The Clinical Pharmacists Association of Nigeria (CPAN) has torn into the Nigerian Association of Medical and Dental Academics (NAMDA) with a blistering, evidence-loaded rebuttal, accusing doctors of launching a “fear-driven, intellectually dishonest” campaign to block consultant pharmacist and consultant nurse cadres.
In a statement signed by National Chairman Dr. Maureen Nwafor and National Secretary Dr. AbdulMuminu Isah, CPAN dismissed NAMDA’s December 1 petition to the Head of Service as “recycled falsehoods dressed up as scholarship” and “riddled with contradictions, emotional blackmail, and claims that collapse under the lightest academic scrutiny.”
“NAMDA’s document is not an academic submission — it is a panic attack on paper,” Dr. Nwafor declared. “It contains zero citations, zero new evidence, and 100% fear of losing monopoly.”
CPAN systematically demolished NAMDA’s core argument that pharmacists and nurses lack “clinical relevance”:
– Multiple peer-reviewed Nigerian and global studies show pharmacist-led interventions dramatically cut medication errors, boost adherence, and improve outcomes in diabetes, hypertension, HIV, asthma, epilepsy, and mental health.
– Even pharmacy interns and residents have published research proving measurable clinical impact — “something no honest academic can dismiss,” CPAN said.
– Consultant pharmacists are standard in the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and South Africa — countries Nigeria wants to emulate, not lag behind.
CPAN reminded everyone that the Pharmacy Council of Nigeria (PCN) Act 2022 — signed into law three years ago — is the current legal framework, rendering NAMDA’s reliance on decades-old statutes “legally obsolete and deliberately misleading.”
Dr. Nwafor warned that blocking consultant cadres would condemn Nigeria to “a 20th-century health system while the rest of the world moves forward.”
In a direct appeal to the Head of Service and the National Council on Establishments, CPAN urged: “Do not let fear masquerading as expertise derail reforms our patients desperately need.”
Ending with a call for unity, the pharmacists declared inter-professional rivalry a luxury Nigeria cannot afford: “Our common enemy is disease and death — not each other. History will judge those who chose turf wars over patient lives.”
The gloves are now off. Nigeria’s health sector power struggle just went nuclear.
