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APRIL 9, 2007 VOL. 20. NO 26

The Problem with Onitsha Drug Market
–Dora Akunyili, director-general, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)

**Dora Akunyili, director-general, National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)**

How would you assess the last six years of your headship of the National Agency for Food, Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC)?
It is indeed an honour for me to be here. The items we are regulating are health sensitive items and they touch on the lives of all Nigerians. Unfortunately, we were not doing normal regulation. First, in 2001, when the present management came on board, Nigerians were active in the sale and use of fake and expired products and so on.
We had cases of original brands that expired and re-labelled and were brought into the system. Multi-nationals were part of the problem. And this expiring date of products is critical as it is a date that is scientifically approved on a product after which it is no longer safe to use the product. A date after which the manufacturer is no more liable for any effect of that product. When I remember that expiry date is calculated based on 25 degree centigrade storage temperature, I was worried because the level of deterioration is directly proportional to temperature. What happens to products that were stored in Maiduguri and Sokoto? How many times do we really have 25 degrees. So, it is even more critical for the tropics. Table water, sachet water unregulated, brings about cholera all the time. We had soft drinks that were not of the same quality with similar brands in some developing or developed countries.
We had juices, fraudulent juices that come from all over the world, they were normally labelled 100 per cent juice, no sugar added. Consequently, when we now put up a guideline in January 2002, that before we register any product, we will go to the point of production and carry out inspection. These people submitted their goods for inspection, we actually wanted unlimited access where they are producing these good, and see their production system. Beer and other alcoholic beverages, no best before date, they also contained natural by- product . What I found painful about the situation review then was that when our local manufacturers wanted to export they make sure their products met international standard. And one of the brewers in the defunt Premier Brewery, once told me that they use export standard. Export standard was necessary for exports but not necessary for Nigeria.
Of all the food products that we found to be unwholesome, the one that was most horrible was the man we caught in 2004 that was using cassava flour and milk as baby milk. He had been doing it for many years before he was caught, only God knows how many babies died of cassava paranoid.
Over 95 per cent of bakery in Nigeria use bromate, even though bromate has been banned since 1992. It enhances bread abnormally and it is very cheap, but it is harmful. That’s why when you look at some of these Agege bread– you can even see your face on them!.
In the area of cosmetics, they are bringing in empty bottles and packets of designer products that are used in this country with diluted contents. They are also importing cream products that contain mercury and hydroquinone, that not only destroys the skin but adds scabies. In the area of counterfeit drugs, the situation was even more desperately frightening.
Since 1989 when people started studying the issue of fake drugs, it was discovered that 25 per cent of the drugs we studied were fake, 10 per cent genuine and 50 per cent were inconclusive.
For example, Adeoye Lambo, in the 1990 study showed that 54 per cent of drugs in Nigeria were fake, and that the figure will rise to 80 per cent the same year. Another study in 1993 showed that 41.4 per cent of drugs were fake. The University of Lagos here reported 48 per cent of drugs were fake. It gave a conservative 41 per cent of fake drugs.
NAFDAC study showed in 2001 that unregulated drugs in Nigeria was 58 per cent. Different countries of the world have their definition of fake drugs. But our own definition is simplified so that the lay man can understand.
Another group are drugs that have expired but are re-labelled and as far as I’m concerned, I believe these drug courtfeitters that import expired drug to re-label in this country must be agents of waste disposal by their counterparts in Asia. Because waste disposal, which is used in drug disposing in overseas is very expensive. We have another group that copy original brands, we call it clone, because it is perfect copy of the original brand. They put the same quantity of active ingredients and you will nearly think it is the same, but the efficecy of a drug is not dependent on the quantity of active ingredients, there are other parameters such as quality, particle sizes formation technique etc.
So they can never get it right. They’ve done nothing on research and development and every other necessary thing.
