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Author: Rufuntse Jauro
Posted to the web: 4/10/2007 10:27:10 AM

I walked into a local Sainsbury supermarket to buy newspapers and was filled with awe when I saw an attractive glossy magazine with a lady’s portrait glaring at me. The headline was “BE AFRAID”.

The attire was definitely Nigerian and the face was no one else’s but NAFDAC’s Dora Akunyili.

I quickly grabbed the Financial Times newspaper that had the FT weekend magazine inside because it was the last copy in the shop and began searching for the cover page news while queuing up to pay for it. People queued up beside me stretched their necks to see what my fuss was all about as the general atmosphere of Scots towards Africans was a little tight because one of theirs was in captivity in the Niger-Delta. Some of them actually went back to the newsstand to see if they could get their own copy of the magazine I was holding. An internet link is available on http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2b7b18b0-e186-11db-bd73-000b5df10621.html.

 

On the main subject of that issue, Dora Akunyili’s travails were explicitly described by Andrew Jack, FT Magazines pharmaceutical correspondent, who was in Nigeria to see things for himself instead of summarizing from abroad the way some journalists do. The description of the current trend in Nigerian drug importation leaves no one else to blame but Nigerians who travel far and wide to connive with manufacturers mostly in Asia to produce drugs unfit for human consumption. The FT magazines publication coincides with the time another consignment of fake drugs was apprehended at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport aboard a Lufthansa flight from Germany a couple of weeks ago. This suggests that importers have found another tactic towards drug importation thinking that bringing it in from Europe will involve less scrutiny.

It was an impressive show Professor Akunyili put up when she fought Nigeria’s building giant: Julius Berger’s medical unit for giving inhumane treatment to their junior staff by giving them expired drugs. This single act of bravery attracts some sort of enmity to the DG’s rising profile, talk less of fighting her own Ibo people who are the country’s largest important of general goods and commodities be it drugs, food, spare parts or whatever.

 

One is left to wonder “if the health sector is ridden with such decay, what is the guarantee that other sectors aren’t?”. I will bet with my life that fake and expired drugs are just a fraction of inappropriate merchandise imported into the country. Moreso, it is very likely that recent collapse of buildings and infrastructure are complemented by substandard building and construction material since agencies responsible for checking the quality of such commodity, Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) in this case, hardly have the manpower and know-how to verify the authenticity of shipping documents accompanying the consignments, or a quality check for that matter. Steel for example is imported with a durability/stress data sheets which are doctored. This means that strength of a steel rod could be lower and hence more brittle than stated on the data sheet therefore posing a potential risk with use.

I was in Nigeria last year and could not help but marvel at the way trailers and tankers were constructed on road side workshops. The apprentices and welders who make huge income fabricating these bulk transport vessels do not have the technical knowledge of the steel they use or even the standards required to construct and build such stuff. This is one major reason why we have oil tankers veering of the road and causing havoc as it did in Kaduna last week. The question is “Does Nigeria have standards for such construction?” and if we do, “why aren’t they enforced?”

I believe that the Nigerian Road Safety Commission, Standards Organisation, and several other agencies that are not making the news are not performing to their mandates. Simple enforcement of standard procedures if effected by these ‘siddon look’ agencies, will save thousands of lives in our country.

Dora understands that a nation will not grow if it is sick and so she intends to heal Nigeria by her efforts. She and a few others like Nuhu Ribadu (EFCC) and Charles Soludo (CBN) are taking the bull by the horn as this remains the only way to cleanse our country of deliberate corrosion by past and perhaps present wanton leaders. Dora’s task is Herculean and is causing ripples in the cartel that is determined to take her life. Ironically, she is bold enough to wage war against her own people and still be proud to be one of them. However, this is not Dora’s war, it is our war and we have to win. Even hard headed Europeans have accepted that she is a shining light in the dark Nigeria where electricity is not available to keep drugs below temperature and a champion before the eyes of the world. I think they will be making a move for her next, after capturing Dr. Oby Ezekwesili for the World Bank, maybe as a DG for the World Health Organisation?