Date Published: 02/04/10
Prof. Akunyili seems to be finding her lost way back again By Temple Chima Ubochi
Integrity is the core of our character (L. Lionel Kendrick)
Stand up for what is right, even if you are standing alone (Gani Fawehinmi)
He/she who hurries to a war does not know that war leads to death (Oji ösö agbakwuru ögü amaghi n’ ögü bu önwü) (Igbo Proverb)
If a child is stopped from fighting, then, another day he/she would still wants to fight again (nwata lua ögü egboroegbö, ubochi ozo, öchöwakwa ögü ozo ögä alü) (Igbo Proverb)
If a wooden deity starts misbehaving, it will be reminded that from wood it was carved out. (Arusi kpawa agwa ojoo, eme k’omara n’obu osisi k’eji pia ya) (Igbo Proverb)
He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it (Martin Luther King Jr.)
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time could be fatal. Even an angel who finds him/herself in the wrong place at the wrong time could misbehave. There are good and bad in everyone and the distance between being a good or bad person could be only a heart beat. Prof. Dora Akunyili has been in a wrong position in a wrong government since she became the minister of information and communication. This writer would tell you why he made the preceding assertion soon, have patience.
Akunyili, knowing that her days as NAFDAC Director was numbered when Yar’Adua took office, became desperate to secure a ministerial appointment so as to continue having police protection. Having stepped on big toes as NAFDAC Director, she knew too well that her life would be in grave danger without a round the clock police protection, afterall, the drug mafia has made several attempts on her life and she has had a close shave with death and have survived by a whisker. With the idea of the potential dangers awaiting her in private life, Akunyili decided to lobby for ministerial appointment. When the Chef Thug of Ibadan, the late Adedibu, accused her of having lobbied him to help secure a ministerial appointment for her, nobody took the old man serious. But that showed how desperate the lady was to secure an appointment due to the precarious situation her job as the NAFDAC Director put her into.
When Akunyili finally secured the ministerial appointment after missing it in Yar’Adua’s first year in office, Turai, the president’s wife, who has been the de facto ruler while her husband slumbers, took up the job of assigning the ministers their respective portfolios. The ministry that “the imperial majesty, Queen Turai”, deemed fit for Akunyili was that of information and communication, so that she, having a good record as NAFDAC Director, would launder the nauseating image of her husband’s government, rather than assigning her (Akunyili) any of the ministries within the health sector, her area of specialization.
Akunyili, having no other choice, accepted a portfolio she has nothing to do with. Being a lioness/fighter she’s, she forgot where to draw the line. She couldn’t differentiate between her last job and the present one. She took the mindset of NAFDAC Director, where she had to do what she did because of the entrenched and deadly nature of the drug mafia she confronted and flattened out, to her new job as the mouth piece of the government – two different parallel worlds apart.
Now, let’s look at how she has been getting it wrong since becoming the minister of information and communication. As a minister, Akunyili has been bellicose, making people to ask what’s wrong with her. Others, including this writer, even suggested that she needs to re-brand herself first, before embarking on her futile cleansing of Nigeria’s stenchy image.
Dora, as a minister of information, is too belligerent; maybe, as a NAFDAC Director, that kind of attitude served her well, afterall she wasn’t under intense media scrutiny like now that she’s a minister. Her altercative tendencies are getting out of hand. She has been getting too pugnacious and that might have something to do with her being in a wrong post in a wrong government. Look at all these:
* Saharareporters.com once wrote: “Yesterday (31.12.3009), our efforts to speak with Nigeria’s Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili, (about Mutallab) degenerated into a fight as she lashed out at Saharareporters for placing a supposedly uncomplimentary photo of her on our website. She told our reporter that she thought after she wrote a rejoinder regarding the NTA 8.2 billion scam, she had a “deal” with us”.
*About three weeks earlier, she picked a fight against Michael Aondakaa, the AGF, for encroaching unto her territory as the information minister. This writer wrote then that “what those around Yar’Adua are doing in his absence, is engaging in infighting while scheming for vantage position. The Attorney-General and Minister of Justice wanted to turned himself into the mouth piece of the government and that led to a clash between him and the Minister of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili, who felt the AGF was encroaching into her territory”.
This writer also wrote once:
“Look at how hopeless Nigeria is: Prof. Dora Akunyili that was celebrated until few months ago as one of the best persons in Nigeria due to how she tamed the fake drug monsters, has lost her steam and invincibility and is now being lashed all round by Nigerians because of her ill-conceived re-branding of a rotten product called Nigeria. There is no way somebody can change a bad thing by re-branding it. Putting a bad wine into a new skin still does not make it a good wine. Nigeria is worth less than 10 cents today, so who can buy that shit? Deodorising a shit does not change its content! Dora is in a wrong place and will be floundering all the time until she leaves for a better assignment.
