Dora Akunyili

“An institution assumes the character of its leadership. Responsible and honest leadership is critical to the survival of any establishment or institution. An institution assumes the character of the leader. If the leader is honest, the people are bound to follow suit most of the time. But once the leader is dishonest, the system gets destroyed.”

“Public support was built through establishing trust and confidence, both from the people and from government. It continued to widen because as years went by, it was clear to everybody that our activities were not a fluke but genuine. They were seeing results: less people were dying in hospitals, doctors were speaking up, pharmacies and drug manufacturers were rejoicing and are now seeing their profits in newspapers. These all contributed to build public confidence.”

“When you work, people watch. If they trust you, especially Nigerians, they follow and support you. The support of the people went side by side with the support of government.”

“Nigeria became the first developing country to achieve universal salt iodization. This iodization is critical for childhood survival. We also worked in the area of Vitamin A fortification of food, fluoridation of toothpaste and standardization of cosmetics. We worked aggressively to stop the use of toxic bromate in bread production, among many other food issues.”

“We created so much awareness. Even in the villages, people have to call people who went to school—they call people who are literate to read labels for them before they buy any drug or take any drug, or any food, or whatever consumables, because they know the necessity that it has a NAFDAC number. This is a number that authenticates that this drug is certified by NAFDAC. They ask people to check the NAFDAC number, check the expiry date, and the awareness is now a part of the fight.”

“We also have a serious challenge with non-corporation, non-governmental agencies in the ports. We had that problem and that struggling, making sure we did the right thing, and all of this was actually working against us. It was tough.”

“Another serious challenge is sophistication in drug manufacturing—clandestine drug manufacturing, such that it is difficult to tell the difference between counterfeit and genuine. These counterfeiters actually use all of their technology in making sure that the copy is perfect, even though the drug may not contain anything.”

“We also had the challenge of very poor laws. The laws were very non-deterrent. When people were convicted, the penalty was between 10,000 and 500,000 Naira, or three months to five years imprisonment. Everyone knows that 500,000 Naira to a major drug counterfeiter is like one dollar to you or I, to you and me.”

“The fact that most drug counterfeiters come from my place was also a very big issue. At a stage they carried that propaganda, that I was fighting my people. I was convinced that it was not a matter of tribe or religion or my people. It was a matter of telling people, stopping people from circulating poison in the system.”

“The most serious challenge was corruption and conflict of interest. Before I came into NAFDAC, the counterfeiters were paying their way to bring in whatever they wanted to bring in. I came in and said no, it would not happen again.”

“For me, it was not a big deal. I said I returned it because it is not my money. I cannot take money that is not my own, even though people felt I should not return it. But I felt strongly to return it and so I returned it. He said, “Are you a pharmacist?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “What happened?” I told him the story. He said, “My friend is looking for somebody to sanitize NAFDAC.” NAFDAC was not a big name. I heard about it vaguely, but it was not a place I would apply to work because it was not a popular place.”

“So, when I went to the man’s office some months later, my friend said, “Deddeh, this is the lady who returned the money.” He said, “Yes, I’m just coming from General Buhari’s office. You returned 12,000 pounds; why did you return it?””

“When I returned the money to General (Muhammadu) Buhari, a former Nigerian head of state who was the chief executive of PTF, he wrote on the letter: “I did not know there were still some Nigerians with integrity.” He said I should return the money to the finance man, and I did. Just before PTF wound up, a friend of (Olusegun) Obasanjo—another former head of state, who had just been elected Nigeria’s new President—came to visit his kinsman, who was my friend. When he visited General Buhari, before coming to see the kinsman, he was told about how I returned 12,000 pounds.”

“Nigeria of the future will be brighter. Why not? The Nigeria of today is more developed, despite all the challenges, than Nigeria of ten years ago. The Nigeria of ten years to come will be much more developed than the Nigeria of today. Not just in the area of infrastructure, but in all areas.”

“If we listen to people who say “Nigerians are criminals, they are fraudsters, they are 419ers, in that country nothing works, in the internet Nigeria is unsafe”, if we say nothing, it means that we have accepted it. And for too long we have accepted that stigma. Through the re-branding project, we are saying that we can no longer continue to wear that label of criminals because we are not all criminals. Most Nigerians are good people. Nigerians are hard-working, resourceful and hospitable to a fault. All over the world, Nigerians have excelled in their various areas of endeavour.”

“We have not even been able to define ourselves to the world. Most of the time people define us to the world the way they want it. We have not strategically used any platform in the past to tell the world those positive things that Nigeria has been doing and is still doing. Or to tell the world what we have here in Nigeria, or generally positive stories about Nigeria that can command an international audience and responsibly manage our negatives. All these things we are going to do under the re-branding platform.”

“Re-branding Nigeria is critical and fundamental to our achieving Vision 2020, because if we remain the way we are today, we will not make it.”

“Civilian government is better.”

“When it comes to what the politicians are doing and what the military did when they were in power, I can tell you that the politicians are doing more work because the politicians, no matter what anybody says about our elections (which I’m not now saying are perfect), still want to impress the people so that they can get back to power.”

“We cannot be honest if we come out and say that all politicians are good or that all military people are bad. While we have honest politicians, we also have those who are performing below expectations, whose behaviour is not what we expect of them. It’s like that in all countries.”