Dr Hassan Kabir Doma is an accomplished pharmacist and humanitarian logistics specialist, with a distinguished career in medical supply chain management across Africa, the Middle East, and the United Kingdom. A native of Nasarawa State, Nigeria, he graduated from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and has since built a reputation for strategic leadership, operational resilience, and a steadfast commitment to improving healthcare access in challenging and resource-limited environments.
An active member of the Vom Old Boys’ Association (VOBA), Doma continues to contribute to professional and community networks. His career began as a logistics pharmacist with the Institute of Human Virology Nigeria (IHVN), after which he joined the International Rescue Committee (IRC). At IRC, he rose through the ranks, serving as supply chain officer in Nigeria, global supply chain lead in DR Congo, and supply chain coordinator in Yemen, where he focused on strengthening systems to deliver life-saving interventions in humanitarian contexts.
He currently serves as procurement manager at the North-East Learning Trust (NELT) in Peterlee, UK, where he leads strategic procurement initiatives that ensure value for money, regulatory compliance, and equitable access across the education sector. Beyond his professional role, he remains engaged in academic research and publications, advancing knowledge and practice in procurement and humanitarian logistics.
In this chat with Temitope Obayendo, Doma reflects on Nigeria’s persistent medical supply chain challenges – failures which, he stresses, have cost many lives. Yet he remains optimistic: with a unified supply chain, a skilled workforce, and real-time data integration, the narrative could change. Excerpts:
From your global perspective, how would you describe the current state of Nigeria’s healthcare supply chain compared to international best practices?
From a global standpoint, Nigeria’s healthcare supply chain shows considerable potential but remains fragmented, reactive, and under-resourced when compared to international best practices.
In many robust systems across Europe, Asia, and parts of Africa, supply chains operate with high levels of integration and digital sophistication. They rely on robust electronic logistics management information systems (eLMIS), predictive analytics, and seamless data sharing across all tiers of service delivery. Strong regulatory oversight and clear accountability frameworks further enhance transparency and efficiency. This allows for proactive decision-making, minimises stock-outs and wastage, and ensures consistent and equitable access to medicines and supplies.
By contrast, Nigeria’s supply chain still depends heavily on manual processes and fragmented data systems, restricting real-time visibility and delaying critical decisions. It tends to operate reactively rather than strategically, with persistent challenges such as inconsistent stock availability, inefficient procurement, and logistical hurdles that contribute to wastage and inequitable service delivery. While positive developments have emerged, such as the adoption of ERP systems in some institutions, these remain limited in scale and are not yet fully integrated nationwide. As a result, Nigeria’s supply chain is less resilient and struggles to meet the growing demands of its population.
What do you consider the most critical bottlenecks in Nigeria’s medical supply chain, and how do they directly affect patient care?
The bottlenecks are multifaceted, with profound implications for patient care. Foremost is poor forecasting and inventory management, which frequently leads to stock-outs of essential medicines. This delays timely treatment and undermines patient confidence, forcing many to seek costlier alternatives or forego treatment entirely.
Secondly, procurement is fragmented across federal, state, and local levels, creating inefficiencies and missed opportunities for economies of scale. This drives up costs and leads to uneven medicine availability across the country.
Thirdly, weak last-mile distribution disproportionately affects rural and underserved communities. Poor logistics, inadequate infrastructure, insecurity, and the absence of local distribution points delay deliveries, leaving patients to travel long distances or go without care.
Additionally, limited data visibility and reliance on manual processes hamper effective decision-making. Without real-time information on stock and consumption patterns, wastage and shortages persist.
Finally, weak regulatory enforcement enables substandard and counterfeit medicines to enter the market, endangering patients.
These bottlenecks translate into real harm: missed treatment windows, increased out-of-pocket spending, avoidable morbidity, and unnecessary deaths.
How effective have Nigerian health policies and regulations been in strengthening the supply chain, and where are the gaps?
Nigeria has introduced commendable frameworks such as the National Drug Policy, the National Health Act, and the National Health Supply Chain Strategy. However, their impact is undermined by inconsistent implementation, weak enforcement, and inadequate funding.
Regulatory agencies often lack independence, capacity, and coordination, while overlapping mandates create duplication and inefficiency. There is also insufficient integration of the private sector, underutilisation of technology for real-time visibility, and a failure to adopt proven international innovations. Without addressing these gaps, even the best-designed policies cannot deliver sustainable improvements in equitable access to medicines.
If you could address Nigerian healthcare policymakers directly, what would be your top three priority actions for reforming the country’s medical supply chain?
First, establish a unified, integrated national medical supply chain agency, consolidating procurement, warehousing, and distribution under one accountable body. This would streamline operations, reduce duplication, improve transparency, and enable better resource allocation.
Second, invest in human capital by expanding training and certification programmes for supply chain professionals. Embedding continuous professional development into licensing and career progression would ensure a skilled and motivated workforce, while creating career pathways would attract and retain talent, particularly in underserved areas.
Third, implement nationwide, real-time digital systems such as eLMIS for forecasting, stock monitoring, and distribution tracking. This would vastly improve decision-making, accountability, and transparency, shifting the system from reactive to proactive.
Given the funding constraints in the sector, what sustainable financing models can ensure a steady flow of essential medicines and medical devices?
