KWENU: Our Culture, Our Future

Akunyili at a close-up

Thursday, December 28, 2005

With her heart on the welfare of beleaguered masses and her impeccable leadership focused on elevating the hopes of downtrodden, Prof. Dora Nkem Akunyili, Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), has unwittingly touched the lives of so many people in both home and abroad. She has adequately shown that in a culture of corruption, a good few men and women abound; that’s a promise we’d hold dearly.

To get a close-up look at this lady, her insightful acceptance speech on receiving the 2005 International Service Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award at a ceremony held in the British House of Commons, London on December 8, 2005, tells the whole story. The excerpts:

I have a deep appreciation for the chain of events that brought me to the point of receiving the Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award from International Service. It is my great privilege to be a spokesperson and Chief Executive Officer for over 3,000 outstanding Nigerians, working for NAFDAC, battling against fake drugs and combating the threat that fake drugs pose to global health in the West African sub-region and Nigeria in particular. Although this award comes to me personally, it acknowledges the work of countless individuals and groups across Nigeria, toiling quietly and often without recognition to protect the environment, fight corruption, promote democracy, defend human rights and ensure equality between men and women. My contribution in the building of a new Nigeria has been in the struggle to protect public health by promoting quality, safety and efficacy of medicines, medical devices, processed food, cosmetics, chemicals and packaged water, through public enlightenment campaigns, and the establishment of an effective quality assurance system, via strict inspectorate and enforcement activities throughout the country.

Drug counterfeiting is one of the greatest atrocities of our time. It is mass murder. It is a form of terrorism against public health as well as an act of economic sabotage. Counterfeit drugs violate the right to life of innocent victims. The fake drug trade is mainly fuelled by corruption, which in the health sector is the worst aspect of corruption, because it affects life directly.

I take this opportunity to commend International Service for instituting these Awards to honour international development workers and organizations playing major roles in protecting and defending human rights of most vulnerable peoples, and for its mission as a development partner organisation for developing countries. I am highly elated and greatly honoured to be chosen as a recipient of the Grassroots Human Rights Campaigner Award for 2005. This award is a morale booster for me, NAFDAC staff and our countless supporters. It will strengthen our resolve to continue working hard to protect our people’s right to live quality lives.

With this recognition, International Service underscores the value and the relevance of the work we are doing. It recognizes the urgency of addressing the dangers we face in Africa, especially in the area of fake and counterfeit drugs, unwholesome foods, substandard cosmetics and other substandard products. This award will lend prominence and impetus to NAFDAC´s ultimate objective of passing to our children a nation free of fake drugs, and for that I am deeply grateful.

Drug Counterfeiters dumped fake drugs and other substandard products in Nigeria unchallenged for over two decades until 2001 when the present management of NAFDAC came on board. Corruption was, of course, the driving force. Nigerians and most Africans were therefore at the mercy of drug counterfeiters. Estimates of the extent of counterfeit medicines in circulation in Nigeria ranged from 48% to 80% from various studies done before 2001. This led to treatment failures, drug resistance and death of many people. In addition, due to unfair competition with the fakers, local drug manufacturers and genuine importers were running out of business. The new management of NAFDAC was therefore compelled to declare a “war,”an all out war against drug counterfeiters.

Fortunately, with the support of government, and the good people of Nigeria, NAFDAC is winning the war. The support and encouragement of Nigerians are so much that prayers are continuously offered for us in both mosques and churches. The change is rapid, and wonderful to behold. We have sanitized the food and drug industry and created a reasonably well regulated environment which have saved the lives of millions of Nigerians and boosted our economy by encouraging local industries, genuine importers and foreign investors. A recent study showed an over 80% reduction in the quantity of unauthorized drugs in circulation from what it was in 2001. As peddling of fake and expired drugs are becoming a thing of the past, the NAFDAC family and indeed all Nigerians welcome this with collective triumph. However, we are not lost in this euphoria of success, but rather motivated to work harder so as not to disappoint our many supporters.

Eighty percent reduction is not perfection, but it is a very significant difference. The fight against corruption in Nigeria as a whole and in her food and drug industry is thus not over, and may never be. There would always be cases of abuse of basic human rights, and a subsequent need to protect and defend the people. Therefore, the International Service Committee has done much more than honour the diligence of NAFDAC; it is also highlighting the magnitude of this unending battle, and encouraging those at the forefront.

May l seize this opportunity to reiterate my appeal to the international community, of which United Kingdom is a core actor, on the need to establish an international convention on counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals, just as we have for narcotics and psychotropic substances. This will ensure a harmonized regulation of pharmaceutical products moving in international commerce. Eradication of counterfeit drugs should be treated as an International Health Emergency Program. International co-operation is important if trans-national criminal networks are to be dismantled. President Olusegun Obasanjo in his capacity as the African Union President has directed NAFDAC to work more closely with other African Food and Drug regulators so that we can succeed together. In this way, the criminals will have no hiding place anywhere in Africa.

As stated in the rationale for this award, this fight has not been without risk. Drug counterfeiters fought back with intimidation, harassment, blackmail and threats. When all of that failed, they resorted to physical attacks, vandalism and arson against NAFDAC staff and facilities. There was a synchronized burning of NAFDAC facilities across the Country from 7^th to 11^th March 2004. On 7^th March 2004, the criminals burnt down all our Lagos offices and fire started on different floors simultaneously. Three days after our Kaduna Laboratory was razed down and again fire started on all corners of the building at the same time. That same week the building adjacent to our Benin office was burnt down. In the same week criminals bore a hole through our Maiduguri Laboratory and gained entrance to cause the same havoc, but were chased out by security agents. These attacks culminated in a shooting attack on my person on December 26, 2003. During this near-death encounter, bullets shattered the back windscreen of my car, pierced through my head scarf and burnt my scalp. My family members and some NAFDAC staff remain constantly under threat.

Our fight against fake drugs in Nigeria has been an act of love. Our courage in this fight needs hope for nourishment. The American Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “We must accept finite disappointment but we must never loose infinite hope.” The accomplishments we have recorded so far have given hope to many Nigerians. The honour you have bestowed on me today is great nourishment to this struggle, as well as a grand manifestation of hope.

Our goal is to eradicate fake drugs in Nigeria and other African countries, and create a strong regulatory environment for food and drugs, so that Nigeria will continue to play a leading role in food and drug regulation, thus protecting the right to live a healthy life by most Africans that are already overburdened by poverty, hunger, diseases, lack of basic infrastructural facilities and debt.

Part of the cash prize of this award will be given to the jobless widow and the two toddlers of the bus driver, Mr. Emeka Onuekutu, who was killed during the attempt on my life in 2003. This young man was actually killed on the spot by bullets targeted at me. Furthermore, in 2002, NAFDAC instituted an annual essay competition for Nigerian high school children, in which cash-prizes and computers are awarded to the best students and to their schools. We also established consumer safety clubs in these high schools as a platform for interacting with and educating the students for the establishment of culture of quality consciousness in Nigeria. The rest of this cash prize will be devoted to further support these programs.

I am most grateful to the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo for giving me the opportunity to serve and for constantly encouraging me privately and publicly. Join me in congratulating President Obasanjo for his sustained effort in appointing women to important positions at the national level. 

I wish to dedicate this award to Nigeria’s First Lady, Mrs. Stella Obasanjo who passed away recently. She was a very strong supporter of NAFDAC. She was a formidable source of support and encouragement for me and my family and comforted me like a mother in difficult times. I also dedicate this Award to all those innocent people, who have died from the use of fake drugs, especially my sister Vivian.