FG urges practitioners to release details of traditional medicines

The Federal Government has urged traditional healers and alternative medicine practitioners to release details of their residues and other ingredients in order to harness the benefits for poulation and the nation. Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu made the call in Okene, Kogi State when he led a delegation to the Adavi-Eba home […]

The Federal Government has urged traditional healers and alternative medicine practitioners to release details of their residues and other ingredients in order to harness the benefits for poulation and the nation.

Minister of Science and Technology, Dr Ogbonnaya Onu made the call in Okene, Kogi State when he led a delegation to the Adavi-Eba home of  Mallam Adai Aliu Giwa, who was renowned for using traditional medicines to treat cancer and other complicated terminal ailments.

“Government is very interested in what he is doing and he will be in a position to help many Nigerians and indeed people from all countries of the world to benefit from the work that he has been able to accomplish. We will want a situation where he can transfer his knowledge to his children and he can also let our natural medicine development agency to know about these herbs so that we do more research and from it we will be able to identify the active ingredient and use that to produce jobs for Nigerians,” he said.

The Minister of Health Professor Isaac Adewole who was represented by the Director General of the National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) Professor Karniyus Gamaliel said there was no conflict between traditional medicine and science hence the importance of working with people like Mallam Adai.

In his comment, the traditional healer thanked the government for recognising his achievements.

According to him he was born in October 27, 1927 and that what he missed in western education he made up in alternative medicine as he learnt first-hand traditional healing from his great-grandfather. 

The traditional title holder Nze Stephen Dozie Ibeneme from Anambra State said he suffered from kidney disease and prostate cancer as well as stroke since 2008 but got well within three days of receiving treatment from Mallam Adai Aliu Giwa.