Federal health officials ran into stormy weather before Senators last month when they sought approval for a $200 million loan to import mosquito nets. The request failed more from the incoherent explanations of the presenters than from the reluctance of Senators to yield grounds for yet another foreign loan. The request pigeonholed Nigeria as one of those African countries which, a Jewish leader say, will continue to wallow in poverty because they are consumers, not producers. Nigeria’s backyards, bushes and forests are overpopulated with herbs and plants which cure malaria, but the nation is unwilling to convert them into anti-malarial medicines for domestic consumption and export.
Nigeria’s laziness or deliberate ineptitude promoted by thieving in government circles has paid off again for the United States, where NATURE HERBAL LIFE has made BITTERLEAF and OKRA into capsules which are billed for export to this country as medicinal herbs! It is intriguing, if not correlative, that in the week the Senate rejected the $200million loan request, two Federal civil servants were found to own 301 houses in Abuja. One of them owned 246 of the houses, the other 55. Right inside the Presidential Villa, civil servants wish to build a 14–bed clinic that would cost N21 billion. I have not seen the President’s photograph recently. But MOFE OYATOGUN, presenter of EARLY RUSH HOUR 8am-9am programme on Star Fm radio said he was looking fresh, healthier than ever and rosier in the cheeks. Maybe planners of the 14–bed hospital believe Asorock needed a United Kingdom-standard health-care which has brought the President back to life and may reduce the cost of his health trips aborad. Whatever their reasoning, it is difficult for some people to not believe that something is going on beyond their reasoning that is linkable to the $200 million budget for mosquito nets and the 301 houses found to be owned by only two federal civil servants.
Before I play the Devil’s Advocate in the cases of the $200 million loan and the N21billion 14–bed Asorock clinic, I would quickly like to make brief comments on Nature Herbal Life and the comments by a Jewish leader about African nations.
In its presentation of the Bitterleaf and Okra capsules, Nature Herbal Life backed the findings with scientific studies of some American universities which extol the virtues of BITTERLEAF in the treatment and cure of diabetes, arthritis, high blood cholesterol, obesity and much more. The company says we should also expect nutritional supplements such as Bitterleaf Moringa capsules, Bitterleaf tea, Bitter greens capsules, Maxx Immune Support etc. So, do not be surprised if, despite our huge arable land and a huge army of unemployed young people, these products pour into Nigeria and there is a wild demand for them. The problem is less that of incapacity to develop capacity to till the land and bring these products forth but more of the penchant to patronise foreign market.
In respect of capacity, there are four levels of activity. These herbs must be cultivated at plantation level. There must be processing factories to purchase them from plantation owners. There must be merchandisers who will market them in bulk nationwide and abroad. Finally, there will be dispensers or marketers. What we have today are dispensers who are trying to be everything in the system.
In an interview making the rounds on the internet, a Jewish leader was asked:
“Why are Blacks not wealthy? Why are Blacks so behind economically?
Jewish leader:
The only thing Blacks understand is consumption. Blacks don’t understand the importance of creating and building wealth. The fundamental rule is to keep your money within your racial group. We the Jews build Jewish business, hire Jewish, buy Jewish, and spend Jewish. There is nothing wrong with that but it is a basic rule Blacks cannot comprehend and follow.
“He kills his fellow Blacks daily instead of wanting to see his fellow Blacks succeed”
The story is not different in Africa. Their leaders steal from their people and send the money back to their colonial masters from whom they borrow the same money.
Every successful Black wants to spend his money in the country of his colonial masters. They go on holiday abroad, buy houses abroad, school abroad, go for medical treatment abroad, etc. Instead of spending this money in their own country to benefit their people. Statistics show that the Jew’s money exchanges hands 18 times before leaving his community while for Blacks it is probably a maximum of once or even zero.
Only six per cent of Blacks’ money goes back into their community…. Instead of buying Louis Vuitton, Hermes, expensive cars, shoes, houses, dresses, etc, Blacks could industralise Africa, build banks and get rid of colonial institutions by putting them out of business.
So what can Blacks do to liberate themselves?
Jewish leader:
Blacks must take responsibility. Blacks must unite. And vehemently fight corrupt leaders who run down their country and run to IMF as though IMF is Father Christmas. They need to look inwards otherwise they will continuously remain economically colonised and lose their place in history”.
This is where we are heading. The $200 million loan for mosquito nets will create jobs in foreign lands. Young Nigerians will go to those lands to work as slaves. Back home, loan repayment will substantially eat up the budget offering no room for development. There would be economic stagnation. Our excuse for wanting to take the loan is that Covid-19 depressed our economy. But did Covid-19 not depress the economy of the lenders more than ours? Let me play the Devil’s Advocate and then quickly eat my words. Health officials must be worried that Nigeria carries the biggest malaria burden in Africa with 51 million infections and 207,000 deaths every year. 51million infections in one year alone easily subsumes 212,120 cases of Covid-19 in two years. Also, 207,000 malaria deaths in one year easily subsumes total Covid-19 2,898 deaths in two years. Nigerian health officials have been accused of paying too much attention to Covid-19. So, malaria must now engage their attention. But is a $200 million loan to import mosquito nets the best way to fight malaria, lower infection and death rates and reduce government spendings?
At the conservative rate of N500 to the U.S. Dollar in the Nigeria currency black market, $200 million is equivalent to N100 billion. It boils down to about N450 per person in the 220million population. I find only about four matters about the loan annoying, if not disgusting. For they continue to remind me that today’s Nigerian leaders are still behaving like those monarchs of old who took Whiskey, Schnapps, umbrellas and mirrors from Europeans in exchange for selling their citizens off as slaves.
We are in the season of the fallen or dead elephant when all sorts of knives emerge from their sheaths for homongus cuttings of meat for hungry and insatiable butchers. We are in the season in which almost every public officer is seeing the nation as a Prostate fool and getting the best out of her, rather than serving her. It is the raping of a helpless state. About 400 million has been taken in foreign loans to buy Covid-19 vaccines. President Donald Trump in his hey days suggested Nigerians would “die like flies”, if we didn’t. We had no standard hospitals, our hard-trained doctors were migrating to greener pastures in America. American citizens were hurriedly evacuated to make us believe we were living in one huge graveyard in the making over which the skies would soon fall. Nigerians didn’t “die like flies”. Americans died “like flies”. Did Africans “die like flies” in the BLACK PLAGUE, as Europeans named the BUBONIC PLAGUE which eradicated about a third of the population of Europe between 1346 and 1353, killing 25 million people? No we didn’t. Only a few hundreds in the northern fringes of Africa reportedly died. I believe, like many people that our natural immunity from diet, sunshine, simple lifestyle are what are standing by us.
Today, we are thinking of $200 million loan to import mosquito nets instead of setting up factories to produce Lemongrass tea, capsules, fluid extracts, oil, KARELA, CHANKA PIEDRA, PAPAYA LEAF, AWOPA tree bark etc. To take these anti-malarial remedies from us, there is serious thought of importing anti-malarial vaccines!
Foreign jobs
The second annoying factor of the $200 million loan is that it will create jobs for not Nigerians but foreigners in their own lands which will continue to grow lushfully and to where our impoverished citizens will flee in future as slaves.
Anti-malaria herbs
Nigeria’s backyards, bushes and forests are blessed with anti-malarial herbs and plants. All the government needs to do is encourage plantation cultivation of these herbs, as South Africa has done with Roibos tea to sell it internationally, encourage the setting up of processing plants and embark on massive public campaign to encourage their daily consumption. My family takes these herbs everyday. I cannot recall coming down with malaria fever in the last 30 years. Never mind that my genotype is AS. There are AAs in my family and they, too, are not down. I hope I will be able to discuss about three of these herbs.
Lemongrass
I grew up to know it as an anti-snake remedy around village homes. That perception changed in the 1990s when a Lagos University Teaching Hospital(LUTH) study said hot water extract of Lemongrass killed PLASMODIUM FALCIPARIUM in the test-tubes and in the human body. Plasmodium Falciparium is the parasite from the Anopheline female mosquito which causes malaria fever in humans. It travels from the blood to the liver where it grows before returning to the bloodstream to invade red blood cells, destroy them and cause anaema and all these symptoms of malaria, including death in severe attacks.
Later, LIPTON (NIG) Limited commissioned the Federal Institute for Industrial Research Oshodi(FIIRO) in Lagos, under Prof. Sunday Ayodele Odunfa as director-general (December 1990–October 2000), to study the health benefits of Lemongrass. Both studies merely confirmed what was known for ages by the IYA ELEWE-OMO in the open markets of Southwestern Nigeria. The Iya Elewe-omo is the traditional herb seller who makes herbal medicine prescriptions of all sorts for patrons. In these markets, Lemongrass is a standard prescription for malaria fever. But international business politics killed the dream of a Nigerian Lemongrass tea and imposed on this country a tea brand from the United Kingdom sold worldwide.
In his ETHNOMEDICAL USES OF PLANTS IN NIGERIA, Prof L.S.GILL confirms that Lemongrass is widely used in Nigeria in the prevention and cure of malaria. He mentions other herbs, including tree barks which should have been of interest to those health officials. If, for the sake of argument, they are interested in keeping the mosquito out of our homes, have they not heard that ORANGE-PEEL and PALM-KERNEL OIL can do the job better? When I noticed that there were too many mosquitoes in my flower gardens on account of many food crops grown there, I began to burn orange peel in a small charcoal-fire. They would all disappear for days. Orange peel is everywhere. The orange sellers are beginning to know it is money, not orange waste. For it helps out in cough, asthma, elevated blood sugar and diabetes, inflammatory conditions and digestion, among other state of disease. Abroad, the orange is cultivated in plantations and expressed for juice for the fruit juice market, the pith and the fruit snacks are processed into bioflavonoids for that market and fiber market. The orange peel is then processed into fine grade powder for its own global market.
Back to Lemongrass, some Nigerian herbal medicine practitioners have succeeded in turning the leaves into powder, which may be taken as tea or spread on food. The oil is good for many uses. Rubbed on the body, it has an anti-mosquito effect like palm-kernel oil. Sometimes, I use it as perfume. When I encounter a serious case of malaria, I put about two or these drops of the essential oil in a carrier oil and suspend in a 1.5liters of water in a bottle. Often, the effects are dramatic, especially if the therapy goes with two JOBELYN capsules three times a day for three days, eased down to one capsule daily for the next seven days.
Federal health officials pushing for a $200 million loan to import mosquito nets may not have heard that, last year, researchers at the BENGURION UNIVERSITY of NEGEV discovered that, in test-tubes, the lemon aroma such as that in Lemongrass grass kills cancer cells without harming healthy cells. The researchers were led by Dr. Rivka Ofir and Prof.Yakov Weinstein. An American university and a Japanese university had, before then, discovered that a Lemongrass extract named CITRAL killed cancer cells in test-tubes and restricted their growth and spread in humans. Armed with these ideas and more, a Governor in Nigeria whose state was poor was given the proposal of organising plantation farming of Nigerian medicinal plants and herbs such as Lemongrass, setting up an international company to process and market them, thereby creating use for idle arable land, creating jobs in a huge value health chain for his people and improving Internally Generated Revenue(IGR). Rather, he embarked on the construction of an airport which he could not complete and remains an abandoned project, owed pensioners and workers alike. Such is what we face in an attempt by federal public officers to borrow $200 million to import mosquito nets as a way of fighting malaria fever in Nigeria. If my “O” Level Arithmetic can still reason in high figures, this is a scenario my mind conjures will be the ends of the loan…
- One net will cost about N500
- The selling price will be about N1,500
- Loan repayment will take out N500.
- There would be available to play with a free-falling or free-floating N500 per net per person in the 220 million population or N110 billion.
- I do not know why the words to eloquently present this budget did not easily flow from the mouths of the presenters as they stood before the scrutinising senators. Couldn’t they reason that the floating N110 billion surreptitiously withdrawn from 220 million people could have been put back in Federal Government treasury to reflate the 2022 budget?
If they remembered that and got through with the loan, who among us would remember that surplus money was anywhere? Again, if I may play the Devil’s Advocate, couldn’t this N110 billion not have started the NIGERIAN HERBS project, which federal health officials have kept in the dust for decades? An English man from the United Kingdom read of this advocacy, came to Odogbolu, Ogun State, organised women to grow Lemongrass, brought it to a factory on BILLINGS WAY, Ikeja, Lagos, dried and cut into chips he called DARADARA tea, could not sell it well on his own, and asked the PAX HERBAL CENTRE of Catholic Rev.Father Anslem Adodo to help him. The centre had distribution networks throughout Nigeria, helped for sometime and…the great idea fizzled out. DARADARA tea was marketed as possessing the following abilities…. Dara Dara Herbal Tea Mixture is used for the treatment, control, prevention, and improvement of the following diseases: Bacterial, Amebic, Diarrhea, Filarial, Fungal infections, Larvicidal, Anxiety, Hyperglycemia, Hyperlipidemia, Hypercholesterolemia, etc. Imagine if the government put its weight behind it as other countries, including SouthAfrica and Ghana, have been doing. We would have several Nigerian anti-malarial herbs in capsules, teabags, oil extracts etc. We would take the tea on empty stomach for breakfast and take the capsules over lunch at work. These herbs include, but are not limited to, Lemongrass, Neem (Dongoyaro), Karela (Ejinrin), Chanka piedra (Ehinbisowo or Ehinolube), Awopa bark, Bitterleaf, Pawpaw leaf!
We are a wasteful, thieving people who do not develop the Nigerian economy, as the Jewish leader castigates us, and a consumer, not producer as he and the U.S.-based NATURE HERBAL LIFE are still telling us to our faces. Imagine Nature Herbal Life growing Bitterleaf and Okra in America and coming to sell them in Nigeria! This is one of the disasters those who stopped Moshood Abiola from becoming President did to this Nation. Abiola welcomed many of us modern herbalists in his house for the discussion of ideas in herbal medicines development in Nigeria. He would migrate from some meetings on the ground floor of his house in Ikeja to his bedroom where we could be holding our meetings. His head was “loaded”, his spirit “fired”. Not only traditional and herbal medicine practitioners lost him, the Nigerian nation, nay, Africa, did…and that is why, today, we can be talking of a $200 million loan to import mosquito nets from abroad, empower the economies of the exporting nations, disempower ours and, on top of it all, leave our people, children, pregnant women, young and old men and women still at the mercy of the female Anopheline mosquito…and malaria fever.
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