‘Mum’s Faith Couldn’t Heal Her’ -Late Dora Akunyili’s Son Tells All On His Mum’s Battle With Stage 4 Cancer And How Nigerian Pastors And Docs ‘Milked’ Her
Hon. Obumnaeme Akunyili, the son of former NAFDAC DG, Dora Akunyili, has spoken out about the illness that led to his mother’s death.
Dora Akunyili died in India in June 2014 after a drawn-out battle with Cancer.
Obumnaeme, who is the Director General at Anambra State Project Monitoring and Management Office, revealed that his mum went to a number of popular Nigerian religious leaders in a bid to get well when she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer but many of them used the opportunity to “milk” her while giving her false hope.
He called what the men of God did to his mother a “divine hustle”. He told media personality, Chude Jideonwo during an interview:
“Nigeria is a very religious country, so I don’t know how to say this but I saw the hustle. I feel like how you tell your friends there’s a job, I feel when there’s a public figure like all these Pastors, their friend is like, there’s this woman that her friend is dying, we need to go and milk that puppy.
If I say there were not less than 20 pastors who were in the house at some point or another, I think it’s low. Just to give you an example, there’s this pastor that came, I don’t want any money, I don’t want anything, I’m going to heal you, the guy stopped and said “yes God, is that what you want me to tell her?” I said this dude is on a WhatsApp call with God like really?! But my mom was like really into it.
My father is a Doctor, my elder brother is a Doctor, 4 of the people in the family. This was stage 4 cancer and I always had the problem that, for a religious country where we all saying we are going to heaven, the way we push against accepting a reality. Because I feel that robbed a lot of finality from her death. She was like, God will heal me.”
He revealed that his mother spent a lot of money, sowed all the seeds as the religious leaders promised her that she will be healed. He added that his mum fought to live because she believed her work on earth was not done.
He went further to reveal that his mother’s faith could move mountains and she was absolutely certain that she would live as the men of God assured her.
In his words:
“She went to who is who, spent the money, sowed all the seeds and everybody knew so I felt it was a racket, in Nigeria we don’t call it crime or anything, there was a hustle. There was divine hustle
She went to, is it Pastor Adeboye’s place in Lagos for like a week? The whole shebang. She came back and said they need to do a scan that God has healed her.
And I remember my father was crying when he was taking her to do the scan. He knew what they would see. And he wasn’t trying to shut it down, he was trying to dampen expectations.
But my mum, you know how someone is like ‘God has healed me’. And they go and they see the mass of the cancer there, grown larger, and my mum just became a shell for like three days.
And you just see someone, a larger-than-life figure just whittling away every day.”
About how Nigerian doctors also milked his mum, he said:
“These people take a woman who is already dying and prolonged her pain, while charging a premium hundreds of thousands of dollars to give someone with a stage 4 cancer chemo and the Nigerian Doctor who would not be named was given thousands of Dollars finders fee for referring her to them.”
Watch the video below…