Epeli Qaraninamu Nailatikau

Nailatikau had wide experience locally and internationally as a medical doctor. Once the chief medical officer to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, he later played an important role after the Fiji coup of 2000, as head of the trauma team providing counselling for the parliamentarians (and their families) who had been kidnapped and held hostage in the insurrection. He established his own medical clinic, the Siloah People's Clinic, in Tavua.

Nailatikau spoke out in early March 2006 against what he said was the failure of chiefs to set examples of good leadership, transparency, and vision for the following generations. "We must be role models and practise what we say. Right now there is a lack of authority at village level," he said. Instead of leading the people, some chiefs were using their positions for personal enrichment, he alleged at the Peace and Stability Development Analysis Awareness Forum, which was organized by the United Nations Development Program. He declared that traditional influence in a modern government was out of place. On a separate issue, he said that traditional objections to interracial marriage were an obstacle to peace and stability in Fiji.

Nailatikau continued his attack on the chiefly system with a Parliamentary speech on 10 March. Fijian culture and traditions needed to be brought up to date with the modern world, he said, and chiefs should be chosen democratically and for fixed terms, the Fiji Times quoted him as saying. According to the Fiji Sun, he also called for politics and religion to be clearly separated, though with the latter morally underpinning the former.

Nailatikau is married to Latu, a schoolteacher.