FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development Company Limited and the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture, in partnership with the Health Emergency Initiative, have trained over 100 secondary school students and teachers from public schools in Bayelsa State on first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other emergency response skills.

The two-day training, held in Yenagoa, was aimed at equipping the participants with basic lifesaving skills to provide immediate assistance to victims of emergencies before the arrival of professional medical help.

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Speaking during the programme, the Executive Director and founder of HEI, Paschal Achunine, said the initiative was designed to change the attitude of bystanders who often resort to recording emergencies on social media instead of taking steps to save lives.

Achunine said the programme had been implemented in several states, adding that participants were expected to transfer the knowledge acquired to other students and members of their communities.

“Our expectation is that as opposed to the current practice, where people take pictures and videos and put it on social media when an emergency happens, we’ll see more proactive response, a robust response from young people,” he said.

He said the participants were trained in basic first aid, CPR and other pre-hospital emergency skills, adding that timely intervention could improve the survival chances of accident victims and people suffering cardiovascular emergencies.

“We’ve seen a lot of high-profile people, young persons, adults, who slumped, and some were in their office, some were on the road, and people around were pouring water, doing nothing positive to save or to offer them CPR. So this is to change that story,” Achunine said.

The HEI founder noted that road traffic crashes accounted for a significant number of deaths among young people, stressing that equipping students with emergency response skills could help reduce preventable deaths.

He also disclosed that more than 30 per cent of deaths in Nigeria occurred during the pre-hospital stage, describing the training as a proactive intervention to address the challenge.

According to him, HEI had operated a post-crash care programme since 2017 in partnership with organisations, including the Federal Road Safety Corps and hospitals, providing up to N100,000 deposit support for critically injured crash victims taken to hospitals.

He said the first responder training would complement the post-crash intervention by ensuring that appropriate lifesaving measures were taken before victims reached medical facilities.

“This is a further sweetener to ensure that not only when people are critical, but at the early phase of that pre-hospital emergency, more lives can be saved,” he said.

Achunine further disclosed that HEI had partnered with the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council to integrate emergency health education into the school curriculum.

He said approval had been obtained from the relevant authorities to introduce the programme into composite subjects in primary and secondary schools.

“In the coming months, in the new academic year, we’ll start seeing emergency health education, which is a more robust version of this training conducted in parts and conducted with practical applications in secondary and primary schools,” he said.

Also speaking, the Executive Director, Corporate Services, FIRST E&P, Emmanuel Etomi, said the company supported the initiative because timely intervention during emergencies could determine whether a victim survived.

“During a medical emergency, road traffic accident, cardiac arrest, or other life-threatening incident, the difference between life and death can be measured in minutes,” Etomi said.

He said there was a need to ensure that people in communities knew what to do before professional help arrived, adding that the trained students and teachers could serve as first points of assistance during emergencies in schools, homes and communities.

Etomi described the training as an investment in community resilience, saying the knowledge acquired could turn helplessness into informed action and potentially save lives.

He also disclosed that HEI was among the five inaugural beneficiaries of Impact FIRST: Heritage, a multi-year funding programme launched by the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture to support organisations with proven impact and sustainable delivery models.

Etomi commended the Bayelsa State Government and HEI for bringing the programme to the state, expressing optimism that the partnership would help deepen and expand its impact.

For years, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has been at the centre of Nigeria’s battle against fake, substandard and unsafe medicines and other regulated products.

But has the agency truly changed since Professor Mojisola Adeyeye became Director-General in 2017?

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For those who might want to respond in the affirmative, it is important to note that the transformation did not begin with Adeyeye, and they must factor in what previous leadership achieved before judging the current administration.

Before Adeyeye: The Orhii Years

Before Adeyeye, the NAFDAC was led by Dr Paul Orhii, who became Director-General in 2009 and remained in office until February 2016.

