The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has inaugurated 600 pharmacists as members of its new Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme (PRVP), creating a national pool of trained personnel to strengthen the fight against substandard and falsified medicines and unwholesome food.
The Director-General, Prof Mojisola Adeyeye, said the initiative was designed to extend the agency’s regulatory reach from laboratories and ports of entry to markets, pharmacies, patent medicine stores and primary healthcare centres across the country.
The volunteers, drawn from all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory and representing Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, will support pharmacovigilance, post-market surveillance, quality assurance, compliance monitoring, data gathering, public sensitisation and emergency response.
Adeyeye, who administered the oath of allegiance to the volunteers, said the programme was necessary because regulation confined to the nation’s capital could not adequately protect a population of more than 200 million people.
“Regulation that lives only in the capital cannot protect a nation of more than two hundred million people,” she said. “The Programme is how we take regulation to the doorstep of the Nigerian people.”
She charged the pharmacists to make integrity non-negotiable, warning that attempts to compromise regulators could directly endanger lives.
“The moment a regulator can be bought, the public loses its only protection,” Adeyeye said.
She also urged the volunteers to maintain confidentiality, discipline and professionalism, particularly when handling information obtained during inspections and investigations. They were advised not to disclose sensitive regulatory information on social media.
The DG called on NAFDAC state directors and coordinators to take ownership of the volunteers, mentor them and deploy them meaningfully to strengthen regulatory activities at state level.
She said NAFDAC’s long-term goal was for every state to have a standing pool of trained and vetted pharmacists who could be mobilised quickly during product recalls, suspected circulation of falsified medicines and emergencies in hard-to-reach communities.
Coordinator of the PRVP and Director, Narcotics and Controlled Substances, Dr Momodu Omamegbe Rametu, described the programme as an organised backup system that would increase citizen participation in regulation, post-marketing surveillance and drug-demand reduction.
Coordinator of the NAFDAC Training School, Dr Tunde Sigbeku, said the volunteers would receive training in post-market surveillance, pharmacovigilance, antimicrobial resistance prevention, inspection and enforcement, narcotics control, drug-abuse prevention, surveillance intelligence and research.
“This is the first time the Agency is having a backup or a reserve of foot soldiers across the country to help us in the battle against fake drugs and substandard products,” he said.
The initiative ultimately seeks stronger community-level detection of dangerous products, faster regulatory response and greater protection of Nigerians from preventable medicine-related harm.