Buhari’s speech is a ‘compendium of lies’, says pro-Biafra group

• Pharmacists implore President to address health system challenges
• Want colleague appointed as substantive NAFDAC DG

A pro-Biafra group, Biafra Zionists Federation (BZF), has dismissed President Muhammadu Buhari’s nationwide broadcast as a “compendium of lies.”It also challenged him to provide evidence of the said meeting he held with late Biafran leader, Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, where they agreed that Nigeria’s unity was not negotiable.

Leader of the group, Benjamin Onwuka, said in Enugu yesterday that the President was not telling the world the truth about Biafra, stressing that they would not relent in their agitation for Biafra cause.

Onwuka, who had few weeks ago declared himself “President of Biafra republic”, challenged Buhari to provide an audio and transcript of the said meeting between him and Odumegwu-Ojukwu.

He said, among others: “We are speaking today in response to the broadcast said to have been made by Buhari. We want to let the world know that Buhari is wasting his time; he has been defeated.”

Meanwhile, pharmacists, under the aegis of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), have urged President Buhari that “recent development with regards to a need for health interventions outside the country compels a need to continue to appraise the totality of the health system.”

President, PSN, Ahmed Yakasai and National Secretary, Gbologade Iyiola, yesterday said “the health system must be revitalised in line with the progressive strides being recorded in the development of infrastructure in road and rail construction, among others, in our country.”

Yakasai and Iyiola, in a statement, said: “We are particularly delighted that the President looked fit, hale and hearty on his return which is an eloquent testimony of good care and of course a self-imposed determination to shake-off all vagaries of ill-health by a passionate President.

“It is therefore most apropos to return all glory and honour to the creator for divine intervention in arresting the hitherto sliding health of the President while also wishing His Excellency a full complement of robust health grounded in wellness and vitality.”

Also, the pharmacists said in terms of evaluation of structures in the health system, a vital component remains appointments in some of the regulatory agencies and some other strategic organs in the health sector.

They said the pharmaceutical sector is particularly hard-hit without an array of salient appointments at National Agency of Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC), Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN), National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD).

The PSN said the major condition precedent in the build up to the appointment of the Director General (DG) of NAFDAC remains the proviso in Section 9(1) of the enabling act which states inter-alia “there shall be appointed for the agency by the President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces on the recommendation of the Minister, a Director General who shall be a person with good knowledge of pharmacy, food and drugs.”