Orhii’s tenure was strongly associated with the use of technology in the fight against counterfeit medicines, as the NAFDAC introduced and expanded mobile authentication systems and other technologies designed to allow consumers to verify medicines.

By 2015, the NAFDAC reported that it had confiscated and destroyed counterfeit drugs worth more than N27 billion over five years. The agency also reported that more than 80 million Nigerians could use authentication technology to verify the genuineness of certain products.

There was also measurable evidence of progress against counterfeit medicines.

A survey cited by Devex found that the prevalence of counterfeit antimalarial medicines fell from 19.6 percent in 2012 to 3.5 percent in 2015, with the NAFDAC attributing the improvement partly to authentication technology and other enforcement strategies, including the use of TruScan at ports.

The NAFDAC was also actively arresting counterfeiters and seizing fake medicines. In 2015, for example, the agency announced the seizure of more than 15 containers of counterfeit pharmaceuticals valued at about N1 billion from warehouses linked to a suspected counterfeit-drug kingpin.

However, Orhii’s tenure was not without controversy. His administration faced allegations concerning financial management, which he denied. He was removed from office in February 2016.

2016–2017: Yetunde Oni’s Transitional Period

After Orhii’s removal, Mrs Yetunde Oni, then a senior official of the NAFDAC, became Acting Director-General in February 2016.

Her approximately 18-month tenure is important because it is sometimes overlooked when comparing the NAFDAC before and after Adeyeye.

In 2016–2017, Oni’s administration reported progress in several areas, including the retooling of the NAFDAC’s laboratories, laboratory accreditation, improvement of registration procedures and measures to support small and medium-sized businesses.

In a July 2017 management report, Oni listed updated guidelines, revised permit processes, user-acceptance testing of electronic processes, new job descriptions for officers and the creation of additional outstations among the achievements recorded during her tenure.

The Federal Ministry of Information also reported in December 2016 that the NAFDAC, under Oni, had instituted 52 cases and secured eight convictions since February of that year.

Another contemporary account credited her administration with laboratory retooling, accreditation of the Agulu and Kaduna laboratories, improvements in marketing-authorisation procedures and a 50 percent reduction in registration costs for products under the MSME clinic.

So, the historical record does not support the argument that the NAFDAC was in any way stagnant before Adeyeye.

September–November 2017: Ademola Magbojuri

When Oni retired after reaching the mandatory retirement age in September 2017, Mr Ademola Andrew Magbojuri became Acting Director-General.

His tenure was brief — lasting only weeks — before Adeyeye was appointed.

Magbojuri had previously served as a senior director within the NAFDAC, including roles involving finance, planning, research and statistics, and the agency’s Training and Research Institute.

Because he served only as a transitional acting DG, there is little basis for attributing major long-term institutional achievements specifically to his short period at the top.

His importance in this history is that he was the person Adeyeye directly succeeded in November 2017.

Then Came Mojisola Adeyeye — 2017

Professor Mojisola Adeyeye assumed office in November 2017.

According to Adeyeye’s account, she inherited a NAFDAC facing serious financial and operational problems, including about N3.2 billion in debt, with significant amounts owed in taxes, staff-related expenses and contractor obligations. She also said that roughly 70–80 percent of the agency’s equipment was non-functional.

These figures are Adeyeye’s account of the condition she inherited and should therefore be treated as claims by the DG rather than an independently audited assessment.

But unlike simply measuring the NAFDAC by the number of counterfeit products seized, Adeyeye’s administration increasingly focused on institutional regulatory capacity and international standards.

2018–2019: The Beginning of a New Regulatory Push

Adeyeye’s administration pursued quality-management and regulatory reforms, including efforts to align the NAFDAC with the World Health Organization’s Global Benchmarking Tool.

Going by the NAFDAC’s own records, the achievements since November 2017 included laboratory upgrading, quality-management systems, ISO 9001 certification and digitalisation of regulatory processes.

