Re: On Board Chairmen of Pharmacists Council

We have read with utmost disappointment the opinion of Mr. Khalid Garba Mohammed, which was published in the Daily Trust of Friday, August 9, 2019. Mr. Khalid has totally misrepresented the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and her very responsible leadership with his biased and sentimental sympathy for Pharm. A.T. Mora, who we believe has seen […]

We have read with utmost disappointment the opinion of Mr. Khalid Garba Mohammed, which was published in the Daily Trust of Friday, August 9, 2019.

Mr. Khalid has totally misrepresented the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and her very responsible leadership with his biased and sentimental sympathy for Pharm. A.T. Mora, who we believe has seen concrete and cogent reasons why he cannot chair the Pharmacists’ Council of Nigeria (PCN) given his antecedents in related positions of responsibility.

The claims of Mr. Khalid that Pharm. A.T. Mora is being victimized on account of his northern origin and an attempt to challenge the authority of the President Muhammadu Buhari is malicious, nasty and defamatory. For the records, the two recommendations made by the PSN, through the Minister, are from the North, the first from Kaduna, same home state with Pharm A.T. Mora and the other from Niger State.

This is a rehearsed and well known strategy of Pharm A.T Mora to seek refuge and protection inside ethnic and religious sentiments while continuing in his unholy war against the Pharmacy profession.

It was convenient for Mr. Khalid and his mentor Pharm A.T Mora to list the names of southerners appointed chairmen of PCN in the last 22 years, while mischievously failing to list the names and ethnicities of those who served as Registrars of PCN in the last 22 years.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, through her letters to the former Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole FAS, of 8th April, 2019 and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr. Boss Mustapha, on 29th May, 2019 backed with authentic documents/proofs, advised the Federal Government to reconsider the present appointment of the Chairman of PCN Council in the person of Pharm. A.T, Mora.

Suffice to confirm that the PSN memo to the honorable Minister and the Secretary to Government of the Federation was endorsed by the President of PSN and eight past presidents of the society (including a former President of the International Narcotic Control Board and a former Senator of the Federal Republic.

The main issue is that Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria council in its meeting on the 22nd October, 2009, based on unprecedented and glaring acts calculated to embarrass, ridicule and discomfit the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria by Pharm. A.T. Mora, unanimously approved the recommendation of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria disciplinary committee and suspended him as a member of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and Fellow of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria and placed his name prominently on the roll of dishonour and declared him persona non-grata and consequently barred him from attending national and state functions of Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria nor represent pharmacists within and outside Nigeria.

The decision was affirmed by the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria Annual General Meeting (AGM) and the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos following Pharm. A.T. Mora’s legal case against the PSN’s AGM decision.

The controversies surrounding Mora’s tenure in office of the Registrar of the PCN ranges from shady accounting practices, to doctoring of gazetted laws establishing the PCN Committees to serve his needs, and subversion of decisions of PSN as agreed and submitted. It is worthy of note that it was the PSN leadership dominated by the south (in Mora’s words) that recommended Mora’s appointment as the Registrar and Secretary of the PCN Council.

More worrisome, is Pharm. A.T. Mora’s foggy and cryptic career pathway.

He was reported to have been sacked as Director of Pharmaceutical Services by the Kaduna State Government.

He was sacked as the MD/CEO of Zaria Pharmaceuticals, Manufacturers of Zarinject syringes by the Ahmed Markafi Government of Kaduna State.

He was forced out as Registrar/ Secretary of the Pharmacists Council in 2011, after a tortuous battle with the PSN in his effort to elongate his tenure after the two-term limit of 4 years each totalling 8 years. This battle went up to Head of Service (HOS), Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) and finally to the Vice President (VP) before he was compelled to hand over.

A.T Mora was forced to exit as the ‘Dean’ of an unaccredited Pharmacy Faculty in Kaduna State University. The Faculty trained 3 successive Pharmacy student groups who passed through the institution but they could not be given Provisional registration by the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria because the Faculty could not be accredited with a “dean” who did not have a higher degree in core Pharmaceutical sciences. When Mora refused all entreaties to get him leave peacefully so that a qualified Pharmacy academic could take over and qualify the faculty for accreditation so that the innocent students, whose future had been placed in jeopardy, could be allowed to graduate, he was forced to exit by a new council of the University.

Today Alhaji Mora parades himself as the first professor of clinical Pharmacy in Nigeria without a PhD in Clinical Pharmacy or the core Pharmaceutical Sciences. He is said to have a PhD in Management from a University in Sokoto state but became a Professor of clinical Pharmacy in Igbinedion  University Okada, after only about 5 years in full time academic work( 2012-2017).

Alhaji Mora as Registrar of PCN, was said to have bought a four wheel SUV for himself, failed to license the vehicle and perhaps without proper insurance, travelled to Zaria with the car with car number plates belonging to another vehicle and returned to report that the car was snatched. The circumstances surrounding this incident remain controversial just as it smacks of irresponsibility.

These moral and ethical baggages will interfere with the administration of his office as the Chairman of the PCN Council. We state categorically that there is neither ethnic nor religious dichotomy in the PSN as we are all men of honour and have continued to join hands.

 

Pharm Ijeoma Okey-Ewurum is the National Publicity Secretary, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria.