It would appear that the chicken of Barrister Jideofor Uwachia is coming home to roost. Coming home to roost does not mean that he is returning to Nigeria from Canada where he has worked in the public service for more than 30 years. What is probably coming home to roost about him is a 200 page book with about 1,000 citations he has written on Sickle CellI disease. When I say the book has about 1,000 citations, it means it is densely packed with information from the experts in Sickcell disease research, markets and industry.
Chinasa Elizabeth Anyaeche, who worked with me in The Comet newspaper of the late 1990s, introduced Barrister Uwachia to me on March 12, 2025. She came with him all the way from Port Harcourt to, among other intentions, break to me the news of the coming book. I was not surprised that she still possessed that “long nose for news”, the second nature of every good journalist, to know that such a book will be of serious interest to me and the sickle cell community of Nigeria which must number millions of challenged persons, their families, friends, caregivers, doctors, nurses and pharmacists who look after them. On this book, Barrister Uwachia worked harder than he would have done were he to publish it in Nigeria because of the more stringent demands of the community in which he lived. He could not just write a book on Cures for the crises of sickle cell challenged community without validating his claims with accepted published medicines of caregivers or physicians who had gone before him or were still in the service of their society. This was what led to about 1,000 citations! Barrister Uwachia did not just set about writing this book simply because he liked to write a book. If that was his intent, he probably would write tofollow lawyers who work with him especially in Nigeria and in Canada about his experiences as a Nigerian lawyer in the public service of Canada for about 40 years. The love of his first child, a male, now aged 30, prompted him into this venture. The young Uwachia was Sickle Cell challenged. When his father and mother, a Caribbean, found that hospital medicines were not helping him well as they wanted, they turned to herbal medicines for help. The young Uwachia rebounded in radiant health and lives a buoyant life as a thirty-year- old today, says his father.
I believe it is from this diary of event in the cause of managing a son’s health with plant medicine that Barrister Uwachia wrote this book. He told me he had not thought of a title for it, but he had come to see me to ask me to write the foreward. Why I said the chicken may have come home to roost was that I had nothing from Barrister Uwachia despite a questionnaire I sent to him a few days after the March 12 meeting. Then, unexpectedly in May 2025, I received a Whatsapp post from my guest of the Indian Almond Tree and citation beneath it. The post is reproduce below….
“Indian almond plant is one of the best plants for sickle cell patient’s (SS). It has strong anti- sickling effect which prevents frequent crisis. Lowers risk of anemia, improve blood flow and prevent pain. Two tablespoonful of dry powder leaf does the magic”.
The Indians like to name nature’s foods and health bounties after themselves as if these things do not exist elsewhere. That was how Goose Berry became Indian gooseberry, known more in India as Amalaki or Amla. Almond trees grows not only in India but also in Nigeria. Both may have slightly different characteristics which are the peculiarities of plant or tree species. Thus, the Indian species is named Terminalia Catapa. Nevertheless, both belong to the Tropical Almond family which botanists say is different from the “true” or Almond trees. However, all Almonds have been found to be useful to human health. In Nigeria, we call the Almond tree either fruit tree or umbrella tree. Many people eat the fruit and throw away the seed.In The villages, children break the seed and eat the kernel. In other countries, a fabulous milk is made from the kernel. This kernel is a rich source of vitamins, minerals, protein, anti-oxidants, fiber and other nutrients.
In the kernel, there is a good presence of vitamin E, magnesium, and potassium. Its monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats are believed to lower LDL (the bad cholesterol) and, thereby, reduce the risk of heart disease.Its antioxidants are reported good for oxidative stress and heart health. The riboflavin and L-carnitine find use in cognitive( brain) function and may reduce the risk of age-related cognitive decline, including memory loss and dementia. Besides, Riboflavin stimulate energy production, cell function and growth.Calcium and magnesium, present in it, are well known for their functions in healthy bones.
The leaves are anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, heart friendly because it battles the bad cholesterol ( Low Density Lipoprotein..LDL), promote digestion, is kind to the kidneys and beneficial for brain function, among other benefits. The fruit has great values as well. The seeds kernel makes a beautiful milk, as I said earlier, which is said to be close to the configuration of mother’s milk.
