Obiano Tasks Pharmacists On Quackery

Anambra State Governor,
Willie Obiano, has called on the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) to flush out quacks from the profession.
Obiano gave the charge at the closing ceremony of the 25th Annual Conference of the state chapter of PSN in Awka on Thursday.
Represented by the state Commissioner for Health, Dr Josephat Akabuike, the governor said it was saddening that the core professionals had allowed businessmen to take over the various facets of the industry FROM manufacturing to distribution.
The governor pledged to support the society to sanitise the drug market.
“In the past, businessmen and unprofessionals took over the leadership of this sector, that is because you allowed but it is time you take your rightful place.
“There was a time when members of this noble profession sold their certificates to businessmen who used them to set up businesses; but I know it is no longer so.
“You must collaborate with the government to rid the pharmaceutical sector of quacks and charlatans.
“There is move to close the open drug market and set up central drug stores, you must be ready for the task ahead,” he said.
The Health Commissioner said the pharmaceutical industry had great role to play in the provision of accessible healthcare under the current forex regime which had made reliance on import unsustainable.
Ezeife said it was time the practitioners increased their research and development to exploit the opportunities provided by the typical African forest environment.
He lauded the PSN for their role in sanitising the pharmaceutical products distribution chain in the country and urged the federal government to provide the necessary political environment for them to thrive.
“As we know it in Nigeria today, the foreign exchange market is so hostile that the dollar has ran away, so you must look inward to see what we can do with what nature has provided,” he said.
On his part, the former national chairman of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Chief Victor Umeh, described the pharmaceutical sector as a highly specialised industry which needed funding and support.
Umeh said the current challenges in the foreign exchange market should not be allowed to visit the sector wholesale, adding that the federal government through the Central Bank of Nigeria should give them protection by way of concessions and waivers.
He said the availability and accessibility of pharmaceutical products in the country would go along way to solving the country’s healthcare challenges.
“The profession is science based and is not what everybody can go into, most of the pharmaceutical giants we have are trained here in Nigeria so we have the manpower.
“But this is a sector that needs government funding; there should be sectoral allocation to it through the banks because it is a capital intensive.
“The government should support them so that we can stop the importation of finished pharmaceutical products from companies that we can do better than if fully encouraged,” he said.
Also speaking, the President of Onitsha Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture (OCCIMA), Dr Uche Akpakama, said Nigeria had great potential to develop the sector but noted that the macro-economic environment was not helping the realisation.