Beyond the Grandstanding: an Open Letter to Professor Dora Akunyili - By Osita Mba

Dear Professor Akunyili




Like most Nigerians, I have followed the very public spat between your good self and your ministerial colleague, the former Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister for Justice and incumbent Minister for Special Duties, Mr Michael Aondoakaa, with considerable interest. As someone that called for the removal of Mr Aondoakaa as Attorney-General as far back as November 2008 because of my belief that he lacked “the requisite integrity, ability, experience and maturity required of the person holding that high and important office,” I consider whatever embarrassment you cause him in relation to his alleged libellous statement as part of his thoroughly deserved comeuppance.



However, although there is no reason to suggest that you will not pursue a libel case against him to its logical conclusion should he fail to provide the clear apology you have requested, it remains the case that our politicians are notorious for threatening and indeed instituting defamation suits with fanfare in the full glare of the public only to abandon them quietly and in private subsequently. A case in point is the five billion naira libel suit instituted in 2004 by Chief Anthony Anenih against Chief Orji Uzor Kalu. Incidentally, that suit was filed on Chief Anenih’s behalf by Mr Aondoakaa’s successor as Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, Mr Adetokunbo Kayode.



Moreover, the decision to make the letters written to Mr Aondoakaa by your lawyers widely available to the public and the contents of the letters themselves appear to evince an intention to prove your incorruptibility in the court of public opinion, over and above the resolution of your private dispute with Mr Aondoakaa in the court of law. For example, the letter of February 11, 2010 refers to your “integrity” that “has been unimpeachable”; reveals that you have “been inundated with telephone calls and personal enquiries from numerous people ... concerning the implication that [you] did something wrong while [you were] the Director General of NAFDAC”; and concludes that you find it “totally unacceptable that [your] peers and generality of Nigerians have begun to question [your] integrity and now consider [you] a disreputable person”, all on account of the statement credited to Mr Aondoakaa.



Given the relegation of integrity and accountability to the background in our public life, your principled stance on the matter deserves the support of all right-thinking members of the Nigerian society. However, going by various comments in the media, there appears to be a consensus among the chattering classes that neither an apology from the discredited Mr Aondoakaa nor a successful libel suit against him in our increasingly unreliable courts will be sufficient to establish your unimpeachable integrity to the satisfaction of the Nigerian public. I note that this view is to a large extent supported by the law – it is a basic principle of the law of defamation that an alleged defamatory statement is presumed to be false unless the defendant can prove its veracity. Since there is no concomitant obligation on the claimant to prove the falsity of the alleged defamatory statement, a successful libel suit, while reflecting favourably on the character of the person defamed, does not necessarily prove his or her unimpeachable integrity either in the matter at hand or generally.



Fortunately, there are other more credible means available to principled public officers in your enviable position to establish their unimpeachable integrity in the court of public opinion.



1. Publication of Assets Declaration Forms



Paragraph 11(1) of Part I of the Fifth Schedule to the 1999 Constitution provides that every public officer shall (a) immediately after taking office and (b) thereafter at the end of every four years and (c) at the end of his/her her term of office, submit to the Code of Conduct Bureau a written declaration of all his/her properties, assets, and liabilities and those of his/her unmarried children under the age of eighteen years. Furthermore, section 149 of the Constitution requires a Minister of the Government of the Federation to declare his/her assets and liabilities as prescribed in the Constitution before commencing the duties of his/ her office.



Therefore, you would have submitted an Assets Declaration Form to the Code of Conduct Bureau on at least three occasions: (i) when you assumed office as the Director General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) on April 12, 2001; (ii) on the fourth anniversary of your assumption of office as the Director General of NAFDAC in April 2005; and (iii) on December 17, 2008, when you left NAFDAC to take up your current position as Minister of Information and Communications.



Paragraph 3 of Part I of the Third Schedule to the Constitution authorises the Code of Conduct Bureau to retain custody of these assets declarations and to make them available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe. Although the National Assembly have failed to prescribe the terms and conditions for such compulsory public inspection, nothing stops any public officer that wishes to demonstrate his/her integrity from disclosing voluntarily the details of his/her Assets Declaration form. Indeed, President Umaru Yar‘Adua provided a copy of his Assets Declaration Form to the public after a few weeks in office, and after some dogged resistance the Acting (then Vice) President Jonathan followed suit shortly after.



I would respectfully suggest that, without prejudice to any libel suit against Mr Aondoakaa, the voluntary publication of your relevant Assets Declaration Forms will provide a more transparent and credible means of establishing your unimpeachable integrity during your tenure as the Director General of NAFDAC and beyond.



2. Section 44 of the ICPC Act 2000



Section 44(1)(a) and (b) of The Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Act 2000 (“the ICPC Act”) empower the Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (“ICPC”), if in the course of an ongoing investigation he has reasonable grounds to believe that any offence under the Act has been committed, to require any person suspected of having committed such offence or any relative or associate of the person or any other person whom the Chairman has reasonable grounds to believe is able to assist in the investigation to furnish a statement in writing on oath or affirmation in order to:



(i) identify every property, whether movable or immovable, whether within or outside Nigeria, belonging to him/her or in his/her possession, or in which he/she has any interest, whether legal or equitable, and specifying the date on which each of the properties so identified was acquired and the manner in which it was acquired, whether by way of any dealing, bequest, devise, inheritance, or any other manner;



(ii) identify every property sent out of Nigeria by him/her during such period as may be specified in the notice;



(iii) set out the estimated value and location of each of the properties identified ... and if any of such properties cannot be located, the reason therefore;



(iv) state in respect of each of the properties identified ... whether the property is held by him/her or by any other person on his/her behalf or whether it has diminished in value since its acquisition by him/her or and whether it has been commingled with other property which cannot be separated or divided without difficulty;



(v) set out all other information relating to his/her properties, business, travel or other activities as may be specified in the notice; and



(vi) set out all his/her sources of income, including earnings and gifts or other assets for such period.



Section 44(1)(c) authorises the Chairman to require any officer of any bank or financial institution, or any person who is in any manner or to any extent responsible for the management and control of the affairs of any bank or any financial institution to furnish copies of any or all accounts, documents and records relating to any person to whom the above notice has been issued.



Furthermore, section 44(2) provides that where the Chairman has reasonable grounds to believe that any public officer who has been served with the written notice owns, possesses, controls or holds any interest in any property which is excessive, having regard to his/her present or past emoluments and all other relevant circumstances, the Chairman may by written direction require him/her to furnish a statement on oath or affirmation explaining how he/she was able to own, possess, control or hold such excess and if he/she fails to explain satisfactorily such excess, he/she shall be presumed to have used his/her office to corruptly enrich or gratify himself/herself and charged accordingly.



You will agree that a comprehensive statement on oath or affirmation provided by you to the Chairman of the ICPC under section 44 of the ICPC Act and satisfactorily verified as complete and accurate by him will provide the ultimate confirmation of unimpeachable integrity that your teeming fans will be proud to associate you with. Therefore, I have no doubt that if you prove yourself unable to disclose voluntarily your relevant Assets Declaration Forms as suggested above, appropriate steps will be taken to invoke the procedure under section 44 of the ICPC Act with a view to securing your place in history as the paragon of integrity in public life.



Yours sincerely



Osita Mba

The Dora Akunyili Memo

STATE OF THE NATION

1. I want to start my humble submission by stating that I am a 100 per cent loyalist of President Yar’Adua. He appointed all of us because he trusts us and wants us to help him to run government effectively and efficiently. Mr. President has given all of us seated in this chamber the opportunity to serve our nation as members of this council.

I believe that in the choice of all of us, as individuals and group, Mr. President must have considered our ability to guide him aright to serve our people better, promote and protect the constitution in line with the oath of office taken before him in this chamber by each and every one of us. President Yar’Adua is very dear to me just as he is to all of you.

2. We are all aware of what has been happening in Nigeria, especially as it concerns the issue of making the Vice President an acting President. There have been debates for and against.

3. Some have argued that there is no vacuum and that it is okay for the Vice President to function as Vice President, not as Acting President pending the return and recovery of Mr. President. For the proponents of this theory, I want to remind them that Permanent Secretaries had been waiting to be sworn in for over two months now. Consequently, many ministries are without Permanent Secretaries including my ministry.

As it is today, the Vice President cannot take any document to National Assembly. In a very desperate situation like the recent Jos crisis, the Vice President deployed troops to Plateau, but many have openly said that he does not have the right because there cannot be two Commanders-in-Chief at a time.

