600 Volunteer Pharmacists Join NAFDAC To Combat Menace Of Fake Drugs

About six hundred pharmacists have joined the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in a new volunteer scheme designed to curb the circulation of fake and substandard drugs.

The new initiative, the Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme, aims to take regulation to the doorstep of the Nigerian people.

Receiving the young Nigerian pharmacists and administering the oath of allegiance to them, Director General, NAFDAC, Prof. Mojisola Adeyeye, urged the pharmacists to serve the country with integrity that is beyond negotiation, noting that in the course of their service, they would encounter offers and pressures designed to compromise them.

As patriotic Nigerians, she admonished them to reject such offers, adding that the moment a regulator can be bought, the public loses its only protection.

She explained that the six hundred qualified, service-ready pharmacists, already pursuing their careers in different fields, were drawn from all thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory, representing every one of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones.

Adeyeye explained that each volunteer was selected not by chance but through a deliberate and transparent process that balanced merit, availability, and fair geographic representation, so that no state or region is left behind in this national effort, adding that the programme is more than an internship or an attachment. It is an investment in you, and through you, in the regulatory future of this country.

She said that they would be exposed to the real work of medicines regulation: pharmacovigilance, compliance monitoring, quality assurance, data collection, and public sensitisation against drug abuse.

The DG – NAFDAC said they would also learn what it means to stand between the Nigerian public and substandard, falsified, or dangerous products, stressing that the vision behind the programme was to build, over time, a national reserve of working pharmacists who can be called upon at short notice wherever the health of Nigerians is at risk: during a product recall, a suspected circulation of falsified medicines, or an emergency in a hard-to-reach community to volunteer for a few hours or days. .

She disclosed that her ambition was that within the next few years, every state of the federation would have a standing pool of trained, vetted and mobilizable pharmacists working alongside our state Offices, so that NAFDAC’s regulatory presence is felt not only in our laboratories and at our ports of entry, but in every market, community pharmacy, patent medicine store and primary health centre in this country.

Adeyeye opined that Regulations that live only in the capital cannot protect a nation of more than two hundred million people, stressing that the Programme is how we take regulation to the doorstep of the Nigerian people.’

Now, what do we expect from you? The NAFDAC boss listed availability and discipline as non-negotiable requirements, adding that when they are called upon for an assignment, they must respond promptly and see it through.

She emphasised integrity that is beyond negotiation, noting that in the course of service, the young pharmacists would encounter offers and pressures designed to compromise them. She, however, urged them to reject such offers, adding that the moment a regulator can be bought, the public loses its only protection.

Prof. Adeyeye also emphasised confidentiality, adding that the information they handle during inspections and investigations belongs to the Agency and to the Nigerian people, not to social media.

The Coordinator of the programme and Director, Narcotics and Controlled Substances (NCS), Dr Momodu Omamegbe Rametu, stated that what began only a few weeks ago as a Call for Expression of Interest has become a national pool of six hundred young pharmacists drawn from every state of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.

For clarity, she explained that the PRVP initiative is an organised, backup system set aside for emergency use to provide supplemental support or specific services, adding that it increases citizen participation and involvement in post-marketing regulation and drug demand reduction (drug abuse campaigns).