Herbal drug: Also a health booster

Even though any time general hospital doctors’ engage in a face-off with the government, millions of their patients’ headache worsens, their temperature boil, their blood pressure shoots high and their heartbeats become abnormal; it however turns a blessing to their ‘friends,’ the herbal medicine practitioners, who see it as the appropriate opportunity to advertise their local trade.

 Lagos State, despite being the most industrialised and socially viable in Nigeria, herbal medicine men have boldly come out from the cocoons of their simple ‘clinics’ and to now gain street limelight by promoting many products, which gained new heights in patronage by people of different ages, gender, education and income levels.

At Mushin, Agege, Ojo, Badagry and Mile 12, areas which Daily Independent has visited, scores of herbal drug traders daily display processed and semi-processed medicines which they claim could cure pile, hypertension, diabetes, malaria, hernia, diarrhoea, gonorrheoea, infertility and many other ailments.

Sanusi Mainasara, indigene of Tsafe, Zamfara State, who has been marketing herbal drugs in Lagos since 2000, in a discussion with Daily Independent boasted the power of his herbs to cure all ailments. According to the 30-year-old herbalist, who said he gained knowledge about traditional medicine from his grandfather,“herbal medicines can cure irregular menstruation, ovarian cysts, tooth ache, deafness, skin diseases, fibroids and barreness.” Confidently, he spoke: “I can use the root of plantain, extracts from cabbage leaves and bitter leaf to treat obesity and diabetes.”

No one among the herbal medicine sellers fails to advertise bottles filled with pieces of wood and medicinal powder which they stated if blended with water, lime, lemon juice, citrus or strong spirit become therapeutic wonder.

A co-trader, whose shop is at the popular Mile 12 Market, is Ibrahim Muhammed from Borno State, who explained that the bark, wood and latex of Iroko, a popular tree in the rain forest of Nigeria, can be used for the treatment of hernia while its powdered bark is used as antiseptic or for wound or dressing. Bark of oak, teak, acacia, bramble, nim, shea butter and rubber trees are said to be raw materials for health-giving drugs.

At Ajangbadi, Ojo, Lagos, a fortnight ago Daily Independent accosted middle-aged  Rose Nwanko holding a jar of herbal drug called ‘Akiika’ bought from one of the local drug producers. The mother of four disclosed that her ailment was painful monthly periods which western medicine could not correct satisfactorily. “But since I started taking this herb about two months ago, I have been enjoy comfort and peace whenever my ‘visitor’ arrives,” she said.

But Olabisi Adenusi’s medical challenge is not related with body pain, but infertility, an emotional trauma, especially in a society such as ours that cherishes children and considers infertile women almost second-class citizens.   Even though the 38-year-old, who lives at Ojuelegba, Lagos, had bought a herbal drug, she confided in the reporter that she just wanted to experiment or test its efficacy because doctors had tried their best possible to improve her health in the past eight years, but no positive result yet. “I have been married for eight years now, but I have never been able to conceive despite visiting many hospitals and doing many tests which have proved that my general condition was satisfactory, my pelvic examination normal; even my husband’s semen analysis showed no abnormality,” she sadly told Daily Independent.

Not only trado-medical practitioners believe that herbs can correct infertility in a woman, but men of God quote Ezekiel 47:12, Genesis 1:29 and Revelation 22:2, verses of the holy book that attest that plant are created for sustenance and improving health. In his book on the efficacy of herbs in healing entitled Nature Power, Reverend Father Anselm Adodo stated that kola pods, raw eggs, juice of lime, water and honey can be used to produce herbal remedy for infertility. Some herbalists have also claimed that the seed of cherry can be useful in curing impotence.