As it were, in traditional Arica, the dead one, no matter how young, has become older than the living, and thus deserves utmost respect and goodwill to assist him/her on the journey to the great beyond, where, in any case, he/she will undertake on behalf of those of us left behind, given the fact of the cosmogonist view of life as a continuum—begun with the living, the dead and ending with the unborn. One who joins the ancestor becomes a potential mediator on behalf of those who still breathe, in the present world. Thus, if we have cancelled the ritual of accompanying the death with living escorts, as was common in the world from which Soyinka crafted the story of Death and the King’s Horseman, where when a great man dies, the horseman must go with him, buried with him as company to the world beyond, we must at least be seen to bear great empathy and shower good will of the great deeds of the departed soul. It is hardly our place to become his/her critic.
This consciousness of the need to emotionally prop the deceased in itself justifies the downpour of praise-songs, homilies and dirges heralding the actual funereal rites of Professor Dora Akunyili of the NAFDAC fame. Even without traditional expectations, no one can begrudge this great lady of her right to celebration. She was indeed a woman of courage, great passion and commitment to the national ideal. From whatever perspectives you regard her participation in the national project; she has served well, patriotically and enviably. If she had died after leaving NADAC as an inimitable boss, she deserves to be on our uncreated role of honour. She was a bundle of courage, challenging the fake drug barons of Onitsha and elsewhere with hubris and the daring of a lioness. She has put the stamp of authenticity on every item of drug, food and beverages. This has become irreversible in Nigeria, no matter who governs the place or the land. This is the good thing about strong structures and strong leadership. Akunyili has made a difference in that strong sector of our nation’s struggle for ideals. And with all the theatrics and loud exaggerations that characterized the challenges that she faced in her exploits in that Agency—including the possessed chase after her very existence, some of which were panted with graphic dramatics like the alleged bomb that removed her head-gear without a scathing blight!– she served with suicidal adventurism. In arresting the lethal fake drug peddling in our country and bringing redoubtable sanity to that department, she deserves the place of a heroine on our honour’s list as a nation.
Dora Akunyili went on to become the Minister of Information. She was on a strange territory, professionally. A Professor of Pharmacy in Information and Communication? No doubt, she was a life fish on a dry landscape! Yet, she approached the job with proverbial Messianism, brandishing her credo of National Branding. The nation’s profile has been for long dimmed and drubbed, at home and abroad. It was time to embark on a large-scale national image laundering, with white-wash and all instruments of strategic communication which will etch a positive re-perception of Nigeria under brighter, shinning lights. Many there were who found the exercise facetious and superficial, believing that what to do is more fundamental than new name-calling—restructuring the nation’s commanding sectors, putting lights in the streets, food on the table, infrastructure to drive the economy and industry and attract investments, appropriation to education in line with the expectations of a knowledge economy that the transformation Agenda anticipates and job creation, vibrant health programme to reduce the medical flight to India and the West. No doubt, she was not oblivious of all these but she was also certain that a lot of press noise and advertorials would go a long way to burnish the name of our dear country anew. No one can challenge the vigour and compulsive aggression with which she pursued, from the bottom of her heart, the task of rebranding this country before the eyes of the domestic critics and the international community.
Those who were not very favourable to her found some opportunistic streaks in her patriotic zest. Those with this mindset alleged that she would give just anything to obtain her hearts desires. They accused her of doing obsequies in the corridors of power to maintain and secure her position as power transited from one President to the other. They accuse her of intolerance and impatience with critical opinions and her easy recourse to lavish to curry media favours and the suppression of negative press.
My own contact with her was on the pages of my column, when I once wrote of her sledge-harmer treatment of a Biomedical Company in Ilorin who her office had visited with a level of arbitrariness and I which I had investigated and found the accusation to carry a certain level of truthful fact. I had advised her to quickly revisit the high-handedness implied in the action. The first response I received from her ruinous loyalists was a rebuttal with insinuations that I had been brown-enveloped to do her down. But when it was obvious that I would not succumb to cheap blackmail, and I think she got to know where I was coming from, the blackmail option was dropped and the company was positively revisited.
Nigeria needs committed leaders and public workers that can take bull by the horn and confront the pervasive rot on our national landscape with courage, dare, selflessness and patriotic zest like the late Dora Akunyili had done. She had rendered praise-worthy service to the nation in the various capacities in which she had traversed the land on duty to this nation. She was indeed an Amazon with the heart of a lion, with roving balls of vision after excellence, even if occasionally applying the mechanics of the theatrical to achieve her noble goals. Gorgeous and graceful Dora will be sorely missed. Adieu, dear Amazon.