Asiwaju Joe Oyewole Olarogun is a fellow of the PSN and a past secretary general of the society.
In this interview with the editor, YusuffMoshood, during the last PSN conference held in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the senior pharmacist x-rays the 85th PSN conference and states that the annual pharmacists gathering is now more interesting and educative, compared to how it used to be in time past.
Below is the full text of the interview:
How do you see this 85th PSN conference? Is it a success?
If we look at the history of our conferences, it is clear that we have evolved from the old ways of doing things, to a very modern way of doing things. To me, this conference is one of the best, if not the best that we have ever held.
This is as a result of the fact that a lot of things have been reviewed to make the conference more interesting, more educative,and more enlightening and focused.
It is also great that we now have people who are invited from other countries and who have come to share with us their knowledge of things relating to health and pharmacy.
This has helped us. The organisation of the PSN conference has improved and I think this is very good.
I have been the secretary general of the PSN before, and at that time, things were not as developed as we have now. I am talking about 30 years ago. At that time, the secretary general was doing virtually many things in the conference. The task of the secretary general is now divided and handled by so many people. This has made the management of our conferences much better. I am very happy with the improvement.
What are the areas of improvement that should be considered?
First, I think we can now see that the success of this conference is due to the involvement of the state government. This is an eye opener to other states planning to host the PSN conference. They should get the government involved. There is no way you can have a good conference without getting the government involved. Fortunately, the next state to host the PSN is my State, Kwara. We have learnt a lot from this conference in Ogun State and we are going to use it to make the conference in Kwara State a success and even a better conference. We are definitely going to get the government involved.
Although, there is now a change of baton of the PSN executives, the immediate past exco had a running battle with the former PCN registrar,which negatively affected the profession.How do we avoid such a thing in future?
I must tell you that things like that are bound to happen. When a society is developing and you have different people managing various areas, such conflicts are bound to happen.
For instance, somebody has even gone to court to argue that he was barred from contesting for the presidency of PSN during the last election. As far as I’m concerned, he is just fighting for his right. It is a fair development. It is a development that can help us to improve our society and profession.
What is happening in our organisation is a reflection of what is happening in the larger society. The only thing is that we still have to stay together and do our best to learn from issues like these and improve from such situations. As long as we live, we shall continue to learn how to live.
What is your advice for the new PSN executive? What should the new exco focus on to make the PSN and the profession better?
What the new exco should do is to improve on the efforts of the last executives. I know that we have two secretariats that we are working on in Lagos and Abuja. The new exco should complete those projects.
I will also advise the new leadership to try and improve the relationship between the society and government. This is very important.
