Dora, the people’s servant, bows out

The history of the Nigerian nation will not be complete without any mention of the good roles played by the late Dora Akunyili at various times.

When she presided over the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), she fought with her life against enemies of the people who dispensed death to fellow citizens through fake, expired and adulterated drugs.  On several occasions, Akunyili’s task forces raided shops where such killer-drugs were sold. She never bothered that those at the driver’s seat of such trade were her “brothers”.

Her fight against the fake drug merchants confounded many people who had insinuated when her name came up for consideration for the job in 2001 by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo that she would not prosecute the “war” with all the arsenals it deserved because the market for fake and substandard products were controlled by the Igbo, with Onitsha, also in Anambra State, major centre for the illicit business. It was thought that she was going to protect her people.

The fight nearly cost her, her precious life when several attempts were made on her life. On one occasion, a bullet fired at her pierced through her headgear and missed her by a whisker.

Those closed to her said on several occasions, live tortoises were found in her office, among other diabolical materials placed in her office and elsewhere to cow her. But the Amazon soldiered on. Like Apostle Paul would say, Akunyili continued to fight the “beasts at Ephesus”.

Upon the expiration of her tenure at NAFDAC, the late Umaru Yar’Adua got her into his cabinet as minister in 2008. It was while on her beat that the crisis that nearly sank the country arose. And when no one else was man enough to raise a finger or rather, dare the cabals (the establishment who were more comfortable seeing the collapse of the country to relinquishing power) Akunyili took the challenge.

Goodluck Jonathan who was the vice president at the time was very afraid of the cabals and did not want to rock the boat.

Akunyili distributed what was considered a controversial memo at a FEC meeting during the late president Yar’Adua’s health crisis, calling on FEC members to be patriotic by asking the terminally ill Yar’Adua to resign in order for the then vice president to take over.

While Jonathan was afraid to confront the cabal who surrounded his former boss, Yar’Adua, in order to wrest power from their hand the time he (Yar’Adua) was away in foreign land for medicals; it was only Akunyili who confronted them (the cabal) and that helped Jonathan’s ascendancy as the acting president.

It was on the strength of her struggle that the Senate settled for the “Doctrine of Necessity” which empowered Jonathan to act as the president and later as substantive president after the death of Yar’Adua.

When in 2009 she initiated a campaign to “re-brand” Nigeria, it generated intense controversy. Many Nigerians could not understand why she was embarking on a project that some termed hypocritical. The thinking was that why trying to paint a good picture of a country that its odious nature was a public knowledge?

However, many of those who were not comfortable with the project were, however, gave it benefit of the doubt because of the personality involved in the programme.

The professor of pharmacology, having proved her mettle as the director-general NAFDAC, was able to sell the re-branding project using her rich connections and personal integrity. It was against this backdrop that some national newspapers not only vigorously defended the campaign, but bought into it. She came up with the slogan, “Good People, Great Nation.”

Akunyili, resigned from both her position and People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to join the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) from where she contested for the Anambra Central senatorial ticket. She contested against Chris Ngige, who is also a political heavyweight in the state.

Pundits had at that time faulted her decision to resign her ministerial job where she was seen as a member of the kitchen cabinet of the Jonathan-administration. However, those close to the fallen heroine said her resignation was not without President Jonathan’s endorsement since APGA is more or less “an extension of PDP.”

Since after the ill-fated senatorial ambition, nothing much was heard of Akunyili. At a point questions were being asked of whatever happened to her. Some pundits were also not happy that the President did not call her back after she lost the election. Those who hugged this view said bringing back Akunyili would have given the Jonathan-administration some elements of credibility and legitimacy that pundits believe are seriously lacking.

Akunyili suddenly re-surfaced in public at the National Conference, an elitist gathering where some said the immediate past governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi, must have included her name to “rehabilitate her”, whatever that means. The whole world had cringed at what remained of the delectable Amazon that had brought the world on its knees by her cerebral endowments. But that appears now to have done a good deed, for if Akunyili did not appear to the Nigerian people, or, if her “unusual” look was not seen by Nigerians, the news of her death would have been more devastating.

Although Dora is dead, she will continue to be fondly remembered by well-meaning Nigerians whom she served with her whole heart and Death cannot dim her star. Good night!