Tag: teachers

Now, we are at the center stage of Teachers Day. By this I mean the time to recognise only some of those men and women, who have helped in the work or  lifestyle  to  advance popularity and advance of National Medicine.

I call them the FRONTIER people, who were not satisfied with the existing order, the Establishment, and either through transcendental callings for which they had preparations for prior to their appearance on earth or through personal experiences, which they sought to share, began  to push for the expansion of knowledge which the establishment, of course, often rejected and for which it sought to punish them.

I mention some of them so often in this column that you’d think they are all that there are to Natural Medicine. We will remind ourselves of some of them again today, before bursting into the wider ocean as it were.

One of my early contacts in the 1980s through his book was JETHRO KOSS, author of BACK TO EDEN, an advocacy for natural living and natural resolution of illness. This book tells of his experience when, during his training as a naturopath, he undertook internship in a morgue (mortuary). When autopsies or post-mortems were carried out, he said, it was discovered almost always that many organs of the body were inflamed prior to the death. Thus, he took away the knowledge, which he passed on to his patients and readers, that inflammation was a possible cause of death. When you stop one nostril and you try to breathe with the other and you discover it is partially blocked, that is inflammation of the sinuses and a suggestion that inflammation may be going on elsewhere.

So, today, thanks to Jethro Koss, you may wish to ask your doctor to check you up for inflammation. In medicine, inflammatory diseases are surfixed with .. itis. Among them are arthritis (joints), Carditis (heart)  neuritis (nerves), colitis (colon), sinusitis (sinusses). These conditions call for the use of anti-inflammatory herbs.

Dr. ROBERT ATKINS was a rebel in the house of orthodox medicine. He campaigned against the use of drug for routine and other ailments and preferred food factors such as vitamins, minerals, amino acids, anzymes. I  learned from  him  how a  supplement  such as L-TYROSINE may help in depression by improving the body’s production of Dopamine, one of the brain’s neuro-transmitters grossly depreciated in this  condition. Dr. Atkin was educated at the University of Michigan and the Cornell University medicine schools and specialised in cardiology and internal medicine. When he began to speak against unbridled use of drug medicine and began to introduce natural medicine to his patients, the American medical establishment fought him. With threats to deny him advertisement patronage, the media and printing press began to close the doors against Dr. Atkins. So, he set up his own printing press, saying some of the top shots in the Establishment were among the dullest medical students in his class. He set up his own printing press and published many books, including the first in 1972, Dr. Atkin’s Diet Revolution, which gave him world-wide acclaim, selling more than 10 million copies, and ranking among the world’s best 50 selling books at that time. His other best sellers include Dr. Atkin’s Nutrition Breakthrough and Dr. Atkin’s Health Revolution. Another book, Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution spent more than one year on New York Times best-seller book list.

He warned Americans that a high carbohydrate diet was the cause of their illness because these foods were refined and deficient in minerals and vitamins and enzymes, mega doses of which he advocated for the daily diet. While other doctors suggested avoidance of fats, he supported the consumption of essential fatty acids, a deficiency of which is widely recognised by doctors today to be among the causes of many degenerative diseases, including cancer. I ran into the first book of Dr. Atkin’s in a small unsung bookshop in Obanikoro, Lagos,  in 1980 while searching for knowledge on Alternative medicine, which may cure my grandmother’s breast cancer. Her doctors had said there was no cure for cancer.

I did not want her to die. I  looked up to her as mother from the age of nine when my mother died at childbirth. This book was titled: Dr. Atkin’s Vita-Nutrient Solution. It is subtitled: Nature’s answer to Drugs. It inspired me to become hungrier for other solutions of Mother Nature to illness.

Dr. WILLIAM LANE got the world talking about Shark Cartilage. He undertook a study on Sharks in Iran and found that, among fish species, it was the least affected by any cancer. So infinitesimal was the occurrence that he titled the first book on his findings SHARKS DON’T GET CANCER. He attributed this feat to the cartilage of Sharks. He was roundly condemned by his colleagues, who said if one Shark in a million had cancer, that book title was inappropriate and misleading.