I did not know much about the Almond tree when I lived at 39 Emina Crescent, off Toyin Street, Lagos, for about nine years from 1999. On the grounds was a well branched Almond tree which grew higher than the roof of the storey building. I suspected, though, it should be rich in iron because the leaves reddened before they fell off the tree. They constituted a nuisance on the grounds, and I had to sweep them off every morning. This was a great exercise for me. Just when I would have swept the ground clean of the leaves, sweating and preparing to go and have a bath, the tree would shed another load of leaves which made the ground again appear unkempt. It always appeared as though the tree was playing games with me! I may get angry and sweep again, and, again, the leaves would fall all over. In retrospect, I believe nature beings which tended the tree may have been trying to engage me in conversations and open my eyes and heart to the great treasure I was ignorant of. I thought of grinding the leaves to powder and experimenting with it as an ingredient in animal feed, especially for chicken and pigs. I could not eat the fruits because birds pecked many of them before they fell. I could have broken the seeds and eaten the kernel or made milk of them. The leaves gave me a lot of compost which , in turn, gave me about 100 heads of lemongrass which my neighbours came to harvest for use as anti-malaria tea. I also had about a dozen of pawpaw trees which gave me fruity breakfast and dinner, pawpaw leaves for consumption with lunch alongside the black seeds of pawpaw for digestive enzymes and enzymes defence against intestinal germs. Thanks to the Internet, we now know almond leaves can purify water, soften hard water, provide feed for fish, poultry animals and even snails! What a great asset I lost at 39 Emina Crescent.
I felt bad when I learned after relocating from this resident that the tree was felled to make way for something else. I imagined how they nature beings which tended it over the years could feel…sad. That is how those in the front gate area of the ORTHOPEDIC HOSPITAL at IGBOBI,in LAGOS, must be feeling now. As a Higher School Certificate (HSC) student of IGBOBI COLLEGE between 1969 and 1970, I always made my way out of the boarding house with some of my friends to hunt for Almonds in this hospital. A sprawling football field and a sports field were surrounded or, shall I say, decorated with Almond trees. Now, I am told more than three quarters of those trees have given way to concrete buildings! How destructive of the works of Mother Nature do we humans often get!
My prayer,after I heard the Ogbobi hospital story, was that Harmony Estate on Adeniji Jones Avenue, Ikeja, would not assault the almond tree in front of their entrance gate. So do I wish for the almond trees which are probably on the foreground of your grandfather’s houses in the village where, as children, you gathered in the evenings like the likes of Mr Daniel Emu, now 85 or 86 to listen to moon light tales of Creationtold by the elders.
Back to Barrister Uwachia
I hope that Barrister Uwachia will not take long before he delivers to the sickle cell community his 200 page book. I told him his reasoning about the cause of the sickle cell was weird, going by today’s understanding of this challenge, and that I had a different idea. He believed the cause was AcidosisC, and that the sickle cell could reverse to normalcy if the body pH could become alkaline. Acidosis and alkalinity belong to the realms of the new biology of health championed from the last year of the last century by researchers and health commentators as Dr Roger Moore who wrote The pH miracle. This book argues that diseases arise when blood and tissue pH fall below 7.0 on a pH SCALE of 0-14 in which 7.364 eliminates germs and diseases. This is a state of body biochemistry that may be difficult for many persons to achieve because their nutrition is still about 80% cooked or processed foods and is often less than 20percent raw,whereas the World Health Organisation, re-assessing humanity’s state of health,has been suggesting 80 per cent raw food and about 20 percent cooked or processed food on the dinning table.
They are several other hurdles Barrister Uwachia hypothesis would have to scale,in my view, to become easily acceptable by the health community. Many persons still eat bread, white or wheat, boiled, fried or scrambled egg, fried foods, noodles,canned milk and Sardines, corn beef, corn flakes, Quaker oat, boiled rice, beans, yam e.t.c, all acid forming. It is true almost every-one from age 40 onward has to grapple with one disease or another linked to the diet, but many Africans especially Nigerians are needlessly challenged by these diseases.
Barrister Uwachia is a Rasta, but I am not. However, we delved into discussions of astral, ethereal and spiritual nature. I am Genotype AS. I do not know the genotype of my parents or of my siblings, but I know we have had no SS case in the family. I am aware, also, of AS couples who never had SS children. I have a high school classmate whose four children are. So devastated has he become that he no longer believes in the existence of an Almighty Creator, despite admonitions by many of us his friends. From this perspective, I told Barrister Uwachia each one of us is a human spirit resident on earth in an earth body, that each one of us made his or her own earth body and, accordingly, the blood type which nurtures that body. In this regard, the body and the blood type are fashioned after our individual nature, and diet may not have much to do with the sickling of the red blood cells. New recognition about formation of the blood shows that the foetus does not produce or circulate his own blood until about the middle of pregnancy when the first kicks of the baby are felt by the mother. This is the time the incarnating soul is said to take possession of the growing body and establish foetal circulation. It is also now known that blood circulation ceases at physical dead when the incarnated soul leaves the body and no longer powers the blood or the body. So, the spirit which, together with various bodies from other sphere of existence which envelope it is known as the SOUL, must have a great influence on blood formation and type. By this, I did not discountenance all the great-studies that have been done on this subject. What I meant by “ we” is that “we” earth-men and women are the living essence called MAN and are collectively known as humanity. When we have to make an appearance on earth, we have to cover ourselves in the material of the earth, that is dust, hence our physical or dust bodies which return to dust when we most leave the earth. Each of us has a different nature to the other. Our nature depends on the totality of how we have been living our existence in our wonderings in the wide and deep vales of the material world. Sickled red blood cells suggests, in my view, a soul that is SICKLED or sickling, close up or closing up. In the justice of the Almighty Creator, the earth’s body which would cloak every soul on earth during his or her sojourn here must be fashioned for him or her in accordance with his or her nature. Those of us who are Christians can make good sense out of this statement from the biblical statement that… “I KNEW THE BEFORE I FORM THEE IN THY MOTHER’S WOMB”. There will be no time today to elaborate on this point. Suffice it to say, however, that our fingerprints, like the designs of our palms,are different from person to person and that, even in the same person, the marks on one palm are different from those on the other, one indicating crucial questions in a previous earth life, the other showing karmic trajectories of the present one.
Barrister Uwachia and I kept these matters hanging until he would present his book. Nevertheless, I hinted at how the sickle cell disease community has been coping in Nigeria. On page 78 of his book, TESTED HERBAL FORMULAS, ( translated into Portuguese, Spanish and Yoruba) FATAI A. ALADE-BAMGBALA mentions a case study which involves a named cousin of his. He said the man was always in and out of hospital with sickle cell crises until he took over his treatment. What he gave him were… ALMOND LEAF POWDER ADDED TO CORN PAP for breakfast everyday. FATAI BAMGBALA says that, at the time of the publication of the book in 2003, his patient had known no sickle cell disease crises for two years! Other therapies are multifarious and may involve the fellowing steps
•The detoxification of the patient, to reduce microbial load, free radicals, de-oxygenation, toxin, pressure, e.t.c
•Strengthening of the liver with plant medicine such as MILK THISTLE and JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE to protect the organs against BILIRUBIN pressure, and the use of DAMATOCOCUS DANIELI or moi moi leaf tea to repair any damage.Thomatocucus Danieli is the leaf in which MOIN-MOIN( Yoruba) and AGIDI( Ibo) for EKO in Yoruba are cooked. We also use CARQUEJA to clear the liver and to terminate inflamation and pain.
• Bone Marrow Meal is given to strengthen the bone marrow. Sickle cells have about half the life span of normal cells, so this put pressure on the bone marrow to make new cells under increase workload. Anti-sickling medicines are given as well. Vitamin E is one of them. This is the natural form d-alpha tocopherol, not dl- alpha tocopherol. Even then, MIXED tocopherol and MIXED tocotrienol are better. Palm fruit provides them in natural and mixed forms. Kyolic aged Garlic,a powerful garlic blends is useful to prevent sickling, protect the cells with anti-oxidants, kill pathogens which may disturb the cells, reduce blood sugar and cholesterol levels, among other benefits. If Kyolic is expensive, GARLINGIN may compensate. It is a blend of black seed oil, ginger oil and garlic oil. They are more helps recipes in nature’s treasure trove
•Cell life extenders are not missing in the protocol. These include anti-oxidants whose job are to donate themselves to free radicals which may thereby protect the naturally weak sickle cells and boost immunity. Antioxidants such as COQ10 and its stronger form UBIQUINOL provide energy while others raise values of scavengers and destroyers of singlet oxygen oppressors
• Oxygenation is also crucial. The oxygen carrying potential of the sickle cell is poor. So, oxygen by-pass are often tried in the forms of drinks and capsules which supply oxygen. In this category, is the POWDER or LIQUID Chlorophyll. It bears the same structure as hemoglobin the oxygen carrying red pigment in the red blood cells. This structure is CARBON- HYDROGEN- NITROGEN and OXYGEN. In hemoglobin, the mineraI IRON holds them together. In Chlorophyll, the mineral Magnesium hold them together. Thus, a CHLOROPHY ll drink RECHARGES the blood, which simply replaces Magnesium with iron in the matrix. As Chlorophyll is the green pigment of plants, wouldn’t it be wonderful if all of us can add more greens to the diet?
Thanks, Barrister Uwachia for keeping interest in your book alive. I pray the chicken quickly come home to roost…
