High Chief Oladosu
Ekunrin is the Chairman/CEO of Healtwaiz Herbal Products Nigeria Limited
(formerly Dosu Ekunrin Traditional Healing Centre). He is one of the pioneers
of herbal medicine columns in several newspapers and magazines. In this
interview with Isa Isawade, he identifies the various ailments afflicting
Nigerians and proffers remedial measures individuals and the government should
take to arrest them.
Sir, you pioneered the
now very popular herbal column writing in this country during your days in
Today’s Choice magazine and P.M.NEWS in the early nineties, but in recent
years, you’ve maintained a low profile, why?
As you know, writing a weekly column is not a child’s play. I
wrote for about ten years on a weekly basis. As a writer, there comes a time
when you need to take a rest. This is because you are working on other things.
I have used my time in the last few years to rest and to repackage many of my
herbal products for effective push into the Nigerian market. In the last few
years, I have done a lot of research work in the field of alternative medicine
and I came out with a lot of products and books on different ailments in the
country. Those are the engagements that have taken me away for sometime.
Can you mention some
of these products?
Yes, you will recollect that in the early nineties, I warned
many times in my column that in the years ahead, Nigerians will witness a lot
of health-related problems, especially in the areas of diabetes and high blood
pressure. This is because at that time, I noticed the proliferation of fast
foods joints throughout the country. The truth is that a lot of the foods
dished out by these fast foods centres are not okay for human consumption. Most
of the ingredients they use in preparing those foods are not natural and I
noticed that a lot of them contained heavy sugar and salt which are dangerous
to human health. Let me give you an example, most soft drinks in Europe and
America today are not as sugary as the ones sold to us in this country.
Children of fifteen to twenty-five years old are now diabetic and hypertensive.
That is the result of what we eat. I can tell you that in our country today,
about six out of every ten men or women are diabetic. Same rate for
hypertension. Our situation is that bad. A lot of people are dying. So, I did a
lot of research work and came out with a product I call noswit. A very
effective dietary supplement for diabetic patients. It prevents constant
urination and cleanses the body system. Then, for high blood pressure problems,
we developed a product called Kool Capsule. Kool Capsule is very effective in
the treatment of high blood pressure problems. It reduces cardiac output and
cools off the body system. Also, if you are very observant, in the country now,
we have a lot of men who are becoming infertile. Many of them also suffer from
quick ejaculation. You will agree with me that our forefathers lived up to between
ninety and a hundred years, and many of them married between seven and ten
wives and were able to satisfy the wives sexually. But, today, man finds it
difficult to sexually satisfy one wife! What has gone wrong? We are no longer
eating what our forefathers ate which are mainly from nature. So, we developed
Yaami Capsule which purifies and energises the sperm. It is very effective in
the treatment of low sperm count and quick ejaculation. Another of our products
is Paaba mixture and capsule. Malaria kills over 300,000 Nigerians and over one
million Africans yearly. So, Paaba is very effective in overcoming drugs
resistant malaria parasites. It is a very effective anti malaria herbal drug.
These are the research works we came out with and which will be of great
benefit to all in the years ahead. Nigerians should also look forward to our
forthcoming books on health and nutrition.
The benefits of these
products, as you have enumerated, sound wonderful. To what extent have the
products gained acceptance among stakeholders such as the consumers,
distributors and government agencies?
Thank you for that question. You see, before we came out with
our products, we did a lot of tests. One of the best pharmacologists in Nigeria
today, Dr. Osolua from the University of Benin, performed toxicology tests on
all our products and that cost a whole lot of money. We spent over a million
naira on the tests alone, and from the report of the pharmacologist, we are
told that our products are very safe for consumption, very good and reliable.
Dr. Osolua is alive. He is at the University of Benin. He can give testimony to
his findings on all our products. If you go to NAFDAC today, you will find that
we presented our products to NAFDAC and NAFDAC officials visited our factory and
they found out that we built a big factory for our products, not a rented
place, a whole modern factory which can compete with that of any pharmaceutical
company anywhere. Also, the efficiency of our products have brought a lot of
happiness to me because the responses we are getting from customers and
consumers are overwhelming. We are yet to meet our market demand. Anywhere we
go to in Lagos, people are asking us to supply them Yaami, Noswit and so on.
Even the pharmacy shops frequently demand more of our products. We have been
receiving fantastic reports on our products from the market.
In your honest
assessment, how far has herbal medicine practice gone as an alternative to
orthodox medicine since you and your few other colleagues started the
revolution over two decades ago?
I always give glory to God for giving me the vision to promote
alternative medicine since late eighties till the present day. You see, I
started when people were not even proud to be called alternative medicine
practitioners or what people call herbalists. People run away from herbalists,
forgetting that many people who practice it are not idol worshippers. Like me,
my father was a Christian, a reverend of ECWA church for many years before
coming to alternative medicine practice. We don’t worship idols. I came out to
promote alternative medicine as a Christian because God creates leaves and
herbs for human consumption, and He gave my father and me the wisdom to prepare
herbal medicine for mankind. As a graduate in the early thirties, I started
with Today’s Choice Magazine, promoting alternative medicine. Today, I thank
God, we have a lot of graduates in the field of alternative medicine. A lot of
well known names who can compete successfully anywhere in the world. The
awareness on alternative medicine now is highly commendable. You wonder why so
many people in this country spend millions of dollars in India for treatment?
When you get to India as a patient, they will ask you whether you want
alternative medicine or orthodox treatment for any kind of diseases, including
cancer, diabetes and what have you. All the serious ailments which seem to have
defied orthodox treatments are being effectively taken care of in India and
China through alternative medicine. Look at the wonderful work the Lagos State
government is doing to promote alternative medicine. We now have the
alternative medicine board. It shows that alternative medicine is recognized
all over the world. Few months ago, the WHO came out with a report on the
efficacy of alternative medicine worldwide. For the WHO to commend
practitioners of alternative medicine, it tells of the multi million dollar
researches that have been conducted worldwide. Therefore, people are now
running away from synthetic drugs, they are going back to nature and preventive
medicine.
You talk about nature
and this brings me to the question of whether it is true, the popular belief
that herbal medicines are without side effects. How true is this claim?
It is true to a large extent. If the alternative medicine is
well prepared, there is a very low side effect or no side effect at all to your
health. For instance, years back, people were talking about lack of dosage
prescription. Today, alternative medicine now has dosage. You cannot take your
NAFDAC report without being scrutinized with your dosage, packaging and the
quality of your product. The body will also look at the environment where your
product is being produced. Before you can practice in Lagos today, you have to
go for training or some weeks or months with the Lagos State Traditional
Medicine Board. Whether you are educated or not, you have to take the Lagos
State Traditional Medicine Board licence before you can practice. And before
you can promote your drug in the market, you have to obtain NAFDAC number. All
these are comprehensive processes to ensure safety and wholesomeness.
Lastly Sir, what
informed your relocation from your well known Adeoyo, Mushin office where you
operated for more than three decades to a relatively new place like Igando?
We thank God for His mercies on us. Mushin was becoming very
small for us to operate. I wanted a bigger place where I can have my research
centre and factory for the production of my herbal products, and office.
Therefore, you can imagine what it has cost us to establish our head office at
Igando. We left Mushin because of expansion. It took us about five years to
carry out a lot of research work to develop medicines for the coming
generations to benefit from. So, now we have our research centre, our factory
and a spacious consulting room. But our offices in Mushin and other places are
also in operation.