Dora Akunyili has lost her aura too soon. Once, during the federal Executive Council's (FEC) meeting; where she wanted to present her pet project of re-banding Nigeria to her colleagues (ministers), she was hissed at in the presence of the president who did nothing to stop the ignominious treatment meted to the lady by her colleagues who were also skeptical about the re-branding project. We never knew before now that Prof. Akunyili can be so shabbily treated.
*The Vanguard Newspapers of March 11, 2009 wrote that the National Assembly threatened Akunyili with arrest: That the Minister of Information, Professor Dora Akunyili, was yesterday (March 10, 2009) threatened with arrest by the two National Assembly Committees on Information which charged her to re-brand her character of impudence to the legislature prior to re-branding the nation's image. That the threat by the two Committees followed one hour of waiting for the Minister by the two Committees which were scheduled to be briefed by the Minister on her policy initiatives, notably the re-branding of the nation.
Rep. Dino Melaye condemned her approach of re-branding Nigeria, which he said should start with our character re-branding. The Paper quoted Rep. Melaye as having said: "I think before we go into the process of re-branding, we should start with character reformation and one of the good character of the good administrator as a leader in this country is to be punctual especially when you are invited by the National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria."
*This writer never knew before then that Prof. Akunyili could be addressed as such. The unthinkable that happened so far was what the Tribune Newspapers of Saturday, February 21, 2009 wrote. Here it was reported that Prof. Akunyili engaged a UN envoy in a verbal war. The Paper wrote: It was a bitter experience on Friday (Feb. 20, 2009) as the Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili and the country representative of United Nations Childrens' Fund (UNICEF), Dr. Suomi Sakai engaged in hot exchanges over the controversial figure assigned to Nigeria in the 2009 State of the World's Children Report.
Though, the minister vented her anger earlier against the statistics, fresh trouble started when the UNICEF boss paid her a visit not knowing that it was going to turn to a scene of verbal war. It was at that point that the minister who seemed to have been "laying ambush" on the envoy immediately swooped on and lashed out on her (Dr. Sakai) on the supposedly "shoddy" job done by her office.
According to the report, Prof. Akunyili lost her cool, was in a fighting mood and was even ready to engage the envoy in a physical fight thereby throwing all cautions and decorum to the wind and missed it all on the tenets of diplomacy and hospitality which should have warranted her to put up a brave face in the presence of the lady on an official visit. Prof Akunyili forgot the Igbo Proverb that says "he/she that beats up his or her visitor should not boast of being powerful (onye gburu onye biara ngaya abughi onye ike)". Nobody dreamt before then that Prof. Akunyili could display such a despicable attitude”.
This is a woman most of us effusively defended when Adedibu accused her of being so desperate to be minister. Some of us even came down heavily on the old man because of his character, not knowing that he was saying the truth about Prof. Akunyili. This woman’s countenances and demeanour are tasteless as a minister, and that might be because she’s in-charge of a wrong portfolio in a stupid government. Adedibu alleged in 2007 that Akunyili was fighting him because of her failure to secure a ministerial appointment earlier under the current administration. He (Adedibu) said the then NAFDAC boss actually lobbied him to get her such appointment, and that she only resorted to blackmailing him after she had failed to realise that ambition. (Ref: Punch November 17, 2007) Now, we're seeing what the Chief Thug of Ibadan was saying then. Prof Akunyili is very arrogant in her job (being in a wrong post) and the way she is going about her job is disgusting. That was not how we thought she is.
Yar’Adua left for medicals in Saudi Arabia without officially handing over to his VP, and his wife, his kitchen cabinet members and the hawks surrounding him have refused to allow him transmit a letter to the national assembly that would pave the way for smooth power transition. For about two months; the business of governance has virtually grinded to a halt, nobody knows who’s in-charge here. The kitchen cabinet members and their cohorts having been doing as they deem fit since then, they have been taking Nigerians for fools, spewing one lie after another about the health condition of the president in order to frustrate the move to hand over to the VP even on an acting capacity. Nobody knows who to believe anymore. The ministers have been behaving as sheep without Shepard, since there’s nobody having oversight function over them, they have no respect or regard for the VP since their boss, Yar’Adua, accords him no respect or regard also. The ministers flaunt laid down rules and regulations with impunity in Yar’Adua’s absence, they have been looting Nigeria dry since the president absconded; only God knows what Nigeria has lost through looting, embezzlement, corruption etc since the president abandoned Nigeria.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) that’s supposed to declare the president incapacitated and unfit to continue ruling so that the VP can take over, decided to put their selfish interests above that of Nigeria and its people by declaring a president, who might be in coma, as fit to continue ruling, saying that only the president, himself, can declare himself unfit to rule. That was one of the most stupid sayings this writer has ever heard. The FEC members are only trying to protect their job and interest, knowing fully well that a Jonathan’s presidency, even on an acting capacity, would “wreck” some of them. Jonathan’s presidency would sack almost all the ministers because they have been rude, corrupt and underperforming, they only fit’s Yar’Adua’s government, because, as the boss is, so is his employees. The ministers are afraid of Jonathan as president, because many of them have brought his person and office into disrepute and they know too well that he (Jonathan), as the president, would not hesitate to pay them back in their own coin. The VP has warned that the ministers who have performed well so far need not to fear, but, that those who have underperformed, or are corrupt or have flaunted rules, orders or regulations, should be quaking, because their days are numbered, assuming the trend continues and Yar’Adua is then forced to transfer power. That’s why the underperforming and corrupt ministers are afraid of “tomorrow” with Jonathan as the president, whether as acting or actual; they want Yar’Adua to continue hanging on, even in his vegetative condition, so that they can remain relevant as ministers.
