate, with Registration Number LW4363, on the 11th day of June, 2019, in validation of my authorship of this copyrighted great work.
“To my utter dismay, towards the late months of the year 2021, December to be precise, President Muhammadu Buhari brazenly infringed on this said copyrighted work and used same without authorization.
“This was evident by the transformation of this ingenious copyrighted initiatives into series of bills: Finance Act signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 31, 2021; the National Health Insurance Authority Bill 2021, among the rest, signed into law, by this very government on May 19, 2022 and published in The Punch Newspaper on May 24, 2022. The publication was equally replicated in The Independent Newspaper, The Sun Newspaper, Legit NG, TheCable News, to mention but just a few,” Inyang told SaharaReporters.
Speaking further, Inyang said that all these happened without due compensation and attribution for his labour and ingenious creativity.
Inyang who said he has all the documentary evidence of what happened recounted that he had written to President Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federal and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami and the Director-General of the Nigerian Copyright Commission but nothing came out of it.
He further pointed out that like the federal government, the Lagos State government and the FBN General Insurance of FBN Holdings infringed on his intellectual work.
“I have equally been intellectually defrauded by the Lagos State Government with FBN General Insurance of the FBN Holdings. I am the brains behind the concepts of Compulsory Private Building Insurance Scheme and Compulsory Health Insurance Scheme, used and published by the Lagos State Government in The Punch, Tribune and Vanguard Newspapers, towards the expansion of its income generating capacities,” he said.
According to him, “Despite the thorough investigation and the establishment of the truth beyond every reasonable doubt by the current Deputy Governor, His Excellency Kadri Obafemi Hamzat, from the former Commissioner for Special Duties and Intergovernmental Relations, Oluseye Oladejo, of the Ambode's administration, who oversaw the agency (the Lagos State Safety Commission), who took up this conceptualized project of mine, pursuant to the revealing information I was given by the former Commissioner for Finance, Akinyemi Ashade Jeremiah, via telephone conversation on September 21, 2017, the Lagos State government has not deemed it fit to honour and compensate me, apart from the Deputy Governor paying the University tuition fee of my daughter on a personal ground.
“I had placed a demand of N20 billion on the Lagos State government and FBN General Insurance of the FBN Holdings, through the mediatory platform of the Lagos Multidoor Court House in 2018.
“The Lagos State government surprisingly blamed the profitable use of my ingenious initiatives on the past administration, regardless of its awareness of the fact that government is a continuum.
“I had selflessly and sacrificially explored various means of amicable settlement, both at the state and federal level, but to no avail. This is very unfortunate. The Nigerian youths are not lazy. Leadership is the problem of Nigeria,” he lamented.
Document (1) by Sahara Reporters