The most viable solution is a blended financing model combining public funding, private investment, and donor contributions. This should include ring-fenced government budget allocations for essential medicines, integration of supply chain financing into national and state health insurance schemes, and transparent revolving drug funds to guarantee replenishment.
Public–private partnerships, designed with strong governance frameworks, can expand warehousing, strengthen cold chain systems, and support local pharmaceutical manufacturing. Drawing lessons from both resource-limited and humanitarian contexts – such as pooled procurement consortia and shared logistics platforms – Nigeria can achieve predictable, accountable, and resilient financing.
Ultimately, predictability is key: it determines whether medicines and medical devices consistently reach patients on time.
With Nigeria’s heavy dependence on imported pharmaceuticals, what practical steps can be taken to build a resilient local production and distribution network?
Building a resilient local pharmaceutical production and distribution network in Nigeria requires a phased, multi-pronged strategy that prioritises policy incentives, infrastructure development, quality assurance, and collaboration.
First, the government must create a supportive policy environment by offering tax breaks, reducing import duties on raw materials essential for manufacturing, and providing access to low-interest financing. Such incentives would encourage local manufacturers to scale up production, reduce costs, and compete more effectively with imports. At the same time, regulatory processes should be streamlined without compromising on quality controls, helping to speed up market entry and build investor confidence.
Secondly, strengthening regulatory capacity and investing in pharmaceutical-grade infrastructure are critical. This includes upgrading quality control laboratories and establishing modern warehousing and distribution centres that comply with WHO prequalification and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) standards. Ensuring that locally made products meet international quality benchmarks will open up opportunities for export while building trust among consumers and healthcare providers at home.
Thirdly, strategically located regional pharmaceutical hubs with efficient transport links should be developed to improve distribution efficiency, reduce delays, and cut logistics costs. Embedding modern digital inventory management systems in these hubs would enable accurate stock monitoring, minimise losses, and strengthen supply chain transparency and responsiveness.
Finally, fostering strong partnerships between academia, industry, and government is essential for driving research and development tailored to Nigeria’s specific needs. Such collaborations can spark innovation, support workforce capacity building, and encourage the development of locally relevant medicines. Public–private partnerships, in particular, can provide both the capital and expertise needed to accelerate production and scale up distribution.
By reducing overreliance on imports through these measures, Nigeria would not only conserve foreign exchange but also strengthen the resilience and sustainability of its healthcare supply chain, particularly during times of crisis.
From your experience on the global stage, what lessons from other countries could Nigeria adapt to strengthen its health supply chain resilience?
Drawing from global best practices and my own professional experience in contexts such as Yemen, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and the United Kingdom, I believe Nigeria can strengthen its health supply chain by adopting a hybrid model that combines technological innovation, decentralised access, and centralised efficiency.
Rwanda’s pioneering use of drones in partnership with Zipline offers a powerful example. By delivering medical supplies to remote areas, Rwanda has drastically cut delivery times for lifesaving medicines. Zipline now provides more than 75 per cent of the country’s blood supply outside Kigali, contributing to an 88 per cent reduction in maternal deaths from postpartum haemorrhage. This success has inspired Nigeria’s adoption of the model, with operations now active in Bayelsa, Kaduna, and Cross River States. Plans are underway to expand to five more states by the end of 2025, supported by tailored infrastructure and strategic partnerships suited to Nigeria’s scale and geography.
Bangladesh’s community-based distribution model, which equips local health workers to manage stock and deliver basic medical supplies, provides another useful lesson. It has proved highly effective for last-mile coverage, building both local ownership and healthcare reliability in low-resource settings.
Meanwhile, the United Kingdom’s centralised procurement framework, paired with robust supplier performance management, demonstrates how streamlined systems can achieve economies of scale, strengthen transparency, and reduce wastage.
For Nigeria, these lessons must be contextualised to fit its governance and infrastructure realities. Investments in digital supply chain systems, reduced bureaucratic bottlenecks, and stronger collaboration with private and humanitarian actors will be key. This blended approach would not only improve accountability and responsiveness but also build lasting resilience against future health crises.
How critical is the role of trained supply chain professionals, and what is your assessment of Nigeria’s current human resource capacity in this area?
Trained supply chain professionals are absolutely vital to the efficiency and reliability of Nigeria’s healthcare system. Their expertise in areas such as demand forecasting, procurement, cold chain management, quality assurance, and risk mitigation ensures that medicines and medical devices are consistently available when needed. Without such skills, even the most advanced policies, systems, and technologies are likely to falter.
At present, Nigeria faces a serious shortage of specialised supply chain professionals, especially within public health logistics and outside major cities. Much of the existing capacity has been built through donor-funded programmes, raising questions about sustainability once external funding phases out. In addition, weak career progression pathways and limited incentives in the public sector make it difficult to retain skilled professionals.
To address these challenges, Nigeria must expand accredited training programmes, integrate supply chain management more thoroughly into pharmacy and public health curricula, and establish clear professional pathways that offer growth and recognition. Competitive incentives and continuous professional development will also be essential to retaining talent.
Closing this skills gap is foundational to building a resilient and effective healthcare supply chain, one capable of serving the population reliably and sustainably.
