*With fake drug war

By Rotimi Ajayi,

When Professor Dora Akunyili assumed duty as the minister of information and communications in 2008, she was quick to announce to Nigerians that her tenure would be on re-branding the country thereby attracting good perception of its image both among Nigerians and foreigners alike.

She got a memo through at the Federal Executive Council and went about the implementation of the re-branding project with vigour. Though in concept and implementation, the project was not as deep as the Heart of Africa project conceived and implemented by Frank Nweke Jnr., the Akunyili project underscored one fact: That the nation’s image had become so grim that a lot needed to be done about it. To the best of her ability, Professor Akunyili pursued the project but she missed out the essential component feature of brands or super-brands, effectiveness at meeting the goals for which they are targeted.

In Nigeria’s case, and at the time Prof. Akunyili was labouring, the fundamental objectives of Government were far from being met in every sector of the nation. Power was and still remains unavailable, hygienic potable water exists only in Garki, Wuse, Jabi, Utako, parts of Maitama and Asokoro, all in Abuja the Federal Capital Territory. Security exists only in Aso Rock Villa, corruption and nepotism were the real reasons public officers and political leaders go to office, the Civil Service, especially at the Federal level was and is still largely being used to further pecuniary interests of the workers.

It was, therefore, the butt of jokes when Akunyili started the re-branding project. Even within government circles, it was learnt that fellow ministers laughed at the concepts.

Almost two years after the project was initiated and was indeed abandoned by Mr. Labaran Maku, the successor to Prof. Akunyili, who incidentally was the Minister of State in the  ministry with her and, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, appears to be finally getting close to polishing Nigeria’s image better without sloganeering. It is quite curious that this agency was led by Akunyili (might we add, led very well by Akunyili) and that her successor, Dr. Paul Orhii, is  continuing the crusade that Akunyili left behind.

It is even doubtful if Dr. Orhii, the Director-General of NAFDAC realises that what is happening in the agency now is exactly what Nigeria needs to get our image polished again.

Speaking about the activities of the agency since he took over about two and a half years ago, Orhii stated that the agency was only performing its statutory duties.

“We have done a lot in the war against fake and counterfeit medicine. It got to a point where people thought NAFDAC was exclusively about fighting counterfeit medicine.

“By 2001, the situation had worsened and more than 40 per cent of medicines in the distribution chain was fake. People were buying corn, starch and chalk thinking that they were buying antibiotics. With the effort of my predecessor, Prof. Dora Akunyuli, the incident of counterfeit medicine drastically reduced in 2005 to 15.7 per cent. That was a significant feat; from 40 per cent to 15.7 per cent and that was the last evaluation.

“The other evaluation that was done was in 2008 when the World Health Organisation decided to evaluate the quality of anti-malaria drugs that were in the circulation in 14 African countries including Nigeria. That time it was discovered that Nigeria has the worse situation among all the countries that were evaluated. Sixty-four per cent or thereabout of the anti-malaria drugs that were in circulation in the country at that time in 2008 were either fake or sub-standard. This was the picture when I came on board in January 2009.

“What we did was to expand on those things Prof. Akunyili started that worked so well in helping to reduce the situation of counterfeit medicine to 15.7 per cent from more than 40 per cent. Probably, the only thing we did not do was to embark on massive public enlightenment campaign. We did every other things right.

“We found out that more than 70 per cent of essential medicines consumed in this country were imported mainly from India and China. We thought it wise to engage these countries at the diplomatic level because it was our belief that most of the counterfeit drugs are coming from those countries. We decided to  engage these two countries to see if they could help us to stop fake medicine from coming at all.

“We intercepted a consignment of fake anti-malaria drug that was purportedly coming from India, but when we checked, it actually came from China. So, we picked up the matter with both countries and, in 2009, we were able to get the Chinese authority to sentence six of their own citizens to death for manufacturing and shipping fake medicine to Nigeria.

“Nigeria is currently the vice chairman of that organisation. We have also been rated as one of the top 18 medical regulatory agencies in the world, the only four agencies on the African continent belonging to that lead group. They invite us to the meeting that was convened by the United States, Canada, Britainand Japan. In Africa, we are the only country that is invited to be at that meeting.”

“Back in the country, we decided to build synergy with other sister-agencies because we know that we cannot fight this war alone. We work closely with the Nigeria Customs Service, Nigeria Immigration Service, Standard Organisation of Nigeria, NDLEA and many others. We have built closer relationship with traditional rulers and local government chairmen, realising the fact that most of the people that reside in these areas are largely uneducated and very poor and therefore potential markers for the counterfeiters.

To Dr. Orhii, there is no resting on the agency’s oars on the fight against fake drugs. “It is a continuous fight that requires vigilance because the people in the business always try to come up with new ways of doing this bad business. So, you cannot celebrate that you have got some victory. We have waged war against cocaine, so most of the drug barons have diverted their income into manufacturing fake drug. It is more lucrative, less risky, even when you are caught the punishment is very light. An evaluation by the International Pharmaceutical Security Institute and the World Custom Service shows that the counterfeit and medicine product business is global. So, counterfeit medicine is a global phenomenon.

It is the type of model and modest achievement of NAFDAC replicated in many Agencies that perhaps Mr. President would need in his efforts at executing his transformational agenda. NAFDAC’s Director- General has demonstrated that public office holders need to do more on meeting their statutory functions and talk less about their plans. Just as NAFDAC labours daily to keep Nigeria clean on issues of counterfeit medicine, many of our agencies can do the same and only after this can we talk of re-branding.