FROM THE REGISTRAR’S DESK – February 01, 2019

PCN/C.6016/VOL.1/3

February 01, 2019

Dear Colleagues

UPDATE FROM THE REGISTRY

On behalf of the Staff and management of the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, I wish you all a very joyful and rewarding month. At the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, we have hit the ground running and we look forward to delivering excellent regulatory services that exceed the expectations of the Practicing Nigerian Pharmacists.

As Council regulatory activities continue to gain momentum, we hereby encourage all Pharmacists to promptly conclude registration formalities for both their individual and premises licenses. I believe that by now everyone who graduated before 2011 should be up to date with their Cycle 4 status. The online portals for Cycle 4 remain open to all colleagues for updates. All modules of Cycle 5 (13, 14 & 15) are now available to be accessed by eligible colleagues both online and in the classroom format. Please reach out to the Pharmacy Practice department via enquiries@pcnmcpd.com if you have any queries.

The Register and go syndrome continues to be a disturbing menace to the Pharmacy profession. The role of a Superintendent Pharmacist is one that comes with a lot of responsibilities and therefore should be taken with a high level of maturity and decorum. A situation where a Pharmacist would register a premises simply to hang his licence there and abscond to another full time employment whether within the Pharmaceutical industry or outside the industry is unbecoming of men of honour. Pharmacists both young and old are hereby warned to desist from this act as the council intends to deploy its robust technological infrastructure to fish out culprits and deal with offenders decisively. The task of lifting the image of our dear profession belongs to all of us and the council is fully committed to playing its part.

As a way of improving our service delivery to the consuming public, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria is developing an online component of the Foreign Pharmacy Graduate Orientation program. This is with a view to making the program more impactful, accessible and convenient for our colleagues who trained in diaspora and wish to return home to practice. The online component will be deployed during the second cycle of the 2019 program. The first cycle of this year’s program comes up from April 14 to May 25, 2019 at the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), Abuja. Interested participants have up till March 30, 2019 to register for the program.

The Pre-registration Examination for Pharmacists (PEP) comes up on Saturday, March 23, 2019 at 8 Centres across the Federation. Interested graduates who are eligible to take the examination have up till March 10, 2019 to register for the examination. Let me inform colleagues that Council would soon be deploying the online PEP program to facilitate flexibility and convenience of participation.

In the month of January 2019, 147 new Pharmacists were inducted into our noble profession. Join me in congratulating the Pharmacists who graduated from Igbinedion University, Okada, Edo State (102); and Usmanu DanFodio University, Sokoto, Sokoto State (45) respectively.

The Council is aware of recent developments regarding the practice of Veterinary Pharmacy in Nigeria and is taking appropriate action to ensure that interest of Pharmacists, Pharmacy Profession and the larger Nigerian public is protected.

The website of the Council is being remodeled in a bid to reinforce our commitment to providing up to date information to colleagues and the general public, and also promote robust interaction with all stakeholders.

I wish you all a glorious month ahead and congratulation once again to our brand new Fellows of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria.

Yours in Service,
Elijah Mohammed, FPSN, FNIM, FPCPharm, FNAPharm,