Suddenly or out of the blue, Prof. Akunyili has decided to be her old self, a fearless heroine we all have been craving to see again. We’re learning that Dora Akunyili, at the Federal Executive Council meeting, submitted a memo calling on the FEC to face up to the reality of Yar’Adua’s incapacitation. She wanted the FEC to urge their boss to transmit a letter to the National Assembly that would empower the VP to take over the reins of government, even on acting capacity. Akunyili summoned the courage to look her colleagues in the eyes and warned that the FEC had taken the Nigerian people for granted for too long and should do the right thing by urging the president to step down. The reasons she wants a transfer of power are as follows:
“To relieve the whole country, including Yar’Adua family, the burden of the controversy being generated as a result of ill health of the president, adding that it doesn’t pay anybody the way the country is drifting.
The problems of the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) and the agreement reached with the militants, of which nobody was ready to meet with them.
The issue of some federal ministries that were without permanent secretaries and since the vice-president did not have power to appoint or swear them in, it means that those ministries would continue to be coordinated without permanent secretaries.”
Although the memo was not allowed to see the light of the day as the stooges in the cabinet did not permit it to enter the agenda. One cannot imagine the kind of people we have as ministers, they have no liver to do the right thing or to speak up, even when many of them were thinking like Ms. Akunyili. We’re told majority of the members actually supported her position in private and some of them even congratulated her after the meeting. We have only cowards as ministers.
This is the Akunyili we all knew and were proud of. This is the paragon of service and honesty we all eulogized prior to her taking of the ministerial appointment. She has spoken her mind, no matter what anybody thinks and no matter how Yar’Adua and his stooges feel about Akunyili right now; the lady has cleared her conscience, so nobody can accuse her of supporting unconstitutionality.
Although Akunyili has lost her “way” as a minister, it seems she’s finding it back again and we’re elated about it. She said the right thing and we’re proud of her for that and even if Yar’Adua returns and sacks her, she should go back to the classroom at UNN, she still has her place in UNN’s heart, God will protect her against those fake drug barons, who still want her to pay a price for putting them out of business when she was the NAFDAC Director. Akunyili should not be afraid of losing her job for speaking the truth. At UNN, she would be more useful and productive than living a false life as the chief liar of a useless government. Afterall, helping in impacting lasting knowledge on students of Pharmacy at UNN would mean more for Nigeria and its people than serving a wrong and deceitful in a wrong position. Not only that, her enviable records as the NAFDAC Director, she has been shredding by taking up this wrong ministerial appointment, is still there, and might still help her get an international appointment, but, Nigeria needs her better at UNN or any other university in Nigeria. Now that the quality of our education has nosedived, she can help prop it up in her own little way; at least, by helping train quality pharmacists, she has then contributed her own quota in the education sector.
And if Jonathan takes over as the president, on acting or actual basis, Akunyili should be sure that she would get a better portfolio within the health sector, where she really belongs. Then, she wouldn’t need to be everything other than the Dora Akunyili we all knew and were proud of just few years ago, then belligerency or bellicosity or pugnacity would not be her trade mark again, then she would remain the lioness she’s supposed to be and not a snake that always wants to fight. She would then bring out the best in herself once again to the delight of all. That’s the Dora Akunyili we all knew.
Having said all the above: For now, Prof. Akunyili is aggressive, intolerant and insultive and these contradict her as the information/communication minister, meaning that she was given a wrong portfolio. Despite being at a wrong post, she has disappointed many of us who eulogised and defended here against her traducers the time she was NAFDAC Chair. She should be more circumspect and diplomatic in everything she does or says in this 2010 and beyond, even if she still remains as the information minister, if and when Yar’Adua returns.
THE THANXS IS ALL YOURS!!!
Temple Chima Ubochi writes from Bonn, Germany through ubochit@yahoo.com |
