Pharmaceutical Procurement in Nigeria

The procurement of pharmaceutical products, particularly medicines, constitutes a significant portion of public health spending. However, the involvement of ministries, bureaucracies, and powerful businesses makes the procurement process susceptible to corruption, leading to increased costs without improved health outcomes.

In Nigeria’s tertiary hospitals, various actors—including procurement officers, pharmacists, medical doctors, and management staff—play vital roles in the supply chain. Each actor has different objectives, which often diverge from the goal of maximizing societal welfare and achieving Universal Health Coverage. For-profit entities continuously seek to increase their revenues and may create monopolistic practices that undermine market competition.

The research aimed to provide evidence-based insights into the nature and drivers of corruption within the procurement units of these hospitals. It focused on understanding the enabling factors contributing to corruption and examining the causal relationships among these factors—how they interact to exacerbate corruption in pharmaceutical procurement.

Ultimately, the study sought to generate new knowledge about opportunities that could help improve procurement processes in tertiary hospitals, aiming to create a system that is more efficient, resilient, and less prone to corruption.

SOAS-ACE is currently undertaking research in Bangladesh and Nigeria, including in the education, health and power sectors, as well as on successful collective action that overthrew a corrupt autocracy. Moving beyond pure research, we are also monitoring the implementation of anti-corruption strategies our research has recommended, such as a strategy to reduce pharmaceutical companies’ overpricing of medicines.

Our partners on this project were: Obinna Onwujekwe, Aloysius Odii, Charles Orjiakor, Divine Obodoechi, Chukwudi Nwokolo C (Health Policy Research Group, University of Nigeria); Eleanor Hutchinson, Martin Mckee and Dina Balabanova (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine).