There seems to be no end in sight to the delayed implementation of the consultant pharmacists’ cadre in Lagos State, as the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, has expressed disagreement with pharmacists’ demand for the title, urging them to exercise caution in making the request, especially in a medical environment where the position requires more than graduation from an institution.
The pharmacists, on the other hand, have expressed their readiness to resist every attempt to convert the consultancy cadre into a specialist cadre, which they say would negate national and international standards.
Pharmanews reports that the consultant pharmacists’ cadre has since been adopted in several states of the federation, including Edo, Osun, Oyo, Ondo, Niger, Kwara, Adamawa and Katsina, as well as by federal health institutions. It is on record that more than 250 consultant pharmacists have recently been appointed at the federal level, with the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, leading with more than 30 appointments.
In an exclusive interview with Pharmanews at the opening ceremony of the 2026 Pharmacy Week, the Chairman of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Lagos State Branch, Pharm. (Chief) Olaitan Ogunlade, stated unequivocally that the society would vehemently resist any attempt to reduce the demand to anything less than the consultancy cadre.
He argued that the specialist cadre proposed by the commissioner had never been part of the pharmacists’ discussions, either at the federal or state level, prior to this time.
“For us in PSN (Lagos State), the LASG-PSN/JOHESU negotiations which provided a MOU earlier on is very unambiguous that our demand has always been and will remain consultant cadre and not a specialist cadre,” he stated.
Ogunlade continued: “We have observed with great surprise that there are current attempts to mutilate the configuration of the pharmacists’ consultant cadre to a specialist cadre, which is contrary to the norm both nationally and internationally.”
Aside from the states listed above, the PSN chairman highlighted other federal health institutions where the cadre has been adopted, including the Aso Rock Villa Clinic, NIMR and NIPRD Health Centre.
He asserted that the first set of graduates of the West African Postgraduate College of Pharmacists (WAPCP), dating back to 1997, had been recognised as consultant pharmacists for more than 20 years in countries such as The Gambia, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ghana, while the cadre was still facing several challenges in Nigeria.
He traced the genesis of the title to the approval of the National Council on Establishment (NCE) in 2011 and its revalidation in 2021. Niger State, he said, blazed the trail in recognising the consultant pharmacist cadre in 2013, followed by other states through the adoption of the circular from the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation (OHSOF).
“We put it on record again that the Pharmacist Consultant cadre was one of the specific demands of the pharmacist stakeholders meeting with Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu in December 2018 during his electioneering campaign. It is imperative to state that a Specialist Cadre has never been on the cards at Federal and State levels,” he stated.
Commissioner disagrees
On his part, the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Abayomi, maintained a contrary view to the PSN’s position, saying the consultancy title was strictly a medical and legal position that was not open to every health worker in the team.
Addressing pharmacists at the Pharmacy Scientific Week, Abayomi congratulated Fellows of the WAPCP for their professional dedication and commitment in completing the programme but disagreed with their demand for the consultant title, saying they were better addressed as specialists rather than consultants.
“I’ve heard you around the issue of consultants. But there are caveats to that terminology, ‘consultant’, in a medical environment,” Abayomi stated.
He continued: “A consultant in a medical environment is not the same as a consultant outside the medical environment, where a consultant is somebody that has specialised knowledge that you need and so you hire a consultant.
“In a medical fraternity, we have to be careful because it has medical legal implications. A consultant is defined as the head of a medical unit. When a patient comes in, they go into that unit and they belong to that consultant. And anything that happens to them, you are held medically legally responsible.”
The commissioner explained further that his present office as a political appointee did not qualify him to be a consultant, despite his professional training as a physician and haematologist. Rather, he described his professional qualifications as constituting double specialism.
He argued that, given the responsibilities attached to the position of a consultant, the title should be attached to a specific position that a specialist applies for, rather than automatically conferred on Fellows of a professional institution.
He said: “I am a physician and haematologist. I am a double specialist. But at the moment, I am not a consultant. Since I left my position in the public and in academia and became a public servant or a political appointee, I have lost my title to consultant. Because a consultant is a position that a specialist applies for. So, if you’re a fellow, you’re a specialist, you can’t be called a consultant.
“I’m not a consultant physician at the moment unless I apply for a consultant post with my specialist degree. So, we need to be careful about how we appropriate terminologies. There’s nothing wrong with being a specialist. I’m a specialist in internal medicine, haematology and oncology. Fine. I’m happy with that. But if I want to become a consultant, I have to apply for a consultant post.”
