Health sector development in Nigeria: The Ewu alternative

Sir: Many people experience dietary and health difficulties. Probably because of their ages and past lifestyle, they become afflicted with ailments that require them to avoid certain meals and to take certain medications. One of such persons is Mrs Iyekelpolo Amadasun (not real name), former banker, who trades at the Vegetable Market in Benin City. In 2001, she was examined and found to have high blood pressure, heart disease and diabetes, ailments that prevented her from working regular routines. Her doctors advised her to avoid meat, sugary substances and reduce intake of salt. Mrs Amadasun told me that she reacted to the medications that her doctors gave to her for high blood pressure and diabetes, and therefore began a search for a plant-based or organic remedy to her ailment.

A former governor of Edo also seeking herbal cure for a similar ailment was offered a plant-based medication from a monastery located in Ewu in the state where he had been governor. This former governor visited the Ewu monastery and has made significant contributions to the development of that herbal clinic.

The Ewu monastery in Edo State is located on a mountain in a monastery in Ewu. The monks have set up a herbal clinic, Pax Herbal Clinic, from where they carry out research and produce organic medicines which take care of these kinds of ailments – prostate cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, malaria, hypertension – peculiar to an African environment.

Rev Father Anselm Adodo is director of the Pax Herbal Clinic. In an interview he granted me, he said that just as there is English, Chinese, Russian and American medicine and drugs, there is African medicine and drugs. ‘For decades, our people have harnessed the power of leaves and herbs for the successful treatment of some of the conditions that orthodox medicine has not been able to handle,’ he said.

The bane of African medicine has been the inability of the local practitioners to document their works, successes, prescriptions and dosages. He said that the existence of the Pax Herbal Clinic is to correct that problem and establish Africa medicine as an important sector in the health care delivery sector in Nigeria and Africa.

I call on President Bola Tinubu, therefore, to suspend all medical trips abroad by public officials. Medical tourism by public officials contributes to the underdevelopment of the health sector in Nigeria. It also takes away a lot of money from Nigeria to other lands. If the government were to contribute to the development of the mushroom factory at Ewu, Edo State, Nigeria will have the capacity to export mushrooms and herbal medicines to the rest of the West African sub-region.

Bob MajiriOghene Etemiku is editor in chief/publisher, WADONOR, a cultural voice of Nigeria.