Inauguration Address by Prof. Adeyeye C M,
Director General NAFDAC
Inauguration Ceremony of the NAFDAC Pharmacist Reserve Group
9th September, 2026.
It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to this inauguration today, as we formally receive six hundred pharmacists into voluntary service.
These six hundred qualified, service-ready pharmacists are drawn from all thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory, representing every one of Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. Each of you was selected not by chance, but through a deliberate and transparent process that balanced merit, availability, and fair geographic representation, so that no state and no region is left behind in this national effort.
This Programme is more than an internship or an attachment. It is an investment in you, and through you, in the regulatory future of this country. You will be exposed to the real work of medicines regulation: pharmacovigilance, compliance monitoring, quality assurance, data collection, and public sensitisation against drug abuse. You will learn what it means to stand between the Nigerian public and substandard, falsified, or dangerous products. Let me be clear about the vision behind this Programme. We are building, over time, a national reserve of pharmacists who can be called upon at short notice wherever the health of Nigerians is at risk: during a product recall, a suspected circulation of falsified medicines, or an emergency in a hard-to-reach community. Our ambition is that within the next few years, every state of the federation will have a standing pool of trained, vetted and mobilisable pharmacists working alongside our State Offices, so that NAFDAC’s regulatory presence is felt not only in our laboratories and at our ports of entry, but in every market, community pharmacy, patent medicine store and primary health centre in this country. Regulation that lives only in the capital cannot protect a nation of more than two hundred million people. This Programme is how we take regulation to the doorstep of the Nigerian people.
Now, what do we expect from you? First, availability and discipline: when you are called upon for an assignment, respond promptly and see it through. Second, integrity that is beyond negotiation. In the course of your service you will encounter offers and pressures designed to compromise you. Reject them. The moment a regulator can be bought, the public loses its only protection.
Third, confidentiality: the information you handle during inspections and investigations belongs to the Agency and to the Nigerian people, not to social media.
Fourth, a learning posture: ask questions, read the guidelines, take your training seriously and document your work properly. And fifth, respect for the communities you will serve. You will enter markets, pharmacies and health facilities as ambassadors of NAFDAC and of the pharmacy profession. Conduct yourselves accordingly.
Let me also say plainly what you stand to gain, because this must be a partnership of mutual benefit. You will acquire hands-on regulatory experience that no classroom can offer: pharmacovigilance reporting, laboratory awareness, risk communication and enforcement procedure. You will be trained and mentored by professionals with decades of experience, and your service will be formally documented, with certification and letters of service that strengthen your standing before any employer, licensing body or postgraduate institution, at home or abroad. You will build a national network of colleagues across all thirty-six states and the Federal Capital Territory, a network that will serve your careers long after this Programme.
And as opportunities arise within the Agency and across the wider regulatory and pharmaceutical sector, those who have served here with distinction will have demonstrated their capacity in a way that no application letter can. Above all, you will gain the satisfaction of knowing that a child who received genuine medicine, a mother who was spared a falsified product and a family that was protected from harm, were protected in part because you chose to serve.
To our Directors and State Coordinators present here today, I charge you to take ownership of these volunteers. Mentor them. Deploy them meaningfully. Let their service translate into real strengthening of our regulatory reach at state level.
To our six hundred volunteers: you carry today not just a certificate of enrolment, but a pledge to serve with integrity, to represent NAFDAC and your profession with honour, and to place the safety of the Nigerian public above every other consideration.
I therefore have the honour and privilege to formally declare the NAFDAC Pharmacists Reserve Volunteer Programme inaugurated.
I thank you all, and God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria
