Our collaboration with NIPRD not working – Herbal practitioner
You are a herbal plant researcher. How did you come about this profession?This profession has been in my family lineage for so many years, and I came into it when I saw what was happening in the world about diseases rampaging the world Which diseases in particular?I came up in 2003 to work on HIV […]
You are a herbal plant researcher. How did you come about this profession?
This profession has been in my family lineage for so many years, and I came into it when I saw what was happening in the world about diseases rampaging the world
Which diseases in particular?
I came up in 2003 to work on HIV but was refused. Later, the tuberculosis programme sponsored by the US. I submitted my recipe. Since then I have been in collaboration with NIPRD (National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development).
So you work on TB now?
No diabetes is what we are currently working on.
How far have you gone with the research you have done on any ailment?
I am one of those who worked on the current batch of recipes for diabetes with NIPRD.
About 80 recipes were submitted to NIPRD. They were then shortlisted to 20, then to six. Is yours among the ones submitted?
I submitted some recipes. My name is there. It is among the first eight recipes they are working on.
Have you been getting feedback from NIPRD about the progress of your recipe?
They gave me feedback when I requested for my questionnaire form.
Have they been updating you on the progress of your recipe?
For almost eight months now I have not heard from them, they did not even call, they did not even try to tell me what is happening.
I ask because your recipe might be part of the World Bank sponsored project to develop anti-diabetic remedies from Nigerian medicinal plants. That project officially ended in July and NIPRD is supposed to continue. So for eight months you haven’t got any feedback?
You don’t know the way NIPRD works with these things, the programme was supposed to have ended. But along the line what happened to the work is best known to them. I don’t know what happened, but they have refused to give me feedback. What happened made me request for my questionnaire form in the first place.
Did they give you the questionnaire?
They gave me a copy of a questionnaire that was not filled by me. The one I collected , I wrote my name, designation, I know what I wrote. They gave me questionnaire for a recipe that was not working and it was not filled by me.
Did you try to withdraw your submission, your recipe?
No, I didn’t. They had already gotten everything from me.
Why then did you want the questionnaire back?
For future reference.
You don’t have any problem about the questionnaire, apart from getting feedback?
I don’t think we have problems right now.
Right now do you know the state of your recipe, how far it has gone, what tests have been done?
They don’t listen to whatever you ask them. They don’t tell us anything.
Do you deal directly with the office coordinating the research?
I have been working with them since 2003 on collaboration issues. The thing is when you have something you can offer to your country, there is no need for hiding it. I went there and I told them what I can do. That is where it started. I first went there with the HIV remedy but it was refused, and nothing up till today.
There was a doctor Aliyu Onoja, who suggested I go to Idu (NIPRD). The woman in charge filled my form and asked for the name of my recipe. I prepared some recipes for testing. I only got a letter of congratulation when it worked, no patent.
I don’t have any office, I don’t have any patient. People come and I recommend recipes to them. I am not after the money. That is my pain. I know if they [NIPRD] had been able to work through all the recipes I gave to them, they would have got more than what they wanted.
This diabetes issue is not an issue we should take as a minor one, especially these NIPRD people. I am doing it for humanity.
At the point you submitted your diabetes recipe to NIPRD for the World Bank project, have you begun recommending it? Was it being used?
We had been using it for people in my [community]; my father was a Muslim; he didn’t belong to any society. It was being used. That is what gave me the audacity to come to NIPRD with my recipe.
When the investigator saw it, Dr Shittu, she picked part of the recipe and asked, ‘Oladele, what is this?’ She said she wouldn’t deprive me of my right if I could let her know everything according to the proposal they wrote to the World Bank.
I believed her. That is what made me show them. I gave the leaf, bark, root. Can’t you see the stupidity of human being? After that the woman travelled.
According to then project manager Peter Olagunsi said that Dr Shittu wanted more recipes. I felt there was no problem. The first money they gave me was N40,000, cash. The second one was through the Intercontinental Bank to my First Bank account and they paid in N92,400 for 100g of the bark and transportation.
Since then nothing. When the woman came, she called and said, “congratulations, your recipe is working fine, it is one of the best, your component is fine.”
She said I should come in and show her locally how I did it. I entered the lab and did it. She told me the following week that they were going to call me to sign the MOU. That was when the problem started. They started lingering, and that is because I already gave them the raw materials. The best for me was to leave them with their problems. All efforts to get all these right were in vain.
They gave you questionnaire you requested for?
They gave me a questionnaire.
And you rejected that questionnaire?
I didn’t reject it, I keep it as part of the exhibit to corroborate my evidence.
Since then there hasn’t been any feedback.
They collected the last recipe. The last one they collected is 10kg powder recipe and they paid N150,000 through the EcoBank to my bank. That may be because they had changed their leadership.
I called them to give me some feedback, but they refused. You know, it is not good to put fire on the roof and sleep under the fire.