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By Doris Obinna
The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) has urged the National Assembly to halt ongoing moves to create new health-related commissions, describing the proposals as wasteful, duplicative and out of touch with current economic realities.
In a statement signed by National Chairman, Ambrose Ezeh and National Secretary Omokhafe Ashore, the association faulted deliberations at recent public hearings first at the House of Representatives on November 18, 2025, and later at the Senate on November 24, 2025; where lawmakers entertained bills seeking to establish a Surrogacy Commission, a National Accreditation and Standards Commission, and a Tertiary Health Institutions Commission through amendments to the National Health Act (NH-Act) 2014.
The pharmacists said the mandates being proposed for the new bodies are already fully covered under the National Tertiary Health Institutions Standards Committee (NTHISC), a statutory structure created by the NH-Act to oversee organ procurement and trafficking regulations, surrogacy controls, accreditation and quality standards in tertiary health facilities.
According to the ACPN, no new bureaucracy is needed; instead, the National Assembly must strengthen oversight and ensure adequate budgetary support for the NTHISC to carry out its legal responsibilities.
The association also dismissed calls for a new National Accreditation and Quality Control body, arguing that accreditation and quality monitoring for all health facilities remain the exclusive purview of Nigeria’s professional regulatory councils, whose registrar-chief executives already serve on the NTHISC. They stressed that Section 1(1) of the NH-Act expressly prohibits interference with existing professional regulatory laws.
Responding to another proposal debated at the Senate to create Sickle Cell Research and Therapy Centres in the six geopolitical zones and the Federal Capital Territory, the ACPN said while the initiative is commendable in principle, the scale of the plan is unrealistic.
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Nigeria, they noted, already hosts major research institutions such as the Nigeria Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) and the Nigeria Institute of Medical Research (NIMR), both of which lack sufficient funding to deliver on their mandates. NIPRD, they added, operates on less than N20 million in monthly recurrent and capital allocations, far below what would be required to support seven new regional centres.
The association criticised the proposed structure for the centres, which includes positions such as Chief Medical Directors and Heads of Clinical Services as inconsistent with global research models and excessively bureaucratic. Instead, the ACPN recommended establishing a single national sickle cell research hub, complemented by therapy units across the 73 Federal Health Institutions (FHIs), to enhance counselling, treatment and public awareness without creating unnecessary administrative layers.
The pharmacists also decried what they described as deteriorating governance at the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), alleging stalled appointments, non-reconstitution of the boards of the 73 FHIs, and refusal to inaugurate professional regulatory councils.
They pointed to the ongoing strike by the Joint Health Sector Union (JOHESU), which represents more than 85 per cent of health-care workers, as evidence of systemic neglect. The strike, which began on November 15, 2025, has reportedly crippled federal health institutions nationwide due to unresolved wage arrears dating back 12 years.
Given the financial constraints affecting the sector, the ACPN urged lawmakers to propose only reforms that are both feasible and necessary. The association called on the National Assembly to “polish its appendages” and avoid expanding bureaucratic structures that could further burden an already strained health-care system.
