The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari and Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu to bring the killers of its member, Sunday Ike to book.
Mr Ike was gruesomely murdered by unknown gunmen in his pharmacy located in 3rd Avenue, Gwarimpa, Abuja, last Friday.
Ike’s assailants subsequently zoomed off in his Toyota Camry car with number plates BS 286 KWL, before the arrival of policemen from the FCT Command.
Spokesman for the FCT Police Command, DSP Anjuguri Manzah, who confirmed the incident, said an investigation had begun.
The Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, CP Bala Ciroma, according to Mandah, “assures FCT residents that the perpetrators of this the heinous act will be arrested and brought to justice.”
He also encouraged members of the public to support the police with useful information that could lead to the arrest of the assailants, who are currently on the run.
However, the Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria has tasked the IGP to hasten the investigation or face a potential backlash.
In a statement co-signed by its National President, Dr Samuel Adekola and National Secretary, Pharm. Abocede Idowu, ACPN threatened to withdraw their services as well as other relevant personnel from the frontline duties if justice isn’t served for the murder of Mr Sunday, its National Publicity Secretary.
According to the group, this is the latest in a spate of killings targeted at its members.
It further urged President Buhari and the 36 state governors to direct the IGP and all Commissioners of Police to set up special security and Police squads to ensure more rigorous surveillance of pharmacies and other health facilities in Nigeria.
Read full statement below:
The Association of Community Pharmacists of Nigeria (ACPN) announces, with great grief, the gruesome murder of one of its shining lights and its incumbent National Publicity Secretary, Late Pharm.
Sunday Ike.
The most unfortunate episode of killing Community Pharmacists on essential duty which has become a recurring phenomenon in the last few years with reckless abandon took place this time in the late hours of Friday June 19, 2020 at his Pharmacy premises, Suncel Pharmacy, 3rd Avenue, Gwarinpa, Abuja.
Late Pharm. Sunday Chukwujekwu Ike, a diligent and passionate Community Pharmacist who always professed that “pharmacy will be better in our time”, was on duty as a frontline health worker rendering pharmaceutical care services through vital interventionist measures calculated to save other people’s
lives when sons and agents of darkness cut short his promising life right in the precincts of his workplace.
The assumption of these criminal elements like others in their kith and kin remains the presumption that Pharmacy facilities are honeypots. The various misrepresentations that this professional template is an equivalent of business premises rather than health facilities catalyses’ the resolve of thieves and assailants to explore the imagined “fortunes” Covid-19 sales bring to Community Pharmacies this season.
Our evaluation of the various postulations in the media and the Nigeria Police where this ugly incident has been portrayed as a robbery incident in the “shop” of a businessman is both worrisome and
depressing because even those who anchor reportage and others who normally should provide redress are obviously not conversant with the true status of Pharmacies as Health Facilities in Nigeria.
For the records, the ACPN responsibly posits once again that Community Pharmacists are the first point of call for all persons who seek to access health from a global perspective. It is also important to also clarify that over 70% of health interventions are usually handled and professionally sorted in most Health
systems at Community Pharmacy levels which therefore saves Nations substantial loss of time, finance and other resources in the quest for National productivity.
The ACPN is forced once again to recall a number of incidents in contemporary times where Pharmacists have been wasted in cold murder not to talk of the scores which are daily harassed by men of the under-world and even security agents in the process of rendering essential duties to often times a most unappreciative countrymen.
Some of the ready incidents which come to mind include:
The cold-blooded murder of late Pharm. Ororo who was killed while on duty in the mid-eighties in the ancient city of Benin, Edo State. This triggered a spate of killings in the last couple of years in Edo
State. At the last count, at least five Pharmacists have been killed in Edo State while on duty in the
last two decades.
About two years ago, a Community Pharmacist was killed in the Garden City of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, one in Uyo Akwa – Ibom State and another one in Benue State all were at their duty posts.
Only recently within this year in the same City of Port Harcourt, staffers of a Community Pharmacy and Pharmacist were harassed and physically assaulted by men of the Nigeria Police who ended up
detaining the Pharmacist for daring to cite relevant regulations which permits Pharmacists and other health workers to render essential duties in the course of the ravaging Covi-19 phenomenon which
still continues to claim many casualties in our Country and other nations of the world.
In what was one of the most painful incidences, a Pharmacist who was the best graduating student in his class was murdered in the vicious cycle of deaths in Lagos State. This particular death was a
striking waste of valuable human resource at a time the nation continues to search for its best hands to salvage the remains of the Country economically, politically and socio-culturally.
For obvious reasons of its size and strategic location, Lagos State has witnessed dozens of other deaths
and harassment which were not properly documented at different times.
We at the ACPN have continued to critically appraise this menace and harvest of deaths we had and continue to contend with. The ACPN therefore calls on the FG and the 36 State Governments including the Nigeria Police, Department of State Services, and other relevant arms of law enforcement agents to note and initiate action in the reflected direction:
In view of the reality that criminal elements assume that Community Pharmacists and other health facilities are perceived as gold mines, an urgent need arises for President Muhammadu Buhari and the 36 State Governors to direct the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioners of Police in all the States to set up special Security and Police Squads to ensure more rigorous surveillance of Pharmacies and other Health facilities in the ultimate public interest.
If this call is unheeded, Government at all levels may risk a gradual withdrawal of Pharmacists and other relevant personnel from the frontline duties of ensuring the wellness, vitality and good health of
the nation.
In all the instances where Pharmacists on duty have been murdered hitherto before now, the Nigeria Police has never fully resolved any case successfully. The ACPN therefore calls on His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari to direct the Inspector General of Police to identify with a view to bringing killers of Pharm. Sunday Chukwujekwu Ike to book.
With utmost respect to the President and all other apparatus of State Security, this is a minimum demand from Government to reassure Pharmacists and other health workers that Government does
not take our safety for granted.
Government is respectfully implored to consider the exploration of securing life insurance for Community Pharmacists and other care- providers especially those who are professionally mandated to render essential duties at times of national emergencies.
Finally, the ACPN calls on all well-meaning Nigerians, traditional rulers and spiritual leaders to come to the aid of the ACPN in the bid to tackle the escalating menace of attacks on our members as the unrepentant and soulless perpetrators of these acts of brigandage are incentivized by the nonchalance’s of Government
to provide an ameliorating balm in the face of the odds and adversities Community Pharmacists continue to face.
