Medicine Dealers Lose Suit Against Pharmacists

A Federal High Court has
dismissed suit by Registered Trustees of Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers challenging authority of Pharmacists Council of Nigeria to regulate their activities.
Delivering judgment in Asaba, Justice C.M. Olatoregun-Isola, said the Pharmacists Council was authorised by Federal Ministry of Health to issue patent and proprietary medicine vendors’ licenses to the plaintiff’s members.
Olatorgun-Isola held that the council was equally authorised to approve the list of drugs the plaintiff could deal on.
She held that it would go against common sense that the drugs sold to undiscerning members of the public should not be monitored and controlled.
Counsel to the plaintiff, Mr L.C. Agbata, had urged the court to declare the raid and invasion of the plaintiff’s members’ shops in Asaba and Warri by the council illegal, null and void.
He had further asked the court to declare that the Pharmacist Council Act of 2004 did not empower the council to issue licenses to the plaintiffs.
The counsel told the court that the patent medicine dealers only sold drugs prescribed by physicians.
The plaintiff, the Delta state branch of the Registered Trustees of Nigerian Association of Patent and Proprietary Medicine Dealers, asked for N10 million general and exemplary damages.
Counsel to the defendants, Mrs A.S. Adeyemi, told the court that the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) was a public corporation created by Government in 1992.
Adeyemi told the court that PCN had the sole authority to register, monitor, regulate and control all aspects of pharmacy practice and pharmacy education in Nigeria.
She told the court that the defendant, by approving a list of drugs to be sold by the plaintiff’s members, did not circumscribe their business potentials nor put them at any disadvantage.
The counsel pointed out that they were not rivals.
She argued that the defendant was not liable for the plaintiff’s claims as they were unknown to law, vexatious and baseless, urging the court to dismiss the case.