Another group is the group that makes drugs that are different from what is on the label. And they normally do it when a drug is in high demand in the market. These criminals get anything or drug they can get and re-label it. I could remember one Senator called me two years ago that he took some anti-hypertensive. but after he could not get out of bed, he was sweating, had called the doctor but wanted us to test the drug he used if possible. Then I said, well, since it is our work that we are being paid for and told him we are even happy that you have contacted us. And when we tested the supposed anti-hypertensive, the only thing we found was that it contained only anti-diabetics. An anti- diabetic that they re-labelled!
Drug re-labelling did not start in Nigeria today. In 1958 when the Crown agents divested and turned pharmaceutical distributors in Nigeria, the situation progressively got worse. Nigeria became one of the countries in the world with high incidence of fake drugs. I honestly feel that it is bad news that nobody is gaining except the criminals. To me it is an act of terrorism as well as a case of economic sabotage, it causes the death of so many poor people.
Fake drugs are the greatest crime of our time, it is worse than the problem of malaria, HIV/AIDS combined, or even armed robbery. Armed robbers may kill or not, malaria can be prevented, HIV/AIDS can be avoided but in the case of fake drug, anybody can be a victim. And by that 2001, people were dying like rats, kidney failure, development of resistance to anti-biotic, anti-malaria. And what is development of resistance? I want to explain, it in a lay man language. For example, when you need a 200 milligrammes of Septrin and the counterfeiters put 20 milligrammes, the organisms that are supposed to be destroyed when you take the right dose, would get used to the 20 milligrammes you have been taking and when you now take the right 200 milligrammes, they (organism) would not be affected. That is what we call resistance. And when I think of what resistance is doing to us in the case of anti-malaria, I feel very frightened. In the early sixties malaria was like a flu in this country, you don’t need to go to the hospital because we had good treatment. I remember my grandmother used to give me money to buy cholorquine from our neighbour. And I will take the drug, go to school and before I came back, I would have been sweating to show that I was fine.
But gradually we moved up to higher drugs because cholorquine couldn’t cure us any longer. Then, we moved up to Fansider which we are now developing resistance to these second line drug.
And this time the counterfeiters will bring in substandard and as we use them we begin to develop resistance. And from Fansider and Halfan we moved up to a higher ones such as ACT therapy. And if we leave these counterfeiters to continue bringing in fake drugs, including fake and we develop resistance to ACT, against malaria parasite, where do we go from here.
Some multinationals left this country as a fallout of drug counterfeiting because it affected their business. For example Pfizer. Most of our drugs are banned in many West African countries because of this problems. Immediately we came, we declared a war and we went to work, developed some strategies and the first thing we did was to motivate, re-invent and re-organise the the agency for the task ahead. In the process of doing that we retrenched redundant and incorrigible staff and we promoted some because we are still working with 90 per cent of the work force we inherited. Trained and re-trained them locally and internationally, created a reward system. About three reward system, sending people on overseas inspection, overseas training or outright promotion. Because of the reward system, NAFDAC staff work round the clock, very serious performance evaluation. When staff catch people in the port, they are promoted immediately or rewarded in any other way.
In a place where hardwork and transparency are not rewarded, corruption is promoted.
We have to re-organise NAFDAC totally, created new directorates, port inspection and enforcement, open states offices in 36 stations, zonal offices, stations inspectorate offices. Here we have the big market, updated our laboratories to international standard, built new laboratories, offices at the boarder posts and put in place standard and operational guidelines, so that our programmes will be streamlined and standardised. So that we can build institutions that will not depend on individuals, and that is institutionalisation of the system which is critical, otherwise the system will collapse with the exit of two or three people.
Because actually it was lack of awareness that made these counterfeiters to succeed for so many years. I remember when my sister was diabetic, and the drug she was taking was not working, assuming there was enough awareness, may be we would have changed the drug. But nobody talked about changing drugs because there was no awareness. And the situation is that you will continue to look at your child, not knowing what to do until he/she dies.
