Date Published: 03/20/10

DORA THE DOYEN By Sunday Dare

Give it up for Prof. Dora Nkem Akunyili, Nigeria’s Information and Communications minister for finding her thunder and unleashing it. A tigress is always a tigress. She has shown us all the power of conviction, the strength of character and the above all the reward for courage. That immediate reward is the satisfaction that the people are lined up behind her in support of her latest daring action. Her other immediate reward for pushing out that memo that opened the floodgates and paved the way for Nigeria to regain some temporary sanity and pave the way for Acting President Goodluck Jonathan is the satisfaction that she went with her conscience and took the road less travelled, particularly when men refused to be men.

Now a doyen of Nigerian politics, Prof Dora has come full circle. She has demonstrated that her brilliance in the citadel, her fierceness as a regulator while at NAFDAC and her courage to attempt to re-brand Nigeria are no fluke. While at the Information Ministry she woke up each day with a passion to work for a new Nigeria rightly perceived at home and abroad. Thus, what she did regarding the Yar’adua memo and the barrage of attacks she unleashed on the members of the cabal who were bent on holding Nigeria down is in her character. Jonathan needs look no further if he is looking for someone who can deliver and turn things around. Dora Akunyili is a square peg waiting to be fitted into a square hole in the new political dispensation. God knows Nigeria needs a trooper at INEC and other places. Maurice Iwu needs to be sent packing.

Prof Dora has finally landed on Nigeria’s political landscape with a bang. She has dared to enter into a terrain dominated by men. The men are not too happy. The women though are. She has not only become the pathfinder for the womenfolk but also in a wry way the soul finder for some of our politicians who have repeatedly failed to show up when the battle is at its fircest. Well, Dora did. She showed up where men feared to thread.

The recent attacks against her person are ill-conceived. But in the multitude of those attacks are a few constructive positions about the way forward. She must not loose sight of them, but must find them and take them to heart. We know that most of the attacks are coming from her political base because they sense danger. Where the men who dominated the political turf hitherto held sway, a woman is about to take their political mojo away and render them politically impotent. But they will not let her have a free ride even though she has earned it. Trying to stop her now may be too late. It is like shutting the barn door after the horses have already escaped.

Dora is on course. However, she must work hard at building her political base. She must collaborate with others with the same political pedigree to build a critical mass that will unleash the positive change our polity badly needs. She must remember thou just as the reward for hard work is more work, so also is the reward for courageous move more courageous moves. Indeed for Dora the future beckons.

In the midst of the pollution that engulfed our country in the last four months, Dora’s courageous activities have been a breath of fresh air for Nigeria. Let no man attempt to pollute it.