05/09/2026
And guess where kidney failure is trending now???? Same East!!!
Since Dora left that office Nafdac became a joke🤦♀️
May her soul and the soul of her husband keep resting in peace🙏
They say you don't miss your water until the well runs dry.
Everybody misses Dora Akunyili now because of the alarming rate of fake goods.
But back then it was like she was doing too much.
While some understood her fight, others were simply too emotional to get it.
In fact, let me get into the Dora gist.
As the former DG of NAFDAC 2001-2008, she was known as Nigeria’s most aggressive fake drugs fighter, and it nearly got her kpai'd multiple times.
When she took over NAFDAC in 2001, Naija was flooded with fake drugs, fake drinks, fake cosmetics.
Dora would raid and shut down markets unapologetically.
She went after Onitsha Bridge Head Market, Ariaria Market Aba, and Idumota Lagos. Those were the 3 biggest hubs for fake drugs in West Africa.
Dora really had some balls! She always looked angry. For the right reasons.
She would deploy vans to test drugs on the spot at ports and markets.
She introduced product registration and barcode system.
Every manufacturer was to register. It made it harder to bring in unregistered imports.
Ah! Those times, we got used to seeing publicly destroyed trucks of fake drugs worth billions of naira.
Bulldozers crushing fake Coca-Cola, fake milk, warehouses.
Aba and Onitsha traders would cry and wail.
But you know what?
By 2006 WHO and United States Food and Drug Administration were using Nigeria as an example of how to tackle counterfeit items.
Drug faking dropped drastically.
The best part...
Local manufacturing picked up because people started trusting "Made in Nigeria" drugs again.
However, she stepped on the toes of very powerful people who owned markets.
These were billionaires who made money importing fake paracetamol, antibiotics, and expired drugs from India, China.
When she shut Onitsha market for 3 months in 2002, they lost millions.
They started calling her "the woman who wants to bring down Igbo business."
Yes, her own people turned on her.
She got kpai threats daily.
Her phone was tapped.
There was a plane b_mb:ng attempt.
Her staff were constantly att+ck3d.
One time there was an as___s+nation attempt in Anambra.
G_nmen attacked her convoy. A boolit pierced her windscreen and headscarf, grazing her scalp.
Her police driver was 🔫.
She would often say in interviews that people told her ‘Madam, leave this anti-fake drug thing alone or we will kpai you.’
Because some senators and governors were patrons of the big market associations, when she closed markets, they pressured Obasanjo to remove her.
They would also try to bribe NAFDAC officials.
But because Dora was one h3ll of a woman,
she even fired and prosecuted corrupt NAFDAC officials who were collecting bribes to clear fake goods!
*****
Back to the Igbo region - the biggest hub for fake drinks and consumables in general. I mean, let's not even argue over this fact.
Market leaders organized protests and claimed she was targeting Igbo traders. Many people bought into the sentiments.
Dora told them she wasn't against traders. She was against poison.
The fact that she didn't spare her own people was supposed to be a good thing. At least you could drink paracetamol without fearing that it was crushed chalk.
Sadly, a lot of people in the South East had things to say about her market shutdown style.
The men h8ted her guts. Oh yes!
God bless Obasanjo.
He gave her full backing. Without that, she would have been removed.
When she left NAFDAC, fake drug prevalence had dropped drastically.
She later said: "The most painful part was that your own people were the ones trying to kpai you for trying to save them."
I think somehow we're paying for it.
BTV Reporting