In the course of the public awareness, we have had several meetings with different stakeholders, professionals, non-professionals, leaders, market women, both overseas and in Nigeria. And currently, we are now going into villages, doing public mobilization which for certain reasons we stopped last year.
Also there is the strategy of preventing the activities of the criminals at source, during the course of production. When we came on board, what we found in the files were mind boggling. We had different non-existing addresses of fake drug manufacturers.
So we now put a platform in which before we register any drug, we first go to that address, inspect the facilities and make sure there is compliance, before we accept any registration.
We identified China and India as major countries that export fake drugs into this country. I put in place independent analysts to re-certify drugs before they are imported into Nigeria. And if we don’t get re-certification from our analysts, the drugs is unaccepted. Infact, until two years ago that we discovered that after rejecting such drugs, it took sometime to bring the drugs back into the country. But we made sure that every pre-shipment information about drugs must get to us before we accept any shipment of the drug into Nigeria.
We are also working with Nigerian banks, where the banks will insist on NAFDAC clearance, before they process financial documents for drug importers. Another thing is that if a drug is labeled in export only, which means that drug is not being used in the exporting country, before we accept it we make sure we get the certificate to show that such product is safe which must be signed by Minister of Trade and Commerce of that country, who will confirm that the drug has been certified by Nigerian embassy and it is as well consumed in any other Commonwealth nation.
We also do continuous sampling of what we have already registered, to make sure that people don’t start producing rubbish after they have registered existing products. And in that process we have been able to discover life threatening products in circulation. For example, we recently discovered that 147 out of 149 water used for injection were not good. We also tried to get information from hospitals, the public and even journalists a like. When we got information that patients are dying in the hospital and reacting adversely, we investigated and found that most of this things were produced by Nigerian factories, we shut them down, corrected them and when we were satisfied that their products are of the right quality, we re-opened them and of course sanctioned them properly.
Another problem that we found a way to get around was evacuating fake drugs from warehouses through information we get from whistle blowers, from the public and even from journalists. There was also a time when we got information that fake drugs were in use in certain Hospitals in Enugu, it was Journalists that blew the whistle and we went there and confirmed. And we have also been on the neck of hawkers, but we want Nigerians to also help us. Because if Nigerians stop buying from hawkers, they will stop selling.
We have also discovered another strategy to fight these problems: competitors in the market. We don’t mind who is giving us information even if it is our enemy. But unfortunately when we evacuate fake drugs from densely populated warehouses, nobody claims ownership. We put down a guideline that in such situation we would arrest the landlord. And when we arrested a landlord in Lagos, the owner surfaced. So that worked.
Another strategy that we have used for enforcement, is surveillance and inspection of our local manufacturers. We warned them to produce product of international standard. I’m not only desperate to hand over to our children, a country that is free of fake and unwholesome drugs, we are also desperate to capture the African market. To do that we have to be highly competitive to compete with the highest quality products. So, we sanction our local factories, but we are not always in a hurry to close down factories, we only close factory when the problem we find in a factory is life threatening.
If we find a problem in a factory and it is very serious, and yet it does not affect we just correct them, tell them what to do, give them a date, time and then finish with it. If it is life threatening we have to announce it, so that people will stop buying the product, we do that not because, we want to kill the factory, but we want them to grow. We don’t want to play to the gallery, because what Nigerians like is shut down or close such factory. If we do that without being cautions or knowing what to do with some of them, we end up destroying such factories.