4. Just recently, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta, MEND, has opted out of the amnesty and resumed hostility. They argued that they have been kept in limbo since the President took ill and they appeared to have been abandoned since nobody could talk to them or keep the promise made to them. Our economy is once more being threatened.

5. The past Chief Justice of the Federation swore in his successor for the first time in the history of our nation. The power vacuum at that level has also compounded our ‘poor image’ at the international level because of our failure to rise to international expectations, commitments and engagements that require the presence of our President.

Many of those opportunities have existed in the past 70 days that I do not need to recount. I do not need to repeat the uncomplimentary statements made by United States, United Kingdom and EU concerning the current state of affairs in Nigeria .

6. There has been persistent agitation by the public for members of the Federal Executive Council to do something. Nigerians expect us to rise to this challenge on behalf of our President as the leader of this administration. Some eminent citizens have spoken. They include former Heads of State and others who have served our nation in various capacities.

The Senate has also taken a position of which we are all aware. The looming crisis in the system is over boiling. Our hard earned democracy is being threatened by the day.

Threat to democracy

7. What went wrong? We love our President but we should remember that he is not infallible. Before he left Nigeria he had a moral and constitutional obligation to officially inform the Senate and hand over the mantle of leadership to the Vice President pending his return and recovery. That did not happen. Yes, the mistake has been made by our Boss and our brother.

Mr. President is ill and did not choose to be sick. But while we continue to pray for his recovery, we should try to right the wrong.

8. Some have argued that he left the country in a hurry. This argument has been punctured by the fact that he signed the Appropriation Bill for National Assembly. If he could sign the Bill, why did he not sign a letter for Vice President to act on his behalf until he is well enough?

9. We have a local proverb that says that "A goat does not get strangulated by the rope used in tying it when an adult is present." We are all in a better position to know that the polity is overheated to a frightening level. Posterity will judge us harshly if we do not positively intervene to resolve this logjam.

10. I wish to call on the Federal Executive Council to act now in the best interest of our dear President and our dear Nation.

We also need to save ourselves from shame because our stand is becoming very embarrassing. He has been away for about 70 days now, even if he returns tomorrow, is it not better for him to rest and recover before taking over from the Vice President?

11. We need to do what is morally right and constitutional for the President to officially hand over to the Vice President to function as Acting President. If he does not, we can evoke whichever aspect of the constitution that should make the Vice President an Acting President.

On the other hand we can take advantage of the 14 days ultimatum by the court which will expire on Friday. When the President resumes duty as soon as he recovers, by the grace of God, he takes over his position.

12. I am not saying that President Yar’Adua should resign or condemn him for being sick. He did not choose to be sick. We will continue to pray for him, but all I am saying is, let us encourage him do the right thing so that our hard earned democracy will not be truncated. Anybody who feels otherwise is unfair to our President (who has been preaching the rule of law), and utterly unfair to our country.

13. The name of our President and all his achievements are being rubbished by this unfortunate debacle. The President and his family are also being put under undue pressure which will not help his recovery.

14. If we fail to act now, history will not forgive us. I rest my case.





Professor Dora Akunyili

A Bleeding Nation - Need for Accountability

As the President lays gracefully on the sick bed in Saudi Arabia, Ministers and Permanent Secretaries have being busy defending their 2010 budget allocation at the National Assembly. This exercise is what we call ‘Budget Estimates’ hearing here in Australia. The Estimates process, whilst it exposes problems, it certainly serves to reassure the “average voter” that the Government and the bureaucracy are being held accountable.


Accountability is very important in any democratic governance. Public funds should be spent for public purposes by Governments and bureaucrats. It is not the private purse of the Government that bureaucrats or ministers can do what they like with. These are public funds for public purposes and should stand the test of public scrutiny. We should be able to hold the government responsible for its policies and the ministers/bureaucrats to be held responsible for the expenditure of public money.

The simple reasons for having an ‘Estimates’ hearing is to ensure that principles of probity, accountability and transparency are enshrined in the governance process. But in the case of Nigeria, some of the revelations coming of out 2010 budget allocation hearing are quite astonishing to say the least.

Some of these revelations are a sad reminder of how the nation is continuously been bled, by the ruling elites. Billions of naira is either been spent or allocated for frivolous expenses.

