The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria, ACPN, has raised concerns over the increasing migration of pharmacists from the country, revealing that about 9,850 professionals have left Nigeria in the past five years in search of better career opportunities abroad.
Speaking at the opening of the 45th Annual National Scientific Conference of the ACPN in Abuja, the association’s National Chairman, Pharm. Ambrose Ezeh, described the trend as a major threat to Nigeria’s healthcare system and pharmaceutical industry.
Ezeh disclosed that records from the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, showed that about 9,000 pharmacists left the country in the four and a half years preceding December 2025, while more than 850 others obtained letters of good standing from the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria, PCN, in the first half of 2026 to relocate to countries including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
He attributed the growing brain drain to poor remuneration, weak workforce development policies and the continued failure to fully implement the National Drug Distribution Guidelines introduced in 2015. He also noted that the absence of a comprehensive public drug procurement policy had negatively affected the profession and compromised patient safety.
The ACPN chairman urged the Federal Government to introduce urgent reforms by sponsoring executive bills to amend the Fake Drug Act, establish a Federal Drug Management Agency or Drug Revolving Fund Agency, and create a National Postgraduate College of Pharmacy to strengthen specialist training.
He argued that the current penalties for producing and distributing counterfeit medicines were too weak to discourage offenders and proposed stiffer punishments, including a 20 year prison sentence for first offenders and life imprisonment with forfeiture of assets for repeat offenders.
Ezeh further called for stronger implementation of the Drug Revolving Fund system to improve the procurement and distribution of medicines in public health facilities across the country.
The association also warned that drug abuse had become a national emergency, citing previous survey findings that more than 21 million Nigerians abuse one form of psychoactive substance or another. It identified cannabis, opioids, codeine based cough syrups, sedatives and cocaine among the commonly abused substances.
According to ACPN, unemployment, poverty, weak prescription control, porous borders, peer pressure and corruption continue to fuel the growing drug abuse crisis.
The association called on the Federal Government to strengthen collaboration with agencies such as the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, NAFDAC, the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria and the Police to improve enforcement, while expanding rehabilitation centres and intensifying public awareness campaigns against substance abuse.
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