And another strategy we have is streamlining and strict enforcement of our registration guidelines. If a product is manufactured in Nigeria, we list it and make sure the product is okay, documentation complete and we register, and after registration we renew after five years. People are not allowed to import drugs into this country for more than 10 years, after 10 years we must start producing it, we only renew once, after five years of the expiry time for the first registration, and there is no more renewal. For orphan drugs, which are drugs used in small quantities, for example drugs used in kidney dialysis, we may not take more than 20 cartons for the country in a whole year. So, it is not sensible or cost effective to ask the manufacturers to come and produce them here, and they would simply say they are not coming. Again, to the enforcement of our registration guidelines, we give NAFDAC number, and this NAFDAC number is being copied by so many countries. Actually an authorisation bill that NAFDAC has accepted the product i.e. it is effective and of good quality, that is for all drugs ... Herbal medicine does not guarantee efficacy, what is guaranteed in herbal medicine is safety and that is what is done all over the world. In the United States of America, if you find any herbal medicine in shops, look at it, read it, you will see FDA has not guaranteed the efficacy of this product. I have also insisted that our own herbal producers and importers affixed that to their products.
Again, people have complained that people are faking NAFDAC number and I tell them, we have caught a few people, but we cannot stop using it, we don’t have another authorisation for now, afterall criminals fake motor licence number, are we now going to stop giving numbers to cars because criminals fake it? But we have now worked out something, we are working with the Malaysian Drug Regulatory Agency, and NAFDAC staff are going in a few weeks time. What we want to do using their system, is to give serialised hologram to guard our number. That is going to solve the problem.
At the international scene, we have also done a lot of work, starting from 2002, campaign for international convention for counterfeit drug, just as we have in narcotic I said it Hong Kong, during the ICDRA meeting, that is the International Control on Drug Regulators and when we gave our reasons, we carried the day. We told them how we cannot compare this evil with that of the HIV/AIDS, we cannot compare it with cocaine. And yet cocaine has international convention and that resistance problems caused by counterfeit drugs, need no VISA to travel from country to country and so on. We carried the day. In 2004 in Spain, in the same meeting WHO supported us and the whole world supported us, and it gathered such momentum that it was internationally agreed with the WHO spearheading it, at the WHO secretariat in General we have a task force in drug counterfeiting, of which Nigeria is playing a leading role.
And also we are working with our brothers and sisters in West Africa, to carry them along. We initiated and we are heading WADRAN, West Africa Drug Regulatory Authority Network, as a platform. That was last year. The platform for sharing our programmes and strategies, to carry them along during this fight, to ensure that these criminals after they have been chased out of this country would not find a safe haven anywhere in West Africa. Because what actually necessitated that move was that, when these counterfeiters were finding Nigeria very hot, they started migrating to other countries around us and became a problem for them. I don’t want to forget cocoa, in 2002 Nigerian Cocoa would have been de-certified but we fought it at the FAO meetings in Geneva. You know most of these things in international meetings they plan what they want to do and call member countries to rubber-stamp, there they said any cocoa containing more than five milligrammes of lead would be de-certified in international commerce. And we know that our cocoa cannot make it, we now started calling all other African countries, who are our inner caucus. We convinced them to help us with points of course that we cannot allow it to happen. Morocco was also fighting for their Sardine so we agreed that we fight for Sardine and they fight for Cocoa. Because you succeed better when you fight another person and eventually it was dropped.
Suffice it to say that we have unprecedented support from the press and Nigerian public, everybody is actually in the crusade, and you will not know the value of this support until what is happening in other countries. When we started the first line of action the counterfeiters were to compromise us. When they failed they resorted to all sorts of intimidation, embarrassment, blackmail, threat and so on. In that period there is nothing we didn’t meet. For example, I met in my office feathers laced with blood, tortoise. Actually what I told my staff that day, I called them together and said listen, all these things we have seen here, we should take care of them and nobody should hear, I will take my key when I entered my office it would be cleaned. Because the criminals will be disappointed if they don’t hear anything. But unfortunately because the minister was very concerned, he said it publicly that a tortoise was found in my office.