The administration also worked on reducing the time required to register regulated products. Nigeria’s National Development Plan also recorded that NAFDAC had re-engineered registration processes and reduced processing time from almost a year to less than three months.

2022: The Biggest International Milestone

The most significant evidence of institutional change came in March 2022.

After a formal assessment by international experts using WHO’s Global Benchmarking Tool, Nigeria’s medicines regulator achieved WHO Maturity Level 3.

The WHO explained that the assessment examined more than 260 indicators covering areas such as product authorisation, laboratory testing, market surveillance and the ability to detect adverse events.

According to the WHO, Nigeria had reached ML3, meaning its regulatory system had demonstrated that it functioned well when measured against most of the international indicators.

This was a major achievement because it was not simply the NAFDAC declaring itself successful. The assessment was conducted through the WHO benchmarking process.

2023: Further Laboratory Progress

The improvement continued after the 2022 milestone.

According to the WHO Africa report, NAFDAC subsequently achieved prequalification of its Central Drug Control Laboratory in September 2023.

That provided further evidence that the improvements were extending beyond administrative reforms into laboratory and technical capacity.

2025: NAFDAC Maintains Its International Standing

Another important test came in 2025.

The NAFDAC retained its WHO Maturity Level 3 status following a new benchmarking exercise. That matters because achieving a regulatory standard once is different from maintaining it.

The 2025 result therefore provided evidence that the improvements recognised in 2022 had not simply disappeared after the original assessment.

The agency also achieved another major international milestone in 2025 by becoming a full member of the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH), strengthening Nigeria’s participation in international pharmaceutical regulatory standards.

But Has NAFDAC Defeated Fake Drugs?

This is where the analysis needs to be balanced, because the response would be in the negative.

The NAFDAC’s institutional transformation should not be confused with the elimination of counterfeit and substandard products from Nigeria.

Fake and substandard medicines still enter markets while the NAFDAC continues to conduct seizures, recalls, laboratory testing and enforcement operations.

In the same vein, that does not necessarily mean the reforms failed.

In fact, one indication of a stronger regulator can be its ability to detect, investigate and recall dangerous products more effectively.

The real question is whether those stronger systems are translating into safer products for Nigerians.

The Real Comparison

The evidence therefore shows three different phases.

Paul Orhii — 2009–2016

Focused heavily on modernising the NAFDAC’s anti-counterfeit campaign through technology, authentication systems, enforcement and seizures. The reported reduction in counterfeit antimalarial medicines between 2012 and 2015 is evidence of measurable progress during this period.

Yetunde Oni — 2016–2017

Maintained enforcement while concentrating on laboratory retooling, accreditation, registration reforms, MSME support and internal administrative improvements. Her administration also reported 52 cases and eight convictions during the period from February to December 2016.

Ademola Magbojuri — September–November 2017

Served as a short transitional Acting DG before Adeyeye’s appointment.

Mojisola Adeyeye — 2017–present

Moved the emphasis strongly toward institutional strengthening, quality-management systems, digitalisation and international regulatory benchmarking, culminating in WHO ML3 in 2022, retention of ML3 in 2025, and full ICH membership in 2025.

Verdict

The evidence suggests that the NAFDAC has genuinely transformed, but the change should be understood as an evolution rather than a complete reinvention.

Orhii’s administration helped establish technology-driven anti-counterfeit measures. Oni’s short tenure continued enforcement and strengthened laboratories and administrative processes. Magbojuri provided a brief transition.

Adeyeye then took the institution further toward internationally benchmarked regulatory standards, with the strongest independent evidence being the WHO’s recognition of Nigeria at Maturity Level 3 in 2022 and the subsequent retention of that status in 2025.

So the fairest conclusion is:

The NAFDAC was not a useless agency before Adeyeye, and Adeyeye did not eliminate the problem of fake drugs.

But under her leadership, there is strong evidence that the regulator itself became more internationally mature, structured and technically capable.

