– Pledges support for Usifoh
The Nigeria Association of Pharmacists in Academia (NAPA) has called on the President, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), Professor Cyril Usifoh, to provide lasting solutions to the myriads of challenges facing academic pharmacists in the country.
NAPA made the call during a recent courtesy visit to Usifoh at the PSN national secretariat in Lagos.
The NAPA delegate, led by the association’s national chairman, Dr Ezekiel Olugbenga Akinkunmi, presented a document containing the various challenges facing pharmacists in academia to the PSN president, urging him to study the document and use his good office to address the issues highlighted therein.
In his remarks, the NAPA chairman said: “It is pleasurable to report that after a period of close to 30 years, NAPA has produced another PSN president in the person of our own Prof. Cyril Odianose Usifoh.
“We can confidently assure the PSN that she is in safe hands because it is only the lecturer who knows where the pains of his students are and how to solve them.
“As you all know, NAPA is the mother of all other technical arms of our great profession. The community, hospital, administrative and industrial arms all suck from the breasts of the mother. So I want to congratulate the PSN for having one of us at the helm of affairs at a time like this. I am confident that PSN will experience quality leadership.
“Our president is aware of the problems and challenges that we have in NAPA because he was a national chairman of the association and he had also been editor-in-chief of the PSN. He is a professor and a former dean in the Faculty of Pharmacy; so he knows it all. However, to assist him in handling these issues, I am here with copies of documents where some of those challenges are detailed. We are presenting the document to him as our president.”
Akinkumi further used the occasion to assure the PSN president of NAPA’s unalloyed support for his tenure, saying the association will work with the president to achieve greater success for the pharmacy profession in the country.
“We wish to present a challenge to the president that, as he begins the journey of a new facet of leadership, he should ensure that his journey is not just made a fresh start, but also a great, enduring and refreshing start for pharmacy. You can safely count on our support”, the NAPA chairman enthused.
Corroborating the national chairman, leader of the University of Benin Chapter of the association, Dr Fabian Amaechina, who was also member of the delegation, added that while the PSN president might be aware of the challenges facing the academic pharmacists, some of them have worsened. He therefore urged Usifoh to act on the challenges as highlighted in the documents presented to him.
Reacting to the association’s requests and the documents presented to him, the PSN helmsman appreciated the NAPA delegates for the visit, stressing that NAPA is the first technical group to visit the national secretariat in his tenure. He promised to study the documents and do the needful.
Assuring the visitors, Usifoh said: “We expect NAPA as one of the key stakeholders to drive the industry. Your present situation should not stop you from embarking on research that will uplift the industry. We will study the documents you have presented and we will work on them. Some of the issues will not be new to me but we will work on them.”
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