[FLASHBACK] Dora Akunyili: ‘My son said, Mummy, you’re burning people’s money!’

In 2003, Simon Kolawole had an interview with Mrs Dora Akunyili, who was then the director-general of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). She spoke extensively on her war against fake and substandard drugs. The encounter was published under the column, SIMON KOLAWOLE LIVE!, on May 17, 2003 in THISDAY. It is reproduced below.

This is Dora. Dora Akunyili. Dr. Dora Nkem Akunyili, OFR. You know her, of course. THAT woman who derives pleasure from setting billions of naira ablaze. At the last count, she had burnt N5 billion. This is how she does it: she goes with armed men; they stand there in the open, pour inflammable liquid on people’s money while she watches and – pronto – you have burning hell in front of you.

Burning people’s money? Not exactly. Let’s be honest: THAT woman is actually saving lives. She’s saving kidneys. She’s saving companies from bankruptcy. You can therefore understand the “pleasure” she derives from setting murder weapons on fire! She is the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), the body charged with ensuring the quality, safety, efficacy and wholesomeness of food, drugs, cosmetics, medical services, chemicals, detergents and packaged water. NAFDAC regulates and controls the importation, exportation, manufacture, advertisement, distribution, sale and use of these regulated products.

“Let me make a confession,” the mother of six, who will clock 49 on July 14, says. “The press has really helped us. We have benefited tremendously from the publicity the press gives to our activities. For instance, we have a lot of equipment donated to us by foreign bodies. We get calls from different countries everyday based on what they read in the papers. As I’m talking to you, at least 15 of our staff members are on training in different parts of Europe every month, free of charge. We are really grateful for this massive media support.”

Akunyili is clearly a star among giants. I am astonished watching her talk. There is this passion, fervour, craze, whatever, that goes with the way she talks about her job. She gesticulates, ruminates, and – I wish I could find the right word – she is… Let me just say she is infatuated with this job. When you meet somebody who enjoys what she is doing, you will know. Dora is consumed by this zeal.

“We have carried out 65 destruction exercises so far,” she says. “Drugs and unwholesome products worth over N5 billion have been destroyed. There was a time we were carrying out destruction exercises every fortnight. Now we do that every month. We have destroyed over 4 metric tonnes of regulated products in Port Harcourt alone.”

The rewards have been coming. One, bans placed on Nigerian drugs by West African countries like Ghana and Sierra Leone have been lifted. Two, medicine traders have become “born again” – at least 50% of the over N850 million worth of goods destroyed in Onitsha, Anambra State, in July 2001 were “handed in voluntarily by repentant medicine traders”. In October, the same year, out of the N1billion worth of drugs destroyed in Lagos, a repentant trader actually turned in N685 million on his own volition.

Three, there has been a steady decrease in the number of deaths resulting from use of fake drugs. (One celebrity casualty of fake drugs is Jaguar, a Pidgin English comedian, who died about three years ago.) There has been a reduction in the number of kidney failures reported by hospitals.

“We are still collating the figures,” she explains. “But look at it: what will make the kidneys of a 25 year old fail? Simple: it is what you eat or drink. Some of the creams our ladies rub on their bodies can also cause this as their body systems absorb these creams. Many of our breweries don’t write the alcohol content and ‘best before’ dates on their beer, thereby deceiving the people. Bread manufacturers are aware that potassium bromate causes cancer, loss of hearing, kidney failure and breakdown of vitamins, yet they keep using it. Potassium bromate was banned more than 10 years ago!”

She counts more blessings: Whereas, many multinational companies like Boehringer, ICI, Sandoz, Merck and Aventis Pharma, left Nigeria in frustration because of the activities of these fake drug dealers, the ones that remained behind are reaping the fruits of NAFDAC’s labour today. “The production capacities of our local pharmaceutical industries have increased tremendously according to reports by individual manufacturers and the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Group of Nigeria,” the pharmacist-cum-pharmacologist asserts. “Glaxo Smithkline was reported to have recorded a 77% growth in sales, which the General Manager West Africa attributed to NAFDAC living up to its responsibilities of enforcing strict compliance to product regulation.”

Personally, she has benefited too. She was decorated with a national honour, OFR, by President Olusegun Obasanjo. She was also chosen as an Icon of Hope by Obasanjo last October. “You know what?” she asks. “We get at least five letters of commendation from Nigerians everyday. Nigerians are wonderful people. They appreciate even little efforts.”

As an icing on the cake, she is due to receive an award from Transparency International (TI) next week in recognition of her anti-corruption stand and doggedness in her fight against fake and unwholesome products. TI has consistently rated Nigeria among the most corrupt countries in the world. Interestingly, a Nigerian is bagging an award for transparency. She is the only African on the list, and she is one of the top three in the whole world!

