Community pharmacists launch of FG’s National Prescription Policing Policy

… Tackle NAFDAC, Ministry’s Food and Drugs Department

By Chioma Obinna

The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, ACPN, on Monday urged the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to immediately launch the long-awaited National Prescription Policing, NPP, policy, warning that any further delay could stall critical reforms in Nigeria’s medicines regulation.

In a letter addressed to the Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare and dated August 8, 2025, the ACPN described the NPP as “a watershed in the annals of healthcare” and a major milestone for the Tinubu administration if implemented without delay.

The association, however, did not shy away from pointing fingers at perceived saboteurs in the policy process, accusing the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, of “non-committal posturing” at crucial junctures, and the Ministry’s own Food and Drugs Department of “bureaucratic lapses” that almost derailed the exercise.

“It was most awkward in operational planning for an agency that registers drug products in Nigeria to maintain a lukewarm position on the appropriate categorisation of drugs in an evolving Prescription Policy for the country,” ACPN stated in the letter.

The pharmacists also alleged that the Food and Drugs Department failed, on at least three occasions, to deliver technical information requested by the NPP Committee. This, ACPN warned, could prove “too costly” if such lapses are not addressed.

The association further criticised some unnamed stakeholders for “placing narrow professional and group interests over that of the consuming public,” citing an instance where one stakeholder demanded his organisation’s NEC approval before the NPP could be implemented nationwide—a move the committee chair reportedly blocked.

While extending “special kudos” to the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria, PCN, and other professional regulatory councils for stabilising the process during “stress junctures,” the ACPN urged the Ministry to push for improved funding for PCN to enforce prescription-only medicine dispensing under the Poison and Pharmacy Act Cap 535 LFN 1990.

The pharmacists stressed that pharmacy-specific regulatory functions must now be treated as a priority focus in public health.

“If Nigeria must awaken a consciousness to protect public health with regards to the drug component, then there is no other route to success apart from this highlighted roadmap,” they said.

ACPN further called on all stakeholders to review the draft NPP before its launch to ensure that the committee’s decisions were properly documented and free of omissions.

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