1. LANE came up in response with a follow-up book titled: SHARKS STILL DON’T GET CANCER. This has more explanations in how substances in shark cartilage provide anti-angiogenesis effects, which kill cancer cells. As a cancer grows, the body tries to deny it nutrition from its regular supply channels. But the cancer tissue may become smarter when, through angiogenesis, it develop vessels which tap nutrients from neighbouring tissues.

At the time of Dr. Lane’s publications, cancer doctors and researchers were searching for anti-angiogenetic medicine. Dr. Lane  offered Shark cartilage. He was snubbed. But he persevered, despite being labeled a “quack”. America, his country, literally rejected his offer. But Fidel Castro  of Cuba invited him for trials with terminally ill  cancer patients. The United State CBS television network followed him in the Cuban project, as some medicine watchers suggested, with a view to laughing at him if the venture failed.

But, alas, Dr. Lane laughed last. Today Shark cartilage is used in many inflammatory conditions, especially arthritis as it provides in addition, Chrondrotin and Glucosamine, bone joint nutrients, which not only inhibit inflammatory but also support regrowth of damaged bone cartilage.

Dr. LINUS PAULING won a Nobel prize two times for his outstanding work on Vitamin C and molecular health. Where conventional medicine prefers no more than about 60mg daily for adult individuals, he suggested mega doses.

Today, some physicians go up to about 1,000mg or 6,000mg depending on the  severity of the condition, especially HIV and cancer. Dr. Pauling, arguably the father of modern vitamin C research, thought the environment had become so seriously polluted today that 60mg of Vitamin C per day for an adult was like a toy. When some of his colleagues ridiculed him, his only memorable reply, for me, was that “time will tell”. Time has, indeed, separated the wheat from the chaff, tinsel from gold. Many of the critics died in their sixties or seventies while Dr. Pauling lived to be about 103 years only, paradoxically, to die of cancer. But he outlived them all, nevertheless.

Dr. KARL FOLKERS has been researching CoQ10 or Co-Enzyme Q10 since about 1952. So, quite naturally, he is seen as the father of CoQ10 research. He showed that energy – producing sections of a cell called mitochondria need CoQ10 to grow in number and size and to have energy to be able to produce energy. So, in condition of weakness or fatigue, CoQ10 is like an oxygen bail-out bag. He found that heart disease occur when CoQ10 levels in this vital organ fall below a certain minimum level and that gross deficiency may cause a heart failure. In a landmark Danish experiment which he carried out with some conventional doctors who wished to find out if minerals, vitamins and other food factors could help recovery of sick or damaged cells, about 36 terminally ill breast cancer patients were given 90mg of CoQ10 every day along with other food supplements. No changes were observed for about three months. Then, the unexpected happened. One woman unilaterally raised her dosages to 190mg daily.

Before you could call Jack Robinson, the terminal breast cancer disappeared. The researchers were amazed. The news made other women adjust their dosages upward as well, and similar results were achieved. The researchers concluded, among other things, that CoQ10 may have energised cancer cells, which were naturally weak to utilize their P.53 gene to destroy themselves. In every cell, the P.53 gene exists and is called the suicide gene. When a cell becomes cancerous, the duty of this gene is to make it commit suicide in a process called apoptosis.

Why cancer cells do not do this is said to be because they have lost the energy requires to do it. Today, thanks to Dr. Folkers, CoQ10 is given at a daily dosage of 90mg to 100mg for hypertension or for maintenance of health, 200mg for moderate illness and 300mg for fibromyalgia, HIV/AIDS and cancer. This is not the entire CoQ10 story. Adult cannot use the ubiquinone brand of CoQ10 well, and, so, lose quite a chunk of it. But the ubiquinol variant  is more readily available.

Dr. MAX GERSON suffered severe migranes which kept him out of work in a German hospital for about half of the month until a nursing assistant advised him to try fruit and vegetable juices, which cleared it all up. He studied these juices, found their healing power was potassium, healed many seemingly intractable diseases, including cancers with them, concluded that all growths, including cancers, arose in potassium deficient cells, got a Congressional hearing for the financing of his research, but lost by marginal votes to the drugs industry. More about him and his work can be learned on the internet.