Thereafter in 2001, August, six armed men visited my house in Abuja first two hours between eight and 10, they waited for me, fortunately for me I travelled. In 2002 in Lagos, our laboratory was totally destroyed, in 2003 so many times they tried me one way or the other, that culminated into their effort in shooting at me in 2003 it was a miracle that I escaped, and the driver died on the spot, and three months after we thought they were tired they were not, in March between 7th and 11th 2004, there was syncronised burning of NAFDAC facilities across the country and everyday somewhere was burning. And thereafter same year (2003) in July our staff were attacked in Gombe, beaten up and their car destroyed in Diku Local Government because they went to stop hawkers, and last year our officers were attacked in Onitsha, chased away with 12 policemen that went with them, destroyed their trip cars and on and on. My family members and that of other NAFDAC staff remained constantly under threat, my son was nearly kidnapped at Igbenedion High School, it was a miracle that he escaped, he actually told me that he told them, I was not his mum. It actually pained me what he said but when I asked him why he denied me he said “mummy, that was for survival, and you should know that this is a bad job.” He actually started the propaganda of how long, when will this job end, until my husband came and said by next year it would end and we will rest and so on and so forth.
Some countries have strong regulation especially in Asia. Some regulate drugs used in that country but don’t regulate drugs meant for export. That is why India and China are the largest producers of fake drugs in the world but they don’t have that problem in their countries. Consequently we have banned 30 Indian and Chinese Companies, and one Pakistan company from exporting drugs into Nigeria.
Another problem we had is sophistication in drug production, whereby even original brand owners find it difficult to get the difference between their original brand and counterfeit. If you look at this and at which one is fake whenever you want to buy a product is better you hold the original so that you can place it side by side. We have a booklet where we have all the differences pointed out- Differences between fake and genuine products.
Another problem we had is inadequate legislation. All our laws against drugs counterfeiting. Because it is very lucrative with relatively lower risk. Laws against drug counterfeiting in Nigeria are ridiculous, three months or five months with option is not a deterrent. Consequently, we reviewed our laws, 2001 submitted to National Assembly and since they were in committee we met them and they said we should re-submit, we have since re-submitted and up till now we are still waiting and praying.
The death rate in our hospitals, the kidney failure rate are declining according to reports from our hospitals. The level of incidence of fake drugs, have declined From 41 per cent to 16.7 per cent, unregistered drugs from 58 per cent to 19 per cent. And by 2001, we were producing 20per cent of the country’s drug needs. But as of today we are producing over 40 per cent. Our local industries are booming, expanding and increasing in number, they were 70 in 2001, but today they are 150.
Nigeria was the first to achieve salt iodisation, and salt iodisation is more critical than fake drugs. Because when salt is not iodize, our babies brain are not 100 per cent developing. And even when they are, both the development of their brain is not 100 per cent as they are growing. That is why UNICEF is putting so much money on it. While without total salt iodization our children who are going into the competitive world are disadvantaged, so what people see is the goiter that form on the neck, it used to be rampant, it has disappeared almost totally. That of the children is the one that is more critical, the brains of our children. You might say my child is an A student without iodine, that is not true, your child could be an A plus. In the olden days people eat natural food, that would contain some iodine, but now our food is over-processed and outstored, such that we don’t have iodine in food, we seriously need that in salt.
Again the issue of table or sachet water has greatly reduced the incidences of cholera and other water borne diseases that used to be rampant in the past. By 2001 and 2002, over 95 per cent of bakeries are using bromate, but as at last year out of thousands of bakeries we have in Nigeria, we had only 54, which is very minimal.
And in the area of chemicals we monitor banned, restricted and other chemicals in Nigeria. Some of these chemicals can be used in producing explosives, use in refining hard drugs, can deplete ozone layer, I mean the restricted ones, and can also be used to settle scores, that is concentrated acid, we monitor them from the port to end users.
