CHIEF OLADOSU EKUNRIN - Helt Weiz

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.