Newcomers

By newcomers, I mean those contributors to the advancement of natural medicine or integration of orthodox and alternative medicines we may not have been hearing of on this page. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen. They are old breed and newbreed frontiers men and women. I begin with …

SAMUEL  THOMPSON (1769 – 1843). Arguably the most powerful medical herbalist in American history, he developed a following of about three million people and was the first person to publicly attack drugs medicine in the United State. He gained his knowledge from neighbours and personal experience. His well known medicine, forula No 6 capsicum myrrh tincture, which was listed in the United States pharmacopeia, is prescribed by some herbalists even today.

SYLVESTER  GRAHAM  (1794 – 1851) lived about100 years ahead of today’s knowledge of the importance of fiber in the diet. White flour bread was popular in his time. He condemned this dietary culture. In 1837,  he released a treatise titled: BREAD AND BREAD MAKING in which he canvassed adoption of dietary fiber, initially suggesting a diet of only raw fruit and vegetable and moderating it later to boiled rice, lukewarm potatoes and wheat bread. At that time, wheat had not been genetically modified. He encouraged home bread-making and made Graham Bread for sale. He used no yeast, and egg but molasses and beets. He preached Genesis 1:29 dietary lifestyle. He taught cold baths and out-door exercise. Bakers and butchers did not like him because his teachings threatened their business.

In 1847, they stormed a Boston hall in which he was speaking. This event forced him into early retirement and, perhaps, his death four years later in 1851.

RUSSELL THACKER TRALL (1812 – 1877)

This was a medical doctor, friend of Graham, writer and educator. He pushed hydrotherapy and natural hygiene. In 1844, he opened a water cure house in New York. Which offered vegetarian meals, hydrotherapy and a gym. By the 1860s, he added a health food store service which offered Graham bread, whole grains and cereals.

Energy Medicine

In the 1990s, I became interested in energy medicine, which made sense to me because of out- of body -experiences (OBE) I had had in the 1970s which made me to begin to seek the deeper meanings in all events. In 1999 or thereabout, I reviewed the book of Dr. Norman Sheally, a surgeon, and Carolyn Myss, a journalist and Psychic healer. They wondered if modern medical science would accept in the 2000s that a human spirit lives inside every physical human body and breathes life into it. Before them there had been other energy medicine teachers and workers. The Rev. Rosalyn Bruyere founded, in Carlifonia, the HEALING LIGHT CENTER CHURCH. When  even  nurses studied magnetic healing.

In Florida, Barbara Brennan Ph.D., ran a school for healing service. Cardiologist Dean Ornish was reversing heart disease with diet, yoga and meditation. It was an honour to me to have been linked to the works of Dr. Chritine Northrop M.D., through book gift by my wife, Dayo. Dr. Northrop had been practicing gyneacology for about 35 years when I read the first of her books I got. That book, her best selling, was titled: WOMENS BODY, WOMEN’S WISDOM.

It was one of three books published in the 1990s by mainstream or orthodox doctors on the relationships between human energy fields and medicine.

Judith Orloff M.D., published a book on clairvoyance as it relates to the practice of psychiatry. The book was titled: SECOND SIGHT. Then, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Monalisa Schultz M.D., published the book AWAKENING INTUITION. It explains that there are hidden healing powers in the body-mind network, which can be released and deplored for healing.

By the 1980s, Dr. C. Norman shealy was paving the way for the introduction of herbal medicine and energy medicine to orthodox medicine. He had spent the 1970s in preparatory work for this cross – fertilisation of ideas, especially with the training medical intuitive. He undertook  studies with Carolyn Myss, which have been mentioned many times in this column. Together, they wrote the book THE CREATION OF HEALTH.

In the 1970s, Dr. Shealy’s effort as and the work of  other people resulted in the founding of AMERICAN HOLISTIC MEDICAL NURSES ASSOCIATION. At Greenwich University,

Dr. Shealy instituted a first degree programme in energy medicine. Currently, energy medicine is being taught in about 50 medical schools in the United States with emphasis on the role of prayer and religious devotion. Even the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is yielding ground. In November 1998, for example, JAMA devoted its whole edition to Alternative Medicine.

