Nigeria’s first national healthcare Group Purchasing Organisation (GPO), Medipool Nigeria Limited, has inaugurated its nine-member Board of Directors. The Board, chaired by Dr. Oluwaseun Abiola, was inaugurated in Abuja and assumes oversight of the organisation as it moves from establishment into its next phase of development.

Approved by the Federal Executive Council as a public-private partnership, Medipool aggregates the demand of Nigeria’s public health system for medicines and other healthcare commodities. Its aims are to lower costs, improve supply reliability, assure quality and catalyse local production of pharmaceuticals.

The Board comprises, amongst others, Founder and Chairman Dr. Oluwaseun Abiola; Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Kafayat Babalola; Executive Director and Chief Pharmaceutical Officer, Pharm. Cornel Eneyi Akpandara; Non-Executive Directors Mr. Obinna Ukachukwu and Ms. Lolade Awogbade; Independent Directors, Dr. Abdu Mukhtar, Mr. Martins Olajide and Prince Henry Erimodafe, while Ms. Hadiza Bako is Acting Company Secretary.
Speaking at the inauguration, Dr. Abiola said, “Medipool was approved by the Federal Executive Council to do a specific job: aggregate the demand of Nigeria’s fragmented health system so that it buys better, and move medicines reliably to the facilities that need them.

“An organisation with a mandate of that kind must be held to account, and that is what this Board is for. We will put in place the governance and controls that the Federal Government, our state partners, development partners and the Nigerian public are entitled to expect, and we will hold management to the standard the model was built to meet: better value for the Nigerian healthcare system’’.