Whereas 2023 was at its deathbed, the late Professor Dora Akunyili got here alive. She grew to become a subject on the social media as Nigerians relived her occasions in our nationwide life. She was remembered and eulogised extra for what she did because the Director-Common of the Nationwide Company for Meals and Drug Administration and Management (NAFDAC) than as a member of the Federal Govt Council (FEC). She was Nigeria’s minister of data who boldly spoke up when the problem of the ailment of President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua left Nigeria in a harmful conundrum. Nigerians went in a single path to level to the disturbing proven fact that faux and substandard consumable merchandise have crammed our markets and our bellies. Usually, it’s agreed that when Akunyili was in control of that facet of our nationwide life, we didn’t have it so dangerous. She battled so very exhausting towards numerous forces at dwelling and overseas and efficiently made Nigeria a constructive reference within the worldwide laws neighborhood.
Now, faking of these important commodities beneath the purview of NAFDAC has returned in larger dimensions and has crammed our head to a degree the place Nigerians themselves have raised the alarm. They’re fearful, they’re unhappy, they’re confused and extra importantly, they’re helpless. We’re helpless as a result of if we select to disregard consuming, we might not be capable to ignore medicines. And the alarm, even from NAFDAC itself, is sounding on almost all issues meals, medical merchandise, cosmetics, alcoholic liqueur and fizzy drinks. The present scenario of NAFDAC is a transparent case of Aisedede araye nii mu ni ranti ara orun – The inadequacies of the residing remind the neighborhood of the lifeless good chief.
NAFDAC just lately launched into a sensitisation of states within the North Central area on “the damaging results of unwholesome meals, faux medical merchandise, dangerous cosmetics, poor water and different substandard merchandise.” That is the tender aspect of the work of NAFDAC. Collect individuals from all over the place, sit them in a corridor based on their statuses and converse all manners of English grammar and registers to them on what NAFDAC is doing and what they need to keep away from. Afterwards, everybody retries to their actions and the cycle of what you have been making an attempt to dissuade them from continues. Present Director-Common of NAFDAC, Professor Moji Adeyeye, represented by Bolaji Abayomi, mentioned on the event that “dissemination of security data on meals and medicines is a vital is a vital facet of the company’s regulatory work.” Some Nigerians use kerosene tanker to move edible oil, he famous and in addition decried the usage of dyes in palm oil and bromate in baking, and why these ought to cease.
That’s simpler than going after counterfeiters as a result of they’re armed, prepared and harmful. Prof Adeyeye says they function like a cartel whereas the South-East director of NAFDAC, Martins Iluyomade, mentioned they’re “worse than Boko Haram.” They’ve backers and godfathers, they know individuals within the police and armed forces; they know highly effective women and men in authorities. Iluyomade was awed by the extent of faking he noticed at Cemetery Street Market in Aba, Abia State. He mentioned 240 retailers have been used for unlawful manufacturing of faux consumables there, and that 4 trailers couldn’t transfer what he noticed in that market. That’s the reason these fakers may boldly goal Dora Akunyili and truly shot her to kill her.
She survived the gun assault however finally succumbed to most cancers. Her son, Edozie Akunyili thinks his mom died for Nigeria in useless and he has his causes for holding that thought. He additionally thinks his father, who was shot brutally within the streets of Idemili, died for Nigeria in useless. Edozie additionally thinks that corruption and impunity are profitable within the nation and that the sacrifices of his mother and father may not well worth the whereas. “No one has sacrificed extra for Nigeria than our household and we continually ask ourselves if it was value it.” That was the lamentation of Edozie Akunyili. You can’t inform the bereaved how to not mourn, you’ll be able to solely attempt to assist him rein in his feelings and his loincloth. Maybe, Edozie will see that his mom was the problem and the constructive instance in the entire development. This makes Dora a hero. Heroes don’t die in useless.
Ought to we lament evil Nigerians and their international collaborators? By their antics, they appear to outnumber and simply outwit the great ones. Authorities anticipated such individuals and got here up with NAFDAC that may assist maintain such evil doers in examine and produce them to e-book. For some years, even the NAFDAC was drowned within the overwhelming irregularities within the society till a sure Dora Akunyili took cost. Now, now we have gone again to the pre-Akunyili period. Ought to we then heap our cries on the doorstep of a wilted NAFDAC? Going by revealed stories, opinions and commentaries, NAFDAC seems clearly overwhelmed. The company has misplaced that verve and fearsome aura of the Akunyili period.
Nigeria occurred to NAFDAC. The company is a sufferer of Nigeria the place people are bigger than state establishments. People commit crimes, stay of their heinous world and flaunt their crimes in our faces. Penalties are uncommon. Criminals in excessive locations with godfathers in excessive locations are a part of the ruling elite. In any other case, the world remembers that NAFDAC was within the vanguard of Nigerian businesses that acquired world accolades for exhausting work and integrity. The place has all that gone? Some say Professor Moji Adeyeye lacks the type of vitality required for the duty in NAFDAC. They may be proper.
Whereas we disparage NAFDAC, it’s pertinent to additionally ask the place is the Requirements Organisation of Nigeria (SON)? Does that company nonetheless exist? If SON is the statutory physique saddled with the accountability of standardising and regulating the standard of “all merchandise in Nigeria” why are we calling out solely NAFDAC? One of many mandates of SON is to certify merchandise within the nation, and there doesn’t appear to be any type of certification going by the amount of substandard product in circulation in Nigeria. The lax in SON dwarfs that in NAFDAC.
The autumn in our requirements is brought on by authorities’s drive for pecuniary development. The unhappy equation of Nigeria with faux merchandise may be because of how authorities has positioned itself and these businesses. So typically and customary will we measure the success or in any other case of Nigeria’s institutional businesses by how a lot income they offload within the robust room of presidency. To chop NAFDAC some slack, we will say its ‘arms are tied’. It’s attainable that the hawks in authorities have gone with cap in hand to ask NAFDAC ‘wetin you chop stay’. It’s not not possible that when NAFDAC and different such businesses attempt to act accordingly, the financial dictates would have a stronger pull. It pulls NAFDAC from exerting correct regulation and even drifts it from correct oversight.
Our ‘how a lot has your company generated?’ authorities can’t be absolved from blames. To begin a small enterprise, many strict hurdles and excessive charges line all the way in which. Banks too should not freed from the blames as they cost in very difficult and corrupt methods. These cumbersome processes merely spell EXPLOITATION! And this breeds corruption of the system. The system manned by people who find themselves not above board themselves, will simply crumble. Personnel accede to slight overtures of the corrupt individuals and all of us fall beneath the spell of fakers. The federal government shouldn’t support and abet what’s going on towards NAFDAC, however it’s implicitly doing this.
Who or what ought to we then lament? The loss of life of Akunyili? The lax of NAFDAC and SON? The federal government rabidly fixated on income? Or, ought to we lament the Nigerian who, by all means struggles very exhausting to subvert the system? At our numerous ranges, we’re our personal worst enemies – and our enemies are mutating quickly.
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