The list of our teachers in Alternative Medicine is too long to mention here. There are Dr. Paul Bragg and his daughter, Patricia. Nigerians who enjoy the Bragg brand of Apple Cider Vinegar (with Mother) will appreciate them more if they read about them from their books and other writings.

We cannot forget Dr. F. Batmangheliay, author of YOUR BODY’S  MANY CRIES FOR WATER and YOU’RE NOT SICK, YOU’RE ONLY THIRTY. From detention in an Iranian concentration camp, he discovered in  the absence of drugs that water could cure many ailments. There is Dr. Emoto of Japan. He taught us that water responds to our emotions and that, because our body is about 75 per cent water, our emotions have serious effects on our biochemistry and health.

Thus, anger, unkind words, dark thoughts,  moodiness e.t.c are depressing whereas hearty laughter cleanses dross and is uplifting.

Dr. Jenson cures his patients with fruit and vegetable juices. William Dufty wrote SUGAR BLUES. Any-one, who reads it and loves himself or herself will not touch table sugar with a long pole.

Dr. Herbert M. Shelton wrote FASTING CAN SAVE Your life. It shows how the body consumes degraded tissues during a fast. Dr. Devendora Vora, who has just passed on, wrote HEALTH IN Your hands. The book teaches how diseases may be cured with simple, gentle pressure on the “switches” of organs connected on certain parts of the body. The pH MIRACLE comes from Dr. Robert O. Young and Shelley Redford Young.

There is FISH OIL, THE NATURAL ANTI-INFLAMATORY written by Dr. Joseph C. Maroon and Dr. Jeffrey Bost. There is a series. … HERBS THAT HEAL, FOODS THAT HEAL and VITAMINS THAT HEAL by J.H. Bakhru. There is how TO KEEP SLIM, HEALTHY AND YOUNG WITH JUICE FASTING by Dr. Paavo Airola.

WITH grateful thanks to these researchers and physicians, we can sit back today and evaluate their work and sacrifice in terms of the impact it has had on the United States and Europe, changing the preference of mankind from man-made medicine to Nature-made or Natural medicines.

According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM)  “more than 42 per cent of Americans use Alternative medicine to address their health and wellness concerns,” says www.energymedicineuniversity.org. it adds:

“The budget for NCCAM rose from two million dollars in 1993 to $50million in 1999. In addition, Americans spent more than $28 billion on these therapies in 1998, exceeding out of pocket spending for all US hospitalisations.

The Journal of the American Medicine Association reports a 48.3 per cent increase in total visits to Alternative Medicine practitioners between 1990 and 1998. A 1994 published survey revealed that more than 60 percent of doctors from a wide range of specialties recommended Alternative modalities to patients at least once. The same study also reported that 48 per cent of those doctors used Alternative modalities themselves. Nearly 85 per cent of US medical schools offer elective courses in Alternative and Complementary Medicine or include it in required courses. In 1993, the New ENGLAND Journal of Medicine reported that more than 34 per cent of Americans have used some form of Alternative Medicine. A 1998 follow-up study showed that this figure increases to 42 per cent of all Americans.

“A ground breaking move  was made by American Board of Holistic Medicine (ABHM) in December 2000: the first ABHY Board Review of Holistic Medicine. The art , science and practice of holistic medicine was presented in Denver, Collorado. Approximately 200 MDS sat for the ABHM examination”. The website provides the details of where the proceedings are expected to journey from there.

Once again, thank you, all my teachers.

THE bells are still ringing in my head as they rang out powerfully on 5th September 2018…WORLD TEACHERS DAY.

There is no one on any rung of the ladder anywhere on earth today who did not have teachers who helped him to get there, who would not need teachers to help him stay on, or to move on. As a write this column, I look back towards memory lane, and see a long list of them, happy that I bore or I am bearing the right fruit and praying that the ink in my pen does not dry up, as we say. Who are your teachers?

On the last pages of my long list are not only those orthodox medicine doctors who taught me Alternative medicine but, also, people such as Senate President Bukola Saraki and former President Olusegun Obasanjo. Whose political activities in Nigeria teach a variety of lessons. About those of Dr. Saraki, I wrote for this column when he became Senate President an article titled… TREACHERY, LIKE ALL FALSEHOOD, WILL INEVITABLY  COLLAPSE.

