NAPharm Launches Olu Akinkugbe Research and Innovation Centre

pharmacy

– As Academy decorates Akinkugbe, TY Danjuma for pharmacy exploit

To heighten the interest of government and the general public in scientific research, the Nigeria Academy of Pharmacy (NAPharm) has officially launched its proposed Olu Akinkugbe Research and Innovation Centre (OARIC).

The unveiling, which took place during the Academy’s investiture, lecture and luncheon at Sheraton Hotel, Ikeja, Lagos, on 12 September 2018, had several pharmacists, professors, technocrats, industrialists and government functionaries in attendance.

According to Prince Julius Adelusi-Adeluyi, president, NAPharm, OARIC is a vehicle that the Academy created to give enduring impact to research and development in Nigeria’s pharmaceutical space, adding that it had received generous support and blessings.

In his words: “As I stated a year ago during the induction of five distinguished pharmacists into the Academy, NAPharm owes a debt to the society. We owe a duty to help unravel better, safer, more convenient and more affordable medicines and treatment regimens for diseases that affect mankind.

“It is for this reason that research is central to our operations. We want to complement local and international efforts that support scientific research and related activities.”

Adelusi-Adeluyi also remarked that he envisaged that the new Centre would help to provide tangible support for pharmaceutical research.

He added that the details and methodology of such support are being painstakingly deliberated upon and would be announced in few months when OARIC is fully commissioned.

Conferring a Lifetime Achievement Award and Honorary Fellowship on the duo of Chief Oludolapo Akinkugbe, the OARIC patron; and General Theophilus Danjuma, chairman, May & Baker Plc, Adelusi-Adeluyi noted that the honour was a token of the Academy’s appreciation of the recipients’ individual contributions to Pharmacy.

In attendance at the event were Pharm. Ahmed Yakasai, president, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN); Sir Ifeanyi Atueyi, vice president (South), NAPharm; Pharm Jimi Agbaje, managing director, JayKay Pharmacy; Pharm Ike Onyechi, treasurer, NAPharm; Pharm. Nnamdi Okafor, managing director, May & Baker Plc; and Prof. Mbang Femi-Oyewo, former dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, Olabisi Onabanjo University (OOU).

Others were Prof. Kemi Odukoya, former dean, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lagos (UNILAG); Prof. Oladipo Akinkugbe, professor of medicine; Oba Otudeko, distinguished industrialist and chairman of First Bank Plc; and Senator Daisy Danjuma, wife of the honorary fellowship recipient, among others.

Chief Oludolapo Ibukun Akinkugbe is a veteran pharmacist of high repute. Aside from being the oldest former president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN) alive, he is also the founding director of Palm Chemist and was the pioneer general secretary of the defunct Nigerian Union of Pharmacists (NUP) in the 1950s. Born in Ondo Town, on 5 December, 1928, Akinkugbe’s father was a renowned druggist who qualified as a pharmacist in 1919.

Theophilus Yakubu Danjuma retired as Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff at the dawn of the Second Republic. He was a former minister of defence during the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo. His long association with Pharmacy, through his engagement with one of Nigeria’s oldest multinational pharmaceutical manufacturers, May & Baker, has made him popular in pharmacy circles.