Posted on: Tue 22-10-2024

The Nigeria Association of Pharmacists in Academia (NAPA) has decried the requirement that individuals aspiring to occupy the office of the Vice-Chancellor of the Universities of Medical Sciences across the country must be medically qualified.

This is as the association also vowed to resist efforts to exclude its members from aspiring to lead such universities with every legitimate means.

Addressing a press conference in Port Harcourt, yesterday, the National Chairman of NAPA, Prof. Catherine Nonyelum Stanley, opposed the eligibility criteria for the election or selection of the Vice Chancellor at Universities of Medical Sciences. The association noted that requirement “is a calculated attempt to exclude pharmacists in academia who are highly educated, skilled and eminently qualified professionals from aspiring to the highest office in the ivory tower. If allowed to stand, it will obviously create disharmony among the diverse professionals that exist in our university system.”

Stanley stressed that the academic and administrative prowess and ability to harness both human and material resources for the development and growth of our universities “is not the exclusive preserve of any group of professionals.” The NAPA boss cited Prof. Charles Okechukwu Esimone, Vice-Chancellor at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka as an example of pharmacists of repute that have occupied the office of the VCs in both public and private universities and have performed excellently well.

It said the current attempt to exclude other practitioners who are not holders of the MBBS degree from aspiring to the leadership of medical universities raises critical questions of inclusive and equal representation in higher education leadership with possible negative consequences top of which is disharmony in an already fragile work environment.

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