Despite this, however, she has passed through moments when she felt discouraged. “The saddest day of my life was the day our laboratory was vandalised,” she recollects. Her face drops. You can see her enthusiasm deflated. “The way the vandalisation was done showed that it was a well-planned, well-executed job done by experts. They knew the most sensitive parts to tamper with. I was so sad. Another scary day was the day some armed men invaded my Abuja residence. By divine arrangement, they did not meet me at home. They broke into the house quite all right, but they did not take anything away. There are also times I find all kinds of fetish in my office – dried tortoise, dried leaves, beads, all sorts. But I am not moved.

“Thousands of Nigerians die from fake drugs every year. Is my life worth more than their lives? I will keep on fighting. If only we get adequate support from Customs, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), and Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), not a single fake tablet will come into this country. We will keep on fighting in any case. And we are making progress. There is behavioural change. The awareness is there. My staff are with me. I can vouch for them. The corrupt ones, we are identifying and sacking them. The majority of our staff are trustworthy. You cannot bribe them. I am saying this because I am sure of my fact!”

One incident that this devout Catholic always remembers was the day her 14-year-old son came home from school on vacation. She called her and said, “Mummy, do you know you are burning people’s money?” She says she was shocked. “I never looked at it from that perspective, you know. He said, ‘Mummy, these people will not like you and they can go to any extent to fight back. I don’t like this your job, Mummy.’ I told him not to worry. I gave him Psalm 127 to read and meditate on. Except the Lord builds a house, the labourers labour in vain…”

She now goes around with armed policemen from the mobile unit. “My husband told me to make use of the security available to me. He gets worried sometimes, but by and large, he has been very supportive.”

The NAFDAC boss may soon become a professor. She still finds time to supervise six post-graduate students of College of Medicine, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where she herself graduated in 1978 and where she got her Ph. D in 1985. “It’s a bit tedious, but I will soon meet the requirements and I will be appointed a professor.”

Akunyili is indeed a fighter. It is to her eternal credit that she took on big companies headlong. She fought Cadbury, Nestle and Park n’ Shop in the process of enforcing regulations. It was too daring to be true. But, for once, she demonstrated courage where even many men would shy away or compromise. “Nobody even attempts to bribe me,” she proclaims. “Believe me, nobody tries that with me. They say things like, ‘Ah, you want to be arrested?’ The only thing people can do is try to threaten me and blackmail my staff. All these will not work.”

Dora’s integrity is legendary. When she was the Zonal Secretary (South-east) of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF), she had cause to go abroad for medical attention. The bill was $17,000, including $12,000 for surgery. But on doing pre-surgery check-up, it was discovered that she didn’t need any surgery again. She promptly requested that the $12,000 be refunded to PTF. The doctor was shocked. He was used to seeing Nigerians coming around with fictitious ailments.

When she got back to Nigeria, the (then) chairman of PTF, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, himself an honest and transparent Nigerian, wrote her a letter of commendation. When Obasanjo wanted to appoint a DG for NAFDAC in 2001, somebody who knew this story nominated her. “I learnt some people opposed it because the Health Minister was also an Igbo. They said how can two Igbos hold such powerful positions? Again, people believe that it is Igbo people that dominate the fake drug market. But you know President Obasanjo, he maintained his ground. He insisted I must head the agency.”

Dora Akunyili. Her conviction is so thick, you would like to have a slice. And to think she comes from a wealthy home further makes you wonder how she became so down-to-earth. Okay, I have a clue. When she was growing up in Makurdi, Benue State, where she was born, she was Daddy’s Pet. She was always coming tops in class and Daddy liked her so much he did not want her to as much as sweep the floor. She would always eat at the table with Daddy. Mummy was worried. She eventually convinced Daddy to let Dora go to her mother’s village, Isuofia, in Anambra State, so that she could have a “home training” under the tutelage of a teacher. By the time she went to the village, she could not reconcile the two worlds.

“In Makurdi, we had water closet. But in Osuofia, we had to go far into the bush to toilet,” she recollects, obviously still amused. “In Makurdi, I was sleeping on bed, but I had to make do with a mat in Isuofia. I was so downcast. I enrolled at St. Patrick’s Primary School. I was in Primary Four. There were stories going round about me then that a girl from Makurdi who was coming first in her class was now in their midst. They were saying, Let’s see how she will come first here. At the end of the term, I came first again. The teachers, even my grandmother, started giving me special treatment again!” She finished the school with a distinction and went on to the Queen of The Rosary Secondary School, Nsukka on Eastern Nigerian Government scholarship. She came out with another distinction and also got a federal government scholarship to UNN.

“You see, I never paid for my education. This country did all that for me. So I have to give something back to the country,” she relishes. “And this, I will do with the whole of my life, because I owe this country something.”

I am simply overwhelmed.