… As a result of this it is not wrong to speculate that Akunyili will gaffe because she will be doing the job that she is not naturally or professionally coined out to do, a job that does not fit her person and character.
——Dr Bisi Adewole (2008)
Minister Dora Akunyili courtesy Nigeriaworld
Is Mrs Dora Akunyili, a Professor of Pharmacology cum Minister of Information and Communications not actually a Minister of Disinformation and Collaboration? At the recent NLNG Literature Prize Award Night where there was no recipient, Akunyili goofed by saying that a Nigerian woman won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Science? According to NEXT, Akunyili blamed the Press for not reporting the fake news.
The Federal Government should have thanked God that such gaffes were not made in Europe where the global media would had a field day. Maybe the Nobel Foundation – Board of Directors which is opposed to new prizes should allow the creation of a Nobel Prize in Misinformation or Disinformation and award Akunyili in a flamboyant ceremony. Wouldn’t that be a good way to rebrand Nigeria? However, that would be a mirage because Nobel Prizes are for good initiatives and achievements and not for smirks and pranks.
Professor Wole Soyinka is the only Nigerian who has won a Nobel Prize. According to Encyclopedia.com, "His powerful writing of novels, plays and poetry enabled him to become the first African writer, and the first Black writer of any nationality to win the Nobel Prize for literature in 1986". Akunyili could have searched the internet e.g. Wikipedia for a list of Nobel Prizewinners even if she could not browse the Nobel Prize website to confirm her source of information which was wrong.
That was exactly the same way the troublemaker extraordinaire, Akunyili believed and acted irrationally on a ’forged’ petition against the 2.3 GHz spectrum sale which led to the cancellation of the bid and the arrest plus interrogation of NCC boss, Ernest Ndukwe by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).
The CEO of Mobitel Nigeria Limited, Johnson Salako was interrogated and detained for eight days by the EFCC because the company was highly mentioned in the petition until a Federal High Court ordered his release but Mobitel later sued Akunyili and three others. Akunyili and Ndukwe went through a ‘silent battle’ with supporters on either side. Nevertheless, they both attended the ITU Telecom World 2009 conference in ‘harmony’.
The petitioner, Olusegun Akinloye who disclosed that he did not use his telecom company’s letter headed paper to write the petition and Akunyili have not been arrested or interrogated by the EFCC; since the chairman of A3 & 0 Limited, Wale Adeyinka claimed that the petition received by Akunyili was not from the company. Was that not forgery and is forgery not a criminal offence in Nigeria? It was obvious that some Nigerians are above the law apart from the immunity clause.
Black Nobel Prize laureates
Nobel prize laureates (most recent) by country