This article was posted on www.olufemikusa.com. Before former President Olusegun Obasanjo secured his presidency,he promised former Kano State governor Abubakar Rimi (Now of blessed memory) that he would make him vice – Presidential running mate if he did. Obasanjo was to abandon his promise and swing off with Abubakar Atiku, a fabulously richer former controller of Nigeria’s customs whose grandest political ambition, then, was to be Governor of Adamawa State.

Abubakar was stupendously wealthy by his self-admission weeks ago that he bankrolled Obasanjo’s campaign for the Presidency. After they were sworn into office, Obasanjo did the obvious… he yielded control of the economy to Abubakar. Afterall, what did Obasanjo know about money-making in Nigeria that Abubakar did not know better? But they soon collided, politically. Obasanjo swore Abubakar would never become Nigeria’s President if he was alive. So far, he has successfully blocked Abubakar’s dream to be Nigeria’s President. But Obasanjo would appear to have shot himself in the foot ahead of next year’s Presidential election. Against all odds, Abubakar has obtained the go-ahead of the PDP to run for President on its ticket.

President Mohammodu Buhari would have been Obasanjo’s last joker against Abubakar. But he has striven for months to paint Buhari black and incompetent for the office, and begun to dinewith the PDP, unknown to him that the PDP would anoint Abubakar. He had to make up with Abubakar, who was to make Gbenga Daniel, a fellow Yoruba like Obansanjo, his running mate. Since Obasanjo cannot stomach Daniel or any other Yoruba on level playing ground, he had to go East shopping for a running mate for Abubakar, who will do any thing for Obasanjo’s anointment. So far so good, Obasanjo is telling the South West that whether they like it or not he, and not Obafemi Awolow is their leader. The South West, too, are telling him -”the battle continues”.

The great lesson in all of these for Obasanjo, in my view, is that you don’t fight your battles like a deaf, blind and unthinking person. You must always think of a soft landing to not become like a dog trapped between its vomit left and right. Thus, that man is not a fool or simpleton who does not fight like a bull in a chinaware shop, eyes closed, teeth grinding, fists clenched, mouth foaming.

My Parents

I move from Saraki and Obasanjo to my parents, and salute them for great parenting work. The story of how I showed interest in Alternative Medicine, and their roles in it, even when I was a baby, is told in www.olufemikusa.com.

Primary School

I always doff my hat for Mrs. Brikesteth. She was my teacher in Primary three at St. Andrews’ PrimarySchool in Ibara, Abeokuta, in 1958. On September 5, I listened to radio programmes in which many speakers spoke of how their teachers literally flogged daylights out of them. Mrs. Brikesteth was one of such teachers. As young as we were, she made us memorise Bible Verses. The ones I remember till this day is ROMANS 12:17-21. Your mother would weep for you on your return home, if you couldn’t recite her memory verses. When my class had to memorise Shakespeares MATBETH in secondary class four I remembered Mrs. Brikesteth with joy. Today, I say Mrs. Brikesteth thank you, wherever you are.