Let’s start with the Information and Communications Ministry. Mrs Dora Akunyili plans to spend N325 million on the Rebranding Project. This is more than half of the Ministry’s capital budget for 2010. This is in addition to the N129.2milion spent on the project in 2009. Is it not ludicrous that despite the criticism levelled at the rebranding project, this government is still hell bent on wasting almost N450milion on a silly ‘cosmetic’ exercise. And by the way, what happened to the N600million spent by the Obasanjo regime on the ‘Heart of Africa’ project? The long and short of this is, by the end of 2010, the Nigeria would have spent over N1billion on ‘cosmetic surgery’.

What about the budget of over N1.1billion submitted by the State House for the treatment of termites in the Presidential Villa (Aso Rock) and vehicle maintenance? How can the State House justify spending N250milion for termite treatment? What sort of termites are they? Also how many vehicles are been maintained at a yearly cost of N450million?

We also learnt during the week that, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Ojo Maduekwe engaged in incessant foreign trips throughout this year which cost the public till about N2.7 billion in 2009 alone. This was just shortly after the Speaker of the House Representative, Dimeji Bankole, confirmed that the House of Reps spent N24billion on foreign travel in 2009. Haba! So if the House of Rep and Ojo Maduekwe spent a combined N26.7billion, then what about the Senate, The President, State Governors and other Ministers. Only heaven knows how much former President Obasanjo spent during his eight rule on foreign travel, considering that he was overseas junketing from one country to the other for over 300 days during his first term in office.

The Ministry of Petroleum Resources was no exception. The Ministry’s budget proposal was noted to be full of ambiguities and repetitions. It was discovered that a provision of N600 million for the construction of gas master plan in the 2010 budget, was given for the same project last year. Ha! Ha!!



The recent revelations from the Senate hearing validate the widely held perception of politicians and bureaucrats as being lazy, wasteful and fat-cats. It makes the public become more cynical and mistrusting of the politics, politicians and the political process.

The simple fact remains that, the taxpayers deserve to how public money is being spent and the justification by the Government of their policies which led to the expenditure of that money.

For, if accountability and transparency should fail, then the very confidence that is necessary to sustain a democracy will be shattered and one cringes to think what the alternative system would look like.

The legislature does have a real and major role to play. Unless we continue to have a thorough and genuine scrutiny of the policies and expenditure of Government , then there is likely to be little faith or trust in the political system.

And just before I go, I wish you all a Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

I will be back again in 2010.

Open Letter to Prof. Dora Akunyili

Firstly, let me seize this opportunity to congratulate you on the recent wedding of your daughter Ndijeka Akunyili Crosby. Madam, as the "champion" of the nation’s re-branding programme, there is no better way to kick off the campaign than to subject 140 million television viewers to your grand display of opulence and lavishness. As they say, "charity begins at home".




Hon Minister, I used to be a critic of your current re-branding project. However, after deep thought I have to come to realise that Nigeria is a “Great Nation” with “Good People” after all. And instead of sitting back and criticising our leaders, we need to start celebrating our greatness.



So, why the sudden change of mind you may ask. For me, one of the things that makes us a great nation is the ability of the government to carry on with its business as usual, while the nation's universities remain shut due to lecturers strike. I can’t seem to think of any other nation that can afford to keep its institution of higher learning shut for over three months, without a massive public backlash. Our docility and reluctance to challenge the ruling elite is perhaps what you will consider makes us a nation of “good people”. As you will agree, respect for elders and people in authority are deeply entrenched in our culture and tradition. University students are so “respectful” that they are happy to sit at home for three months, watching Nollywood movies, without rising up in protest.



I also couldn’t agree less with the recent comments credited to the Education Minister Sam Egwu that “all the university lecturers in Ghana will not be adequate for a single university in Nigeria”. Even though our lecturers might have cultivated the habit of embarking on industrial action, we need to be thankful that we have one of the highest number of universities in the world. It is also worth noting that university education is free. Even western nations like the United Kingdom and the United States cannot afford to provide free education at University level, so what else do we want as a nation?



Madam, power generation has been one of the Achilles heel of our great nation. However, in the midst of this challenge, there is a lot to celebrate. We can boast of having the highest number of portable generators in the world per capita. We are so rich that most people can even afford own more than one “I big pass my neighbour” generators. I have suggested in the past that we should seriously consider encouraging the Chinese to start manufacturing “disposable” generators, as this could help to drive down the cost of generators. The initiative could also be the key to the President Umar Yar’Adua seven-point agenda and his "Illusion 2020". With disposable generators, the government need not to worry about meeting its power generation targets.