Having said all that, may I quickly say that the level of awareness that has been created in the systems is not just affecting Nigerians, even the international community, we have awaken their consciousness that Nigeria is no longer a dumping ground, even in Nigeria, villages or cities people don’t buy drugs without checking the NAFDAC number, and the expiry date. Last time I went to Owerri, I met a woman that took her child to the hospital, and the doctor was mixing injection, you know these doctors are in a hurry to inject, either to impress or collect more money. And this little girl just say no, I can only take tablet. NAFDAC said injections are not more effective like tablet and the mother said, doctor drop the injection and said thank God. So the public awareness is working.
Coming to the assassination attempt, I am worried, I think there was under reporting of that assassination attempt, especially the court proceedings. I remember when we were small some celebrated cases need to be serialised and when this is done, more children will be following the proceeding and when court proceeding are in the front burner, in the public domain, the judges find it difficult to mess around with it. May be because of under reporting people did not follow what was happening in court and they believe that is why the judge was able to do what he did. And this judge after hearing this case for one and a half years said he has no jurisdiction. I believe he would have discharged the case totally if not because the witnesses were overwhelming. We had witnesses at every stage, planning, shooting, but six of them came for the operation, they were all arrested after the operation, five of them were shot by the police, one escaped. That one testified in court. After shooting we had people again that testified on what happened, including the doctor in the teaching hospital, that was on duty when they came to ask of me, that they were sent by police to come and protect me if I was still alive, that I had an accident in Awka. And the doctor said the husband works here, that they should have been brought here that they didn’t have any information as well, 58 exhibits, 19 witnesses and at the end he has no jurisdiction. And you see what happened in that judgment, it has a ripple effect. That judgment from Justice Ishaq Bello, that make Onitsha people to be bold, encouraged them to attack us because by 2003 they did not even have the courage to talk when we are talking. I was referring to 2003 when they went and hid. If they defeated me, they defeated NAFDAC and the country. What that pronouncement has shown the criminals is that the problem is not the system but Dora Akunyili; it is very dangerous for me, and if Onitsha market people continue resisting us, you now see how superior and arrogant they now feel.
If it is possible to level the drug part of Onitsha market and convert it to another market, whatever, it would be better because this people are not ready to change, they are used to what they have been doing. Unwholesome drugs in Nigeria are distributed from Onitsha, all the people selling fake drugs in Kano, Lagos are all trained in Onitsha, or are trained by people trained in Onitsha. Even in our study incidence of fake drugs all over Nigeria is less than 10 per cent, it was Onitsha that gave us the 16.7 per cent figure, because Onitsha has more than 30 per cent. We close the place and in less than two weeks, we have brought out 40 lorry loads of fake drugs, from Onitsha and we have only cleared 50 per cent and we dismantle an illegal clinics where they perform abortion, give drips and injection and as you know they also wash blood in Onitsha. The Anambra Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) is unpatriotic, the reason is that when we closed Aba market in 2002, why didn’t the Aba NBA defend the fake drugs dealers. In 2004, why didn’t they (NBA) defend them? I am saying this because if the Onitsha NBA really wanted to say the truth... You see, I feel like ignoring them because they are not the national body. Because I respect NBA and I know that somebody like Olisa Agbakoba can never come out to defend murderers. So, these people I don’t know how much they could be giving them to do what they are doing. And if criminals are now depending on them to fight for them but we are equal to the task. In 2002 when we wanted to close Aba market they went to Orji Uzor Kalu to help fight for them, and then Governor Kalu had six months to the election but he didn’t support them. He said publicly that he was supporting NAFDAC. And in 2004 when we wanted to close Kano market, they did the same thing by going to the Emir of Kano to help them, the Emir said he can never support illegality, go and do what NAFDAC said. They went to Governor Shekarau of Kano State that we wanted to use a PDP controlled central government to distablised an ANPP controlled State government. But Governor Shekaran told them that drugs registration has nothing to do with partisan politics. Before they were then forced to cooperate. Onitsha drug sellers have not cooperated till today because they have protection from Anambra lawyers, that they were going to fight for them which is unfortunate. And when an armed robber shot on a person, he is made to face the firing squad and people that are killing millions of Nigerians, some group of lawyers are defending them, shamelessly, which is unfortunate. Look at the kind of thing we are getting in Onitsha, for example Novalgin only contain Paracetamol. Look at the one that looked like Viagra in nature but it is scurby. The one that they said is Asetuna, it doesn’t contain Asetuna, it contains chloroquine load. What it contains is chloroquine. The drug that is used in controlling after delivery bleeding is being faked and so cannot work. The drug is suppose to induce delivery and stop bleeding after delivery, but it will not work because it is fake. For example, there is no genuine Septrin that is 100 tablets. Tetanus drug cannot be effective because when cold chain is broken, it cannot work. Look at this Ventoline it contains nothing.