When I relocated to St. John’s Primary School, Agodi N5 in 1961, because my father a policeman, was transferred from Abeokuta to Lagos and from Lagos to Ibadan within there years, I became a pupil under MR. EYITAYO, My class teacher. He was great with all sorts of Nigerian maps i.e human geography, forest types, political etc. But I had no head for such things. My forte was MENTAL ARITHMETIC. He could say 10×2-20+14×0-5+185. Many of my classmates would be lost, and I would surprise him with the correct answer. There were three of us who always competed to lead the class. One was VICTORIA EYITAyO, Mr. Eyitayo’s niece. The other was ADENIKE OMAGE. I wonder where they are now. If they jumped into the lead anywhere else, I was sure to catch them up and then dust them up in mental arithmetic. I lived with a no-nonsense uncle who was a GRADE THREE teacher and taught at Sunlight Secondary Modern School, Agodi, Ibadan. As a primary school boy, I would not go to bed at night until Radio Nigeria shut down at 11p.m with the National Anthem. I had a time table I had to follow. I had to recite to him every weekend everything on the back of the exercise book. The TWELVE TIMES TABLE was not the ultimate for him. The benchmarks were the 13th to the 15th I had to know how many bushels made the gallon, or how many feet made one mile. Mr. Eyitayo was so surprised at my grasp of Arithmetic that he made me not only the school Librarian but the school’s post master as well. My teacher uncle was Mr. ALBERT OSHODIPE. He returned to school for his GRADE TWO teachers certificate, for the GRADE ONE certificate in Education (NCE) and, finally, for his Bachellor’s degree in Education from the then University of Ife. He was at one time the Games Master of Ijebu-Ode Grammar School, where he was well known as SHINE. From there, I believe, he became the Principal of ODOPOTU GRAMMAR SCHOOL, near Erunwon, Ijebu-Ode. Although he is now of blessed memory, I always remember and thank him. If I slept off while studying at night, he would remove the books I was reading. He would move away from the house, call me and ask me what I was doing. He taught me never to tell a lie. If I said I was studying, he would ask me to bring the books. If they were not books he listed on the time-table heel would literally break loose. How could you give him another book when you were meant to be studying LACOMBE’S UPPER STANDARD?

I moved on to secondary school at Ibadan Boy’s High School in 1963 (Okusande House), too glad to be free of him, and almost messed up my life with ODEON or SCALA cinema houses almost every night. I hated the Latin teacher, and the conjugations (Amo, amas, amat… Agricola, agricolae) if it was time for his class and you could not conjugate, you were in trouble. I did not even know the meaning of conjugation or the principles behind it. So, after the class of Mrs. OGUNDIPE, the English teacher, some of us would exit the class through the window, into the Botanical Garden night beside it, while he waited in the corridor. My father wasted no time in relocating me to Olivet Baptist High School Oyo, through the help of Mr. Ogunkoya, an education officer in Ibadan at that time, who later founded PROSPECT HIGH SCHOOL, ABA-NLA, near Ibadan.

Olivet Heights

The years 1964 -68 in this school were eventful under many teachers who deserve commendation today. Rev. J.P.P. Lafinhan was the principal. He taught us not to loose our heads “when others are losing their” Mr. Teibo was the chemistry teacher. I hated mathematics despite good grounding in primary school. The problem came from the “big” boys in the class and the maths teachers. The big boys were graduate of Secondary modern schools, stop gap schools for pupils who were too weak to gain direct admission into secondary schools. By the time they had done three years of Algebra, Arithmetic and Geometry in modern school, they become high flyers secondary form one for pupils who came in directly from primary schools where they did not hear of or learn these subjects. They were about two or three steps ahead of the class.

I remember the maths teacher we nicknamed OPONPO. He was huge, almost obsess or shapeless. He stood in front of the class as it were, teaching only the ex-modern school fellows. He probably did not realise that many of us were not following. Mr. OKOYE came in after his “A” level in the school, preparatory to going to the University. He was livelier but too fast. He would write the ALMIGHTY FORMULA on the board in a jiffy. How he came by it and the proof, some of us did not know. But, I enjoyed my chemistry, Biology and Health Science teachers and classes. How I wish all teachers were like Mr. S.O Kolade (S.O.K) who took Health Science.

He did not mind taking the class in turns to the town’s abbatour to show them the various organs of the body in the carcas of a slaughtered cow. How would you see Tibia and Fibula or the Olecranum process or the Carpals and Tarsals or the Epiglotis or the Sinuses and not remember them in drawings and labeling or identify them among specimens? An equivalent of S.O.K.

I met at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, later on in my elective class, was Professor Humphrey Nwosu, who headed the electoral body under Gen. Ibrahim Babangida government.