Hon Minister, I also read your recent letter to Sony Inc demanding an apology for portraying Nigeria as nation of scam artists in a TV commercial. You also banned local cinemas from showing the District 9 movie. Although the movie and TV commercial might have denigrated the people of this great nation, there are still some positives we can take out of it. As they say “any publicity is good publicity”. How many countries have been fortunate to be subject of a Hollywood movie? How many countries have been fortunate to be mentioned in a TV commercial sponsored a multi-national company like Sony?



The western world also sees us as a chronically corrupt nation. Even the latest index rating by Transparency International indicates that Nigeria is one of the most “politically corrupt” nation in the world. But Madam, what these anti-corruption activists fail to realise is that corruption is not just synonymous with Nigeria. We heard recently how British MPs have been manipulating their expenses claims, in a country that prides itself on probity and accountability. This shows that we are no that bad after all. The survival of our economy in the face of uninterrupted looting of the nation’s treasury has been a true test of our greatness. Although research shows that N850bn has been lost to corruption since independence, I’m yet to find a nation whose economy can survive losing such colossal amount of money. To put it in context, the bailout announced by the US government to save its economy from total collapse, as a result of the sub-prime mortgage lending, was only $750bn.



Hon. Minister, I have therefore decided to become one of the mouth-piece for your re-branding campaign here in my base in Australia. God willing, my intention is to compliment your efforts in the Asia-Pacific region in moving our nation forward.



I look forward to working with you on this noble initiative.



Yours sincerely



Patriotic Citizen

Re-branding Image Nigeria

The Minister of Information, Prof. Dora Akunyili recently said that the Federal Government has abandoned the Heart of Africa project. The Minister noted that government took the decision because the project was ‘failure’.

As some might be aware, the Heart of Africa was an image laundering project conceived by the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo to give the nation a better perception at home and abroad.

In her words she noted that “Heart of Africa was first launched overseas and that automatically disconnected the ordinary Nigerian from this project, making it look elitist. We, therefore, decided to embark on a new branding project that will be home grown”.

It is not surprising that the project was a failure. During the Obasanjo regime, I remember seeing posters aimed at painting Nigeria in a good light, all over the streets of London. There was a huge scepticism about the project as it failed to address the fundamental problems in the country but instead only lined the pockets of government employed spin doctors. Foreign public relations experts and govt officials led by the Former Minister Frank Nweke, embarked on jamboree trips overseas all in the name of ‘spin’.

Having said all that the most unfortunate thing is that we still haven’t learnt our lesson, as this govt also wants to embark on the same fruitless journey. It is common knowledge that Nigeria’s image overseas is as bad as it can get. In fact, I tell people that people back home need to travel overseas to appreciate how Nigeria’s image has been badly dented over the years. I know people who hold dual nationality and will never travel on a Nigerian passport. I have met genuine Nigerian businessmen living overseas, who are struggling because no one will engage with them in any transaction because they are Nigerians.

While I agree that Nigeria’s image needs to be‘re-branded’ at some stage, I do think at this point, it is like putting the cart before the horse. The govt should be focussing on developing the nation’s economy and putting in development fundamentals.

It saddened my heart when I read Prof. Akunyili’s comments that ”……re-branding Nigeria was more critical than any physical infrastructure because it would address the fundamental issue of how the country and its citizenry were perceived and treated”. Does it really matter how the western world perceives us, if we have a vibrant economy? In the 1970’s, when the nation economy was good, Nigerians were treated like kings on the streets of London , because the ‘oyinbo’ man knew we had money in our pockets. My question then is, did we embark on image laundering then?

The point is, if you make yourself relevant in the globalised economy, perception is a non issue. And I will note that China is a typical example. Despite all the allegations of human right abuse in China, the western world recognises China’s place in the global economy.

May be someone needs to advise Prof. Akunyili that the nation is bigger than NAFDAC. It is not just about running enlightenment campaigns on fake drugs. I believe all her hard work in NAFDAC would have been eroded if all she did was raising awareness about fake drugs without actually dealing with the root cause (ie. manufacturers/importers).

Unless the govt lives up to its social and economic responsibility by creating jobs, providing infrastructure, improving security of lives etc, image laundering is a waste of time. As they say “you can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig”.