When they attacked our staff last year, I called them for a meeting and I told them that they have not done well because they were there when these people humiliated us. And they did not wear mast you know them and they said – yes, then you should helped us, they said they are dangerous. But you want to stay alongside criminals and protect them. Until Onitsha is sanitised we will just be scratching the surface of this problem. And the whole world knows, the sub-region knowns, so they are watching us.
Having served Nigerians so much don’t you think going into partisan politics will ‘contaminate’ your achievements?
I know there is this general belief that politicians are criminals but don’t you think it is high time people started going into politics? If good people stay at the background and call politicians criminals and the politicians now stay in front and decide our future and that of our children, when is this problem going to end. So I have no regret that I am doing what the PDP government and the President has asked me to do, and that is to join in the campaign. And in the first place Director General of NAFDAC is a political appointment. But the problem people have is that I am handling the job very professionally, which I cannot stop. Because once I stopped handling it people don’t remember it is a political appointment. And if you are a political appointee and your boss gives you an extra assignment you cannot say no. Especially when President Obasanjo said that I can only join PDP campaign if I feel that it would not affect the progress of NAFDAC.
Like I was in the campaign on Saturday and Sunday and I will not be in the campaign until next Saturday. The campaign is only going to give me a little extra stress but it has never affected NAFDAC work. But I have no regret.
But I also want to say that this is not my first political appointment, I have been a political appointee since 1992, and the way I managed my political career has been very interesting. I told my husband people that nominated me, I was not interested.
My husband’s people, in 1992, I didn’t marry in my village, I married from another place. I’m just telling you how I started my political career. I used to go with my husband to treat people and each time we came the following weekend, somebody might have died. No General Hospital all around the village, and I felt I had a burden. Then I told my husband that I will mobilise the women in the village, to refurbish one of the buildings in the village, to make it a general hospital. My husband said I was dreaming but I told him I was convinced it will work. The women agreed. And I also contacted the men and within six month the place was ready, because people took up the responsibility.
And when it was time to appoint somebody from the village and everybody was saying Dora Akunyili even though there were men to take such appointment. I took up the appointment in Hospital Management Board, Advisory for Women Commission, State co-ordinator, Better Life Programme, and on and on before I left the University system and joined the political job. There was a time they said I should contest in the local government or senatorial election but I told them quite frankly that I wanted to write papers for my professorship, that was the only thing in my mind then. If not for my Professorship programme I would have won the election then. I would have campaigned, my husband people would have contributed money and campaigned for me. From there I went for an interview with the PTF and from there I was recommended, from my record to be in NAFDAC.
When people talk I always hear them say “is she a politician,?" And these people are those that either left their business for politics or the academic for politics. I don’t know why they feel threatened. How many of them have worked from local government, state to the federal. I’m very comfortable. It is almost a slogan for our politicians, they don’t want to hear Dora Akunyili. The slogan is always: is she a politician.?
From the structures that you have put on ground, what do you think Nigerians should do after you may have left office, to fight drug counterfeiting?
Well, I will leave NAFDAC one day, infact, it is impossible for me to work and die there. Someday I will leave. But if we can continue with the strategy, introduce other strategies but if we don’t find a way of levelling down that place called Onitsha market, we are home and dry.