The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria has urged President Bola Tinubu to take immediate action against what it describes as medical physicians’ rising dominance in the health and education sectors.
ACPN has warned that such tactics are harmful to national development and inclusive government.
The chemists announced this in an open letter signed by their National Chairman, Ambrose Ezeh, and his Secretary, Omokhafe Ashore, on June 16, 2025.
The letter, titled “Call off these bluffs in the national interest”, came after rumours of industrial action by members of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria at the University of Calabar against the nomination of a new Vice-Chancellor.
According to the ACPN, the protest is part of a larger trend, citing a similar situation at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, where the Federal Ministry of Education cancelled the appointment of a vice chancellor when MDCAN members went on strike.
It stated that the Nigerian Medical Association, MDCAN, and the Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors have become audacious in Nigeria in recent years as a result of the FG’s inadvertent promotion of a fascist culture in the health and labour sectors between 2015 and 2023 and now in the health and education sectors through the appointment of physician-ministers in these critical sectors.
According to the Pharmacists, since 1985, only physicians have been appointed as chief medical directors or medical directors of federal health facilities due to a misunderstanding of qualifying requirements.
“In Nigeria, contrary to the dictates of common sense, only physicians have been designated as CMDs/CEOs of FHIs since 1985 (40 years ago) because they wrongly interpreted the condition precedent for such appointments, which ties eligibility to being ‘medically qualified’ as implying that only physicians meet the eligibility criterion.
“In more damning circumstances, the Ninth NASS actually fraudulently passed a Federal Medical Centre bill later signed into law without a public hearing, which now makes it mandatory that only personnel registered by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria can be appointed as MD/CEO of Federal Medical Centres in Nigeria in 2023.
“Despite these insultingly ancient methodologies of physicians in Nigeria, to unlawfully create a dozen exclusive privileges for themselves in Nigeria, they have now, with the blessing of Education Minister Dr. Tunji Alausa, perfected a thriving culture of blackmail to proceed on strike every time there is a contest for the position of VCs, and the rules which are grounded in having a Ph.D. as a condition precedent are applied because most of these physicians have professional qualifications of fellowships and not Ph.D.s, which are academic qualifications. Most public sector appointments have strict conditions precedent, which make the appointment lawful.
“The ineptitude of the FG to succumb to this shameful blackmail leaves a sour taste in the mouth as lawful stakeholders who are eligible based on the rules wallow in chronic invalidism imposed by the corrupted mechanism embraced by the Federal Ministry of Education,” the letter partly read.
The pharmacists’ union also voiced concern with the Federal Ministry of Health for failing to adequately incorporate chemists in critical medication procurement processes, such as the recent implementation of the MEDIPOOL project.
It reaffirmed its request for the creation of a Federal Drug Management Agency to standardise drug procurement and distribution throughout the country.
According to the group, universal health coverage remains a mirage in Nigeria since the strategic pillars for achieving it are obstructed by roadblocks.
“Your Excellency, we strongly demand a presidential intervention to make the government stand up to its stewardship responsibilities as the government.
“The government should change tactics in the skewed appointment of physicians who dominate sectors which are alien to medical practice while resisting ‘incursions’ into healthcare by any other cadre of practitioners, including colleagues, non-physician health professionals.
“It is important to inform Mr President that the humiliation health workers in healthcare are subjected to in deference to physicians is beginning to affect the psyche of youths in a generation where nobody wants to be an underdog.
“National growth, development, transformation and evolution will gradually become stunted if the Federal Government does not wield the big stick to stop the outrageously incomprehensible dominance of an overpampered group of civil servants who get what they request and are allowed to dictate a pittance for other skilled personnel in the Nigerian workforce.
“Your Excellency, the time to act is now in the public interest,” it concluded.
