Olusola Olayinka Idowu

Mrs. Olusola Idowu an indigene of Ogun state was born over 56years ago. She attended elementary school in Ibadan, Oyo State and her secondary school in Iwo, Osun state, finishing with a distinction. She attended university of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) and obtained a Bachelor of Pharmacy (B.Pharm) in 1985.

After her youth service, she started her career in 1987 with the Federal Ministry of Health and was posted to the Pharmacist Board of Nigeria. As a result of her hard work and dedication, when the Pharmacists’ Council of Nigeria was established in 1991, she was the only ministry staff left to assist the new registrar. She was saddled with the schedule of overseeing the Human Resources, Account and the General Services unit of the council as well as the head of secretariat during the board/council meetings.

In 1997, she was posted to Abuja and together with one of the Principal Medical Officers, theFederal Staff Clinic in the office of the Head of Service of the Federation, was established in 2003. Mrs. Idowu, executed her role as the Head of the Pharmacy with utmost sincerity of purpose, passion, dedication and commitment in ensuring that the pharmacy became fully established from scratch without any financial support from the government. Throughout theperiod, the pharmacy was run efficiently recording minimal incidents of ‘stock-out’ of drugs and consumable items.

Her exposure to the Department for the International Development (DFID) training on Monitoring & Evaluation (M&E) in 2000 prompted her passion for analytical works. This madeher pursue and obtain a Master in Public Health (M.Ph) from Obafemi Awolowo University in 2011 after which she was posted to the National Blood Transfusion Service (NBTS) as the Head of the M&E unit. In addition to this, she was appointed as the Business official/Grant Administrator of the NBTS Cooperative Agreement of the United States PEPFAR/CDC funded programme from 2011 to 2015. In both Capacities, she brought her passion for work to bear on each role to ensure successful implementation of all activities.

As the Business Official/Grant Administrator, she was the Accounting Officer, who managed the fund with highest level of accountability and ensured timely submission of financial reports. Her exceptional record keeping skill helped in the final award closure reconciliation.

As the Head of M&E, she refined the M&E framework of the NBTS and developed an M&E plan. She also provided the required leadership and technical direction for the NBTS to respond to the challenge reported in the WHO Global Status Report on blood safety and availability (2016) in the WHO African Region which indicted Nigeria and showed that Nigeriahad the least donation rate of 0.7 units/1000 inhabitants in the West African sub-region that covered only 10% of the actual collection.

She developed and implemented the concept of monthly reporting on the platform of the District Health Information System (DHIS2). Working with WHO country office. The blood safety module was developed, and the Federal Tertiary Institutions were trained on the user of the platform. NBTS now receives data from all Tertiary Health Institutions nationwide (public, private, faith based) on a regular basis. This is a result of her tenacity, technical capabilities and people management skills.

Mrs. Olusola Idowu was promoted as Director in the Federal Civil Service in 2014 and was appointed Permanent Secretary in 2019. She was deployed to the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning as Permanent Secretary Budget and National Planning in February 2020.

She is happily married and has three children and two grandchildren.