As Director General of the National Agency for Food Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Professor Dora Akunyili was celebrated as a heroine willing to risk her life to tackle the cabals behind the fake drugs business in Nigeria. Her tour of duty as Minister of Information and Communications was, however, more controversial and turbulent. In this interview with RITA OHAI, she discusses a public career and political journey marked with unexpected twists and turns.
You were clearly enthusiastic about your job as Director General of NAFDAC. What didn’t you like about the role?
I did not like the threats and the tension I was going through. I also didn’t like all the abuse that came from my own people who felt that I was spoiling their business; all they wanted was to make money through the sale of counterfeit drugs.
But what nearly affected me was the assassination attempt on my life. After that incident, I felt really traumatised for a long time – even though I tried to keep a bold face so I would not look defeated, or else it would have meant jubilation for the criminals.
NAFDAC gave me the exposure and the opportunity to put in my best in my area of core competence. But it was because of the pressure that my husband announced during my fourth year anniversary at NAFDAC that I would not have a second tenure in public office.
I agreed with him because my entire family was counting the days until I quit. Besides, five years is a long time for somebody to constantly be under tension. Then President Olusegun Obasanjo called my husband and spoke to him asking him to support me, while reassuring him that everything would be put in place for my protection.
The normal practice is for the outgoing DG to write for an extension of their tenure about three months to the end of the current tenure but I did not write until one year after my first tenure had ended. It was not until my board chairman, Dr. Andy Andem, a thorough gentleman, told me that if I did not write for my second tenure, somebody could say that everything I had been signing for the past one year was illegal.
So I reluctantly wrote in for it. If not for the invitation President Obasanjo gave my husband, I do not think I would have gone for a second tenure.
The suspects who tried to assassinate you are still walking freely around the country. How do you feel about that?
It is my greatest pain. It is because of the botched court case against these people that my book did not come out earlier than it did. I kept hoping and praying for the proper conclusion of that case for it to be published.
One of the suspects has been released and it pains me dearly but I still trust God. The case is still on and my prayer is that it will be concluded in my life time.
First, we went to the High Court in Abuja and after a long time of adjournments and stories, the judge said he had no jurisdiction. The question is, ‘did he not know he had no jurisdiction until after one year?’
We went to the Appeal Courts and they asked him to go and hear the case but the suspects went to the Supreme Court and brought up all kinds of appeal. I keep telling my children that I thank God I did not die because this is how the case would have fizzled out.
During the shooting, five of the six assassins they sent were killed by the police. The star witness who escaped is still alive. And after the shooting the next morning, they went to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital to look for me.
They went to Dr. Mbadiwe and told him they were sent by their boss at the police station in Awka to come and take care of me – which was a lie. The doctor told them I was not there and they left which shows that they really wanted to finish it up.
We had evidence of these people planning their attack. The drug barons paid them N10 million to do the job and while they were fighting over that money, they got angry and went to report to the police. So even the police knew because one of them confessed that they hired guns from Nigerian Army 82 Division, Enugu.
I reported this to the National Security Adviser, the Police Commissioner and they all did nothing. If we had the correct system, this case would not have lasted this long but I have not lost hope.
With your background in pharmacy, how did you qualify to become the Minister of Information?
I would like to say that ministerial positions are not based on profession because it is a position of management. That is why the Minister of Works is not always an Engineer. The degrees I have had, the exposure and the managerial positions I have held put me in a position to run any ministry. What matters is that we have technical people around us.
I never expected that I would become the Minister of Information because I see myself as a change agent. I like a critical ministry that I would go to and there would be visible change in six months. But in Nigeria, it is after the person is sworn-in that portfolios are given. If portfolios were given before my swearing-in, I would have declined.
However, another thing happened. After the swearing-in ceremony, and I was given the Minister of Information and Communications, I was in shock and you should have seen my face. It would have been silly for me to get up and say I was no longer doing it or for me to say I was going back to NAFDAC.
My mother-in-law and daughter were with me and I went to the bathroom and cried out my eyes. But my daughter while trying to pacify my said that the ministry was the image-maker of the economy. My mother-in-law also told me that nothing happens without God’s approval.
I then remembered that my elder sister, Mrs. Okpala, called me six months before that time and told me she dreamt that I was made Minister of Information and I said ‘God forbid, you must have malaria’.
After our meeting with President Yar’Adua, I went to him and knelt down. Before I could say ‘Your Excellency’ he told me to calm down because Nigeria had image problems and we needed to fix them. And he said I should go and do the job well.
When I got there, almost nothing was working. There was no website. Can you imagine a Ministry of Information without a website? I worked really hard and it made me happy that journalists that said I was not one of them started writing that they wanted me back and I started enjoying the place.
You received a lot of backlash on your ‘Naija’ and rebranding Nigeria project. Did you feel the criticism was fair or did you consider it politically motivated?
The Ministry of Information is very political. I saw most of the bashing as part of the job. People kept asking what we were rebranding since there was no light and water and I kept wondering whether I was the one to provide the light and water.
Some of my relations would call me and ask why I was not doing anything for anybody after announcing plenty billions of naira on television. When people see you speaking for government, you become the government they know.
It was more of bitterness against leaders and not against the minister but the minister could not wriggle out of it because she was the spokesperson.
It was very tough and it is not that I really loved the place, but I decided to make the best of the situation. I know that I would have done better in ministries like Agriculture where you could easily measure success with physical yardsticks.
Some young people came to show me things they did and it was filled with ‘Naija’ and I thought about it that the word was something that should be used in a light mood, and not when making a formal presentation. Another thing that people had problems with was when I said they should not sing the national anthem with various tones.
And then you plunged into politics fully – running for the senate. That didn’t end too well. Do you accept that you lost fair and square or do you think you were rigged out of the senatorial seat?
Oh clearly! This was why the case was never concluded. I have enough honour, and I say this with all humility, that if there was clear voting and counting, I would congratulate that person. In an election, one person must win. Nothing says that it must be a particular person that must win. I am a professional in politics and not a professional politician.
I have come out of the things that happened in that election emotionally but I still cannot believe the things that happen in the 21st century.
I was part of the problem in a way because I never made use of a single thug. Young people came from time to time almost on a daily basis for me to enroll them in my campaign and I refused to do it because my son cannot be a thug and I cannot use somebody’s child as one.
But on the day of election, thugs ran us out of the state. They made sure we did not see what was going on. My governor and I were playing it clean because he was supporting me.
When the results were being compiled the thugs were in such a huge number that they did not let my car get to the center. On the day of the re-run, one Anaene went to a hotel and announced the result. This is the first time results are being announced from a hotel on cardboard paper. That same Anaene told a lawyer, Barrister Erike, who was in my campaign team to give him N10 million because he was under pressure to announce result. I felt that it was bribery and decided not to do it.
The results that INEC had showed that I was leading by over 700 votes. Even during the re-run, we had more thugs than voters in places like Umunnachi. When we went to court, we did not present most of the ugly things that happened and relied on data. We were also naïve as we were rejoicing when we kept winning from one technicality to another and after 180 days the case expired.
In an interview you gave, you were quoted as saying that you husband asked you to leave PDP to save your marriage. Apart from your husband’s intervention, why did you leave the party?
I was misquoted and it is not true. We all know that the PDP in Anambra has always been having problems. Since Governor Peter Obi is very close to my family and we have known him for many years as a very stable and honest person, we felt he will not mislead me.
He wanted to help me get another platform to serve our people. I do not regret leaving PDP and going to APGA to run an election. It is all part of life experiences.
There has been a lot of confusion regarding the leadership of APGA. Who is the legitimate APGA chairman and what is your take on all the controversy surrounding the party?
The issues in APGA are being sorted out and I believe that in no distant time, they will be resolved. The governor has even assured us that he will do the local government election before the gubernatorial elections.
Before all of this takes place, APGA will hold its convention and ward congresses. I believe that APGA is just experiencing a family quarrel. Wherever you have human beings, there are bound to be misunderstandings as long as they are resolved amicably. Right now, we have an interim chairman who is Mr. Maxi Okwu, and he is the chairman until we do the convention.
Will we see you in 2015 vying for any political position?
Yes! I will run in 2015 if it is the will of God. It is a problem to be overconfident because when you are confident and sure you are going to win, your opponent will be trying to make sure that he wins by hook or crook. Nigerian politics is not a fair game. It is either you act like them or you prevent them from playing dirty games.
You were the first person who officially revealed the state of health of late President Umaru Yar’Ardua during the period of his extended absence from the country. What pushed you to take the risk?
It was not President Yar’Adua’s fault that he fell ill. But people around him, I call them ‘the cabal’, mismanaged his illness.
When he was rushed out of the country, his spokesperson, Segun Adeniyi, did well to tell us he was sick. But from that time onwards, it became one story or the other. We all suspected he was in bad shape but nobody was 100 percent sure and we were fed with lies.
As the Minister of Information, I was in a very bad shape because whatever story I was told, I had to announce. I suspected they were lies but you cannot depend on suspicion.
When I confirmed that people around him were lying was when they went to get the National Assembly to get assent for a budget with a signature from him. I spoke to three different people that went on that trip and they all told me different stories of how he signed it.
One of them said they were in a town far from where he was and they sent the documents to him and he signed. Another one said, they were downstairs in the hospital and they took the papers to him and he signed. One other person told me he actually went into the President’s room and watched him sign it. He also said they did not allow him to talk.
When three people that went for the same mission were telling different stories, I concluded that they were lies. At that point, I started feeling miserable.
We went for council meetings and they began their stories again about re-assuring Nigerians. That particular day, I made up my mind not to report this again in council. It was that same day that Michael Aondoakaa, the former Attorney General, took over my job and my face actually gave me up as I was sitting and looking at him in shock as he was reeling out lies.
I was the most miserable human being during the Yar’ Adua saga and I was taking a lot of sedatives to sleep. Because of my position as Minister of Information, even if everybody knew they were lying, I was the person speaking to the public.
Before I acted, I went to see three different ministers. In one of the minister’s house I saw Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu and I confided in him on why I came to see the minister. While talking to that minister, I let him know that if our democracy collapses, generations unborn will not forgive us. The man said he will never say anything. The two other ministers said the same thing.
That Tuesday night, I wrote a memo, called my Special Adviser, Mr. Ugwumba, who proofread it and told me it was suicidal. I told him that if I die doing this, let me die. I was tired of the lies and went to council the next morning.
I circulated it and some of the ministers read it. The Secretary to the Government said the memo must be withdrawn. Some people did not send back their own because they were angry with how ‘the cabal’ was handling this but they refused to speak up.
I did not have any support. In a few minutes, the news was all over the place. My husband called me and asked why I made that kind of dangerous move without telling him and I let him know that if I had told him, he would not allow me because I was ready to leave the job.
Many of the ministers supported me secretly but they only came out to speak when they saw that the National Assembly and other people had followed.
Do you think members of the legislative and executive arms of government earn way too much in salaries and allowances?
People in public service earn reasonable allowancesbecause if you are not corrupt and if you are not earning money from other places, I think it is good. A minister or director general of an agency needs to be comfortable to do the job well.
What I think is that the civil service is over-populated. In the ministry, you see some rooms with six people and one small table and you ask youself how they can function well.