The realistic goal is not to pretend counterfeit drugs can be eliminated completely, but to keep the problem under tighter control, making detection faster, enforcement stronger, and illegal production, importation and distribution increasingly difficult.

Ultimately, the real measure of this progress is whether these stronger systems continue to protect Nigerians and make the counterfeit-drug trade harder to sustain, regardless of who leads NAFDAC next.

The looming Initial Public Offering (IPO) of Dangote Petroleum Refinery and Petrochemicals (DPRP) presents Nigerians with a rare opportunity to transition from being mere consumers of energy products to becoming owners of a vital industrial asset.

President and Chief Executive of Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote, said the planned listing represents more than a financial transaction. According to him, it offers Nigerians a chance to participate directly in the value chain of products and services that affect their daily lives.

For decades, millions of Nigerians have spent a significant portion of their income on transportation, power generation, logistics, and other activities dependent on refined petroleum products.

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The Dangote Refinery IPO, he noted, creates a pathway for ordinary citizens to own a stake in an enterprise at the center of that economic activity.

“Every day, Nigerians use products that depend on refined petroleum. What makes this IPO unique is that it gives people the opportunity not only to consume but also to participate as owners in the industrial system that powers economic life,” Dangote said.

He explained that many of the country’s most strategic infrastructure assets have traditionally been beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. The refinery listing seeks to change that by opening ownership to a broad spectrum of investors.

“When a businessman transports goods, when a farmer moves produce to the market, when a manufacturer powers production, when families travel across the country, energy plays a role. The refinery supports these activities. Through the IPO, Nigerians can now have a direct stake in the value being created,” he added.

Dangote said widespread ownership of productive infrastructure strengthens the connection between citizens and national development. According to him, countries that have achieved sustainable economic growth often encourage broad public participation in major enterprises through capital market investments.

The billionaire industrialist noted that the refinery is not merely an energy project but an integrated industrial platform that supports manufacturing, trade, transportation, exports, and broader economic productivity.

“This is about creating an ownership culture around national development. We want more Nigerians to share in the success of assets that contribute directly to economic transformation,” he stated.

Financial market observers believe the listing could mark a significant milestone in deepening retail participation in Nigeria’s capital market by linking everyday economic activity with long-term investment opportunities.

With a capacity of 700,000 barrels per day, the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is the world’s largest single-train refinery and one of Africa’s most significant industrial investments. The company believes that opening ownership to the public reinforces the refinery’s identity as a national industrial asset built to serve generations.

Dangote reiterated the company’s commitment to transparency, strong corporate governance, and sustainable value creation, assuring prospective investors that details of the public offering would be communicated through approved regulatory channels.

“The refinery has become part of daily economic life in Nigeria. Through this IPO, we are creating an opportunity for Nigerians to move beyond participation as consumers and become participants in the value that this asset generates. That is a powerful statement about inclusive growth and national progress,” he said.

Photo Caption: L-R: Group Executive Director, Commercial Operations, Cement and Foods Businesses Dangote Industries Limited, Mariya Aliko-Dangote; Director, Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, Adedapo Adeolu Segun; Group Vice President, Oil & Gas and Fertiliser, Dangote Industries Limited, Devakumar Edwin; Company Secretary, Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, Christian Meseko; President/CE, Dangote Industries Limited, Aliko Dangote; CEO, Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, David Bird; Group Managing Director / Chief Executive Officer, Vetiva Capital Management Limited, Chuka Eseka; Group Vice President, Business Units, Dangote Industries Limited, Olakunle Alake; Group Executive Director, Commercial Operations, Oil & Gas, Fertiliser and WAEP, Fatima Aliko-Dangote; CFO, Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals, Bruce Tanner; at the signing ceremony of Dangote Petroleum Refinery & Petrochemicals FZE Initial Public Offering (IPO) in Lagos on Monday, September 7, 2026.