Why Paul Orhi, NAFDAC boss, should go!

Paul Orhi should leave now! There is no genuine reason why the NAFDAC boss should remain in office. Leaving is the most honourable thing to do and any dithering on this will amount to taking with kid gloves the professed anti-corruption stance of the current government.

This newspaper believes in due process, transparency and fair hearing, and would support any move that would strengthen this time-honoured belief system, but it would seem the gravity of the alleged infractions leveled against Orhi would require a stepping aside of the man to give room for a thorough investigation, which his continued stay in office may likely vitiate or impair. Such stepping aside will not in any way amount to removal, but part of building strong ramparts around anti-corruption institutions.

It is not a good thing that the agency presided over by Mr. Orhi has sunk into a despicable mire under his watch, when ironically the same institution was the postcard, globally acknowledged, for best practices and transparency under the watch of Dora Akunyili.

This newspaper believes in the adage that ”when the head is rotten the body has no choice but to follow suit”, in this wise, the current image of the agency is as much a window into the ideas and ideals of its current leadership, as much as it is a template with which to measure the performance of its leadership.

In office, Orhi has courted more controversy than any other head of the agency before him, and in most, if not all of the cases, it had been for the wrong reasons of corruption, cronyism, ethnicity and all the vices that seem to draw us back as a nation, which is why his continued stay may constitute a greater danger than we are ready to admit.

It would be stating the obvious to say that since he took over there has been a steady decline in the profile and fortune of the agency, and this is rueful considering the sterling achievements of his predecessor in office.

The agency has withered, and has been faltering, without any character, and this is not difficult to register given the level of fake and counterfeit drugs that we have in the society, a vice that Akunyili fought to a standstill with sterling results. In the popular imagination, there’s this perception that NAFDAC has ceased to exist, and aside the fake drugs in our midst, what has given fillip to this perception is the corruption around registering of new products, as in most cases, there are no prior inspections before NAFDAC numbers are given out to owners of these products.

Now in his second term and with a record of below-the –line performance, we as a newspaper would want the federal government to axe him either into retirement or stepping aside for a thorough cleansing of a once vibrant agency that has lost its luster through errors of omission, commission and greed. He should not be allowed the luxury of completing his second term.

We are however elated that the anti-corruption agency, EFCC has waded into the matter, as allegations of under-hand dealings, corruption and gross incompetence are too overwhelming to be swept under the carpet.