Dora Akunyili:
Triumph of regulation
After the dinning and
winning to mark her
50th birthday, it is the development and labour dimension of NAFDAC’s chieftain that is of interest to me.
John Ralston Saul, the Canadian author of “Dictionary of Aggressive Common-sense” notes incisively “…that regulation protects the MARKETPLACE from itself by introducing commonsense. In the process, it protects society”.
The spectacular picture of pharmaceutical companies presenting BMW car gift to NAFDAC Director-General on the occasion of her 50th birthday underscores triumph of regulation in development process. Never before had a singular regulatory agency’s campaign for standard and quality added value of unexpected proportions in pharmaceutical sectors. And that is official!
In the standard cliché of reform-agenda, we are made to belief that: private sector is the engine of growth.
Dora’s NAFDAC shows that while private sector is the engine, public sector oils this engine, without which the former crashes into smithereens! The remarkable recovery of drugs and food manufacturing sector from near zero capacity to full production on accounts of NAFDAC’s keeping faith with its mandate of enforcing standard must serve as a reference point for other sectors. NAFDAC shows that domestic commonsense and passion to enforce the rules promote win-win outcomes of safety and job-creation compared to uncritical received wisdom, which fuels zero-sum game of profit for few, poverty for others!
Put in another way, our salvation does not lie in Washington Consensus or G-8, but in our resolve to look at the faces of our people (here, consumers of drugs!) and local producers (here, drug manufacturers)! Will the new Customs Service make similar impact; look at the faces of thousands of workers losing jobs in textile due to smuggling of inferior cheaper products and save the industry from total collapse? Will Customs officials wait to receive their appreciation in the open as Dora proudly did after saving the industry rather than diminishing themselves in the dark as some Custom officials indulge smugglers and economic saboteurs?
The new Custom boss, Mr. Jacob Buba Gyang, is refreshingly raising some hope.
It is a food for thought that in the condition of deregulation, the real stars are not the celebrated private operators but public regulators; namely Dora Akunyili, El-Rufai for Abuja Master Plan, Ngozi Nkweala for budgeting and planning, Okwezilize for due process (not muddling chaos), Soludo for making banks socially and economically responsible through planned mergers.
Between the textbook doctrine of market economy and the reality of development, it is self-evident that there is no substitute for good governance driven by the developmentalist state.
Dora’s brief tenure shows that the intellectual/doctrinaire assault on public institutions as inefficient, corrupt presented by IMF and World Bank (paradoxically these are also global super public institutions!) is unhelpful and should be ignored.
NAFDAC shows that public agencies can work like any other private agency when knowledge-driven! Dora’s impeccable credentials and her passion to overcome the Nigerian malaise of sickening disconnect between knowledge and performance or the appalling connect between knowledge and dishonesty explains her remarkable achievements!
According to her, before she took over NAFDAC, we “had a regulatory agency for over two decades and it was as if we has no regulatory agency”. “We had counterfeit drugs, drugs without active ingredients, drugs with insufficient active ingredients, drugs that were labelled what they were not, and of course expired drugs”. How many chieftains of our existing hundreds of parastatals can look at the past with such disdain on accounts of making an appreciative change?
Yours sincerely is not sure if Akunyili is paid in dollars or not.
But given that she was not tokunbo or sourced from Diaspora, it is self-evident that she is monthly Naira denominated. Dora herself attributed her success to the support by all, namely from the President to her workforce and millions of anonymous praying Nigerians. The lesson here is that motivation needs not necessarily be dollarised but could flow from the support and solidarity of the employer and above all, the conviction, productivity and dedication of the employee to his/her calling and humanity in general.
The challenge however is the sustainability of NAFDAC model. Observers wondered why drug firms prefer to give Dora BMW car and not extra-panadol as gift. They reason that what she needs for renewed energy is the former and not the latter. The issue is that Dora must avoid the pitfall of being unduly dizzy with success.
As remarkable as her achievements are, in the final analysis, it is her duty, no more, no less! This point must be made to jesters and seeming sycophants around her no less to her wicked adversaries who last December opted for devil’s option. Undoubtedly, 50 eventful years is worth celebrating as Dora’s. But personalization of agency’s achievements is in the realm of private sector not public arena like NAFDAC. The next celebration/anniversary should preferably be NAFDAC’s. Institutions are certainly more sustainable.
Happy Birthday Dora!
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