Nigeria has witnessed many moments when public institutions looked powerless against organised criminal markets. Few episodes, however, have remained as vivid in public memory as the years Prof Dora Nkem Akunyili led the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC. Her tenure is remembered not only because counterfeit and substandard medicines were widespread, but because she insisted the country treat fake drugs as an emergency, not a nuisance, and she pursued the fight with a visibility that made both supporters and enemies take her seriously.
Akunyili was born on 14 July 1954. She became Director General of NAFDAC in 2001, with credible institutional accounts placing her assumption of office in April of that year, and she served for roughly eight years. She arrived when Nigeria’s pharmaceutical supply chain was badly compromised. Estimates differed, and the methods behind those estimates were not always identical, but reputable sources from that period described a market where fake and substandard medicines had become alarmingly common. The crisis was not abstract. Families experienced it as treatment failure, worsening illness, and preventable loss.
The crisis that made enforcement a life or death duty
Before 2001, counterfeiters thrived in the space between weak regulation and massive demand. Medicines moved through porous borders, busy ports, open markets, and informal distribution networks where paperwork could be forged and accountability could be evaded. Some widely repeated figures came from specific places and samples, especially Lagos, and those figures were often later repeated as if they were nationwide baselines. The responsible way to understand the period is not to cling to a single number, but to accept the broader documented truth, Nigeria’s medicine market was in deep trouble, and public confidence was collapsing.
Akunyili’s personal drive is repeatedly linked, in major profiles, to a family tragedy, the death of her diabetic sister after receiving fake insulin. That account has been widely circulated in international documentation of her work and it explains why she spoke about counterfeit drugs with moral urgency. For her, this was not just criminal commerce, it was a direct assault on life.
EXPLORE: Nigerian Civil War
Taking charge of NAFDAC, then taking the fight public
Akunyili did not run NAFDAC as a quiet technical agency. She pushed enforcement into public view and used awareness campaigns as part of the strategy. Reports of her leadership describe an approach that blended raids, seizures, and prosecutions with deliberate public education, including warnings to consumers, engagement with the media, and highly visible destruction of confiscated products.
That visibility mattered for two reasons. First, it signalled to traffickers that enforcement was real and escalating. Second, it reassured ordinary Nigerians that someone inside government was prepared to confront a market many had begun to fear.
One documented feature of the crackdown was pressure on entry points. International reporting on the period describes measures that narrowed official import routes for medicines to designated ports with stronger oversight, a move intended to reduce the channels through which counterfeit products could enter. In a country where enforcement capacity can be stretched thin, narrowing the gateways was a practical way to concentrate inspections and make evasion harder.
Threats, attacks, and the cost of the campaign
The war on counterfeit medicines was not a safe assignment. Accounts from reputable humanitarian and international sources describe threats and violent responses linked to the crackdown. NAFDAC offices faced attacks, and Akunyili herself survived an armed attack in 2003 while travelling. The incident is described as an assassination attempt tied to the anti counterfeiting effort, and it stands as one of the clearest examples of how high the stakes had become.
This part of her story matters because it explains why she came to represent something larger than a job title. Many officials can sign memos. Fewer can sustain a crackdown when the opposing side is willing to use bullets.
What changed, and how to understand the statistics
Akunyili’s record is often reduced to a single slogan, fake drugs fell from 80 percent to 15 percent. That line is catchy, but it is not the most accurate way to describe the documented evidence.
One widely cited figure that helped shape public memory refers to an estimate associated with Lagos pharmacies around the start of her tenure. In international documentation of the problem, that figure is presented as a sign of how severe counterfeit penetration was in a major commercial hub. It demonstrates scale, but it should not automatically be treated as a national baseline.
For outcomes, a major international profile of anti counterfeiting efforts reported that NAFDAC figures around 2005 suggested a dramatic reduction, often summarised as an 80 percent decrease compared with conditions at the start of her leadership. That claim supports the idea of major improvement, but it should be understood as an administrative estimate rather than a single, transparent nationwide survey design published in full detail.
Another frequently cited data point, reported in connection with a 2006 study release in Abuja, quotes Akunyili saying estimates of counterfeit drugs had dropped from an average of about 41 percent in 2001 to about 16.7 percent in 2006. That 16.7 percent figure is why many tributes shorten the story to “about 15 percent,” but the more accurate statement is the one attached to the reported study context, about 16.7 percent in 2006, with a baseline described as an average rather than a single location specific figure.
What readers should take from these documented numbers is straightforward. Multiple reputable sources agree that counterfeit prevalence declined sharply during her tenure, and that enforcement became more serious, more visible, and harder to ignore. What readers should avoid is treating different estimates from different contexts, Lagos samples, broader averages, agency reporting, as though they were one uniform dataset.
Praise, criticism, and the limits of a crackdown
Akunyili’s methods earned praise, but they also generated debate. Some observers argued that her public approach risked becoming too personality driven, while others insisted the publicity was essential in a market where silence protected criminals. Both points can be true at once. Public destruction of fake drugs can be theatre, but it can also be deterrence, and in a public health emergency, deterrence is not a minor tool.
Her tenure also highlights a permanent challenge. Counterfeit markets adapt. Packaging improves, routes change, enforcement weakens when attention shifts, and consumers still chase cheaper options when legitimate medicines are unaffordable. The gains of reform can be real and still require constant defence. The strongest lesson from Akunyili’s record is that progress is possible, but it is not automatic, and it cannot be sustained by courage alone. It needs systems that outlive the leader.
EXPLORE NOW: Biographies & Cultural Icons of Nigeria
Why her legacy still matters
Akunyili died in 2014, but her name remains a reference point in national conversations about integrity and public safety. In 2026, she would be 72. Beyond ages and anniversaries, her story endures because it shows what happens when a regulator treats fake medicines as a national emergency, builds public pressure around standards, and refuses to retreat even when threatened.
For readers, the most important thing to remember is not a single percentage. It is the shift she helped produce, from resignation to resistance, from quiet suffering to public accountability, and from a market ruled by fear to a market forced, at least for a time, to respect scrutiny.
Author’s Note
The takeaway: Dora Akunyili’s NAFDAC years prove that Nigeria can push back against deadly counterfeit markets when enforcement is bold, entry points are tightened, and citizens are taught to demand standards, but the real tribute is sustaining those gains through stronger systems, accurate public memory, and leaders who refuse to look away.
References
World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO Magazine, “Joining Forces to Combat Counterfeiting”, published 1 February 2006.
Innovations for Successful Societies, Princeton University, Dora Akunyili interview and profile, interview dated 4 September 2009, notes appointment and start in April 2001.
The New Humanitarian, “Officials boost fight against counterfeit drugs”, published 6 April 2007.
Partnership for Safe Medicines, “Incidence of fake drugs drops by 24.3 percent in Nigeria: study”, published 10 September 2006.
Nigeria Health Watch, “A Tribute to Professor Dora Nkem Akunyili”, published June 2014.
