Solid FM Enugu is one of the numerous legacies of the Nigerian sage, Dora Akunyili. It is a radio station that was able to strike a great balance between Igbo and English content, between cultural and popular culture, between the religious and the secular, between youthful and elderly presenters. Solid FM is generally an FM in the middle.
The station is one of the oldest surviving privately-owned radio stations in Southeast Nigeria.
Registered on 23rd August 2012, the station was owned by Late Dora Akunyili.
Dora Nkem Akunyili OFR was the Director-General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria from 2001 to 2008.
Born Dora Edemobi in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria to Chief Paul Young Edemobi who hailed from Nanka, Anambra State. She received her First School Leaving Certificate from St. Patrick’s Primary School, Isuofia, Anambra State, in 1966 and had her West African School Certificate Examination (W.A.S.C) at Queen of the Rosary Secondary School Nsukka, Enugu State in 1973, where she graduated with Grade I Distinction consequently, she won the Eastern Nigerian Government Post Primary Scholarship and the Federal Government of Nigeria Undergraduate Scholarship.
She went on to study pharmacology at the University of Nigeria (U.N.N.), graduating in 1978 and received her Ph.D. in ethnopharmacology in 1985.
Late Akunyili served on several State Government Boards and then was named Supervisory Councilor for Agriculture in a Local Government unit in Anambra State.
She worked as a hospital pharmacist in the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital. (U.N.T.H), Enugu State.
In 1981, she became a Graduate Assistant in the FaU.NN. of Pharmaceutical Sciences, U.N.N. In 1990, she became a Senior Lecturer and in 1996, she was made a Consultant Pharmacologist at the College of Medicine.
In 1996, Akunyili became Zonal Secretary of the Petroleum Special Trust Fund (P.T.F), coordinating projects funded by profits from oil in Nigeria’s South Eastern States.
In 2001, President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed her the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) where she served till 2009.
Akunyili had a special motivation for attacking the country’s counterfeit drug problem and this is because, in 1988, she had watched her sister aged 21, die after being given injections of fake insulin as part of regular diabetes treatment.
In 2008, Akunyili was appointed Minister of Information and Communications.
She resigned her appointment as Minister of Information and Communications on December 16, 2010, after two years of service to run for office as senator representing Anambra Central in the National Assembly the seat she lost to Chris Ngige.
Dora Akunyili died at a specialist cancer hospital in India on 7 June 2014 after a two-year battle with uterine cancer.
Despite the proprietress’ death, Solid FM can be caught via the waves in Enugu, Ebonyi, parts of Anambra, and Abia States have kept them in the list whenever influential radio stations in the Southeast are thought of.