FEATURE ARTICLE

Temple Chima UbochiThursday, August 30, 2007
[email protected]
Bonn, Germany

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PROFESSOR DORA AKUNYILI:
BLESSED AMONG WOMEN AND IN A CLASS OF HER OWN

The greatest virtues are those which are most useful to other persons. (Aristotle)

Success, the real success, does not depend upon the position you hold, but, upon how you carry yourself in that position. (Plato)

Great thoughts speak only to the thoughtful mind, but, great actions speak to all mankind. (Emily P. Bissell)

he news (Vanguard August 23, 2007) that UN adjudges NAFDAC world's best regulatory body came as a pleasant surprise to many Nigerians. Nigerians know and appreciate the good work the body is doing, but, never thought that the body could be the best in the whole wide world. The report said that �the United Nations adjudged NAFDAC as one of the best regulatory bodies on drugs, food substances, cosmetics and the likes in the world�. UN Special Envoy on the Right to Health, Professor Paul Hunt made the observation during a working visit to the Director-General of NAFDAC Professor Dora Akunyili. Hunt said that a study carried out by the UN revealed that the activities of the agency reached far and beyond making it to stand tall among other world regulatory bodies. The paper quoted Hunt as having said that the world recognizes the inspirational role of NAFDAC and that the body is doing a very good job as it pushes for the people�s right to good health using good practices that should be exemplary to other regulatory bodies. Prof Hunt put it bluntly thus:


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�We are not trying to criticize any other regulatory authority, but what we are saying is that NAFDAC and its director-general has actually stood out in the study we undertook.�

Akunyili used the occasion according to the paper, to disclose that the circulation of fake drugs in the country has reduced tremendously in the last one year basing her report on a survey carried out by the World Health Organization to ascertain the level of compliance of manufacturers as well as patients� response in hospitals. We are told the prevalence rate for circulation of fake drug has dropped from 45% to 16% in the last one year.

Early this year, Prof. Akunyili received a BBC award in recognition of her transparency and integrity (ThisDay February 23, 2007).

What manner of a woman is this Dora? It is very hard these days to see somebody so committed to what he or she is doing like Dora. For the first time in a very long time, something good instead of bad is coming out of Nigeria. For the very first time in memory, a body from Nigeria receives encomium instead of rebuke. For the first time as long as I can remember, the whole world is being told to emulate and not to despise something from Nigeria. For the very first time, a body from Nigeria is the best and not the worst in the world. Prof Dora Akunyili made all these possible.

Dora is a woman of substance that refused all the bribes offered to her to make her compromise on the good job she is doing, when that failed, several attempts were made on her life. She missed death once by a whisker, as the almighty will have it, she survived. This is a woman fighting organised vested interests that have money and the clout. This is a woman fighting the drug mafias alone. The drug mafias are deadly people with all the money in this world. Before Dora came to NAFDAC, the drug mafias were flouting the law without repercussions, but, Dora tamed them with her strong will and principles. Dora closed the Onitsha Drug Market, the worst fake drug haven in the whole of the African continent.

Before Dora came on board, Nigerians were dying like flies from fake drugs the drug importers and sellers dumped in the market having connived with the local and Indian manufacturers who are also major culprits here. The bakeries were using flours containing lethal substances in baking breads. Dora came and sanitised the bakery industry. The bottled waters were in no way purified as people were dying from typhoid fever and other water-borne diseases after taking them. Dora came and changed all these, at least, to a certain level. Illegal breweries were sprouting up here and there at people�s backyards, fraudulently imitating the registered trademarks, churning out poisons into the market. Dora came and is fighting them to a stand still.

I�ve observed that the women are succeeding where the men failed: Dora Akunyili, Oby Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke are pace setters. Oby Ezekwesili, who is now the Vice President of World Bank incharge of African affairs, is also a rare breed. Obasanjo brought her over from Transparency International to head the Due Process Office and from there she took over the ministry of solid minerals and then to the Education ministry. She excelled everywhere she was posted to. She was called �Madam due process� because she brought sanity to the contract awarding system which was before she came in, rotten to the core and the easiest way then of embezzling the national wealth. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala contributed more than any other living Nigerian in seeing that Nigeria is a debt-free nation, thereby earning a lot of respect for Nigeria in the international scene. She toiled hard to achieve that feat despite all the organised odds against her and her efforts. Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke is leaving an indelible mark in a place that is supposed to be the preserve of men. The Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE) she is heading is growing and waxing stronger every day. Ndi is doing what the men were unable to do, she is conquering frontiers men found insurmountable.

While these and other achieving women were bestriding the landscape and towering it like colossuses, the men ( be they politicians, civil servants or technocrats) from Yar�dua to the last man were like dogs with their tails in between their legs. While these women were standing, their male counterparts were crawling (save from this group are some men who are achievers too like Soludo, Ribadu, Rufai and some bankers etc.). Dora is still standing tall, while the politicians right from the president down are quivering. Please can anybody tell Yar�dua to resign having admitted several times that the April polls were massively rigged, what�s the hell is he still doing in office? Knowing that the election was rigged, why is Yar�dua still defending the petitions against his election in the court? Some of us gave him a benefit of doubt, because Atiku and Buhari are no angels as their parties also engaged in rigging in one way or the other, only that PDP as a party of professional riggers out rigged them all. But, Yar�dua�s constant admittance that the election was rigged is leaving us with no other choice but to call for his resignation. Don�t Yar�dua think that his utterance can compromise his chances of winning the cases against him in court?

Dora Akunyili is telling Nigerians through her work that we can achieve more, if, we put our minds to what we are doing. While the men are flip-flopping, some of the women (not the likes of Patricia Etteh, Speaker of the House of Representatives) are charting new courses and excelling where the men failed. These women of substance are succeeding because they did not allow corruption to deter them from doing their jobs. The women are succeeding, because, they are not thinking of how to be the richest persons in Nigeria. Dora is telling us that it is possible to put service above self. Dora is telling us that we can fix our roads, if those incharge forgo selfish aggrandisement. Dora is telling us that our health, education, aviation sectors can work like in the western world, if those taking the decisions in those sectors forgo self enrichment and stop relegating the people�s welfare to the back burner.

Dora is talking to all the male politicians and government officials, telling them how they failed Nigeria. In my place, we used to say, that �men do the fighting and the women do the storytelling thereafter�, but, now it is the other way round, �the women are doing the fighting and the men are telling the story�. Shame on all the politicians and government officials that allowed Nigeria to get to this level of decadence, they all should go to Dora Akunyili, Oby Ezekwesili, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, and Ndi Okereke-Onyiuke to learn a lot. Last year, BBC did a commentary on Dora, I watched it; during the commentary, she was cooking while answering questions; the food she was then cooking were meant for some of her staffs in the field. She is such a humble woman. To Dora�s husband, thank God for such a wife, to her children, thank God for such a mother, to the relatives, thank God for such a relation and to Nigerians, thank God immensely for such a wonderful director-general. A person with incorruptible integrity that is rare in a world of corruption.

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