Talking about my teachers at Olivet, I cannot forget my school father, AYO OJO, who later became a medical doctor owned many clinics in Lagos, and is now the Oba of ILARA MOKIN in Ondo State. At Olivet, he was the food prefect. He and I lived in Ibadan, at KINGS BARRACKS, Iyaganku. His uncle was a policeman like my father. One long vacation, he invited me for studies at the Youth camp. My father loved education and let me go. In any case, I was then a mere middle-of the class student. My case was compromised by an accident I experienced in July 1966. A taxi knocked me down and I suffered a femur fracture which kept me out of school for one whole term. When I returned to school in the promotion term, I had the option to go “on trial” to class four or to repeat class three. I would not hear of “repeat”. To be eligible for promotion, I had to score 55 percent in every subject I which to study in class four. Mr. Lafinhan was kind. He considered first term performance and sent me to class four on trial, with the provision that I would revert to class three if I could not pull my weight in class four. The first subject I knocked off my list was mathematics. It was not a compulsory subject, as it is today, when I sat for my school certificate examination in 1968. At the youth camp, Ayo Ojo coached me in the entire school certificate syllabus of chemistry and Biology. We had no time for any other subject. Back in school for class four, I found no difficulty at all with these subjects, being several lessons ahead of the class and went on to earn distinctions in Health Science, Biology and Credit in Chemistryand GRADE ONE in my WASCE. For this, I cannot forget Dr. Ayo Ojo. He was to hide me in his house when Gen. Sanni Abacha was after editors of the Guardian newspapers.

Post School

After I left the university and graduated from national youth service, I feltinwardly driven to work with some one who could light up a flame inside me. I wished to learn more about Life and existence, obtain authentic answers to unresolved questions. A serious out-of-Body-Expereince (OBE) before I went to the University and semblances of it in youth service had presaged the quest. Surprisingly then, the man I had always thought of, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, was not to be on this bill. In youth service, I had been led to Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, of 12 White House Street, Calabar, through a book link from Edeke Bookshop in Uyo. The Andrews led me to Mrs. Edeke in Abaand Mrs. Edeke’s paths led me to those of Mr. Ibe and Mrs. Elizabeth Kafaru.

Any reader of Guardian Newspapers when I was the editor may now understand why and how Mrs. Kafaru began the first regular, weekly newspaper column on herbal medicine in Nigeria in 1988. Through these pathways, I was to link up with Chief Adeyemi O. Lawson, whose activities led me to my longed – for goal.

In a sense, therefore, I regard him as my spiritual father on his earth this time around, and all the people I have mentioned in connection with the journey to him as teachers and facilitators. I salute them all on TEACHERS Day.

WorkLife

There are too many people who helped to build each rung of the ladder which took me to wherever I am today. I cannot remember them all. My first job at ODUSOTE BOOKSTORES, on 177 Herbert Macaulay Street, Yaba, Lagos, exposed me more to books than I ever was. That job probably gave me my second job, as a trainee sub-editor of the Daily Times newspaper under the editorship of Mr. Henry Odukomaiya from 8 March 1971 until December 1982 when I resigned as Deputy Production Editor for the then upcoming the Guardian newspaper. Between Henry Odukomaiya and Martin Iroabuchi within 1982, I worked under a host of exciting and grooming editors, and among unforgettable colleagues.

The mentoring editors included Alhaji Babatunde Jose, editor of editors who was Chairman and Managing Director of the Daily Times group, I hadn’t spent more than six months with the Daily Times when he sighted me at bus-stop on Nnamdi Azikiwe street, one day, got the driver to stop his fabulous Mercedez Benz car and toke me to his family home on Olonade Street, Yaba, where he said Jumat prayers before he went home. He asked me about my plans for the future. I told him I wished to study at the polytechnics of Central London, or at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. He preferred Nsukka. Thanks, Alhaji Jose, my first editor at the Daily Times was Olusegun Osoba. He was a reporter to the core. He, we were told, discovered the body of prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa after his killing in the January 1966 military coup. As deputy editor of the daily times, he was to defy the Dimka coup “dawn and get the newspaper produced against all odds. ..” Henry Odukomaya literally slept in the office. He was there at early as 9a.m for the first editorial conference at 10.a.m, went home by about four or five and returned by about seven, staying behind beyond ten or eleven when I left the office. Prince Tony Momoh was a workaholic like Odukomaya. He loved debate. I led debate on the sub-editors desk, and this exposed me to him. Oneday, he assigned my boos, Tunde Odesanya, on relief duty as Assistant Production Editor. Odesanya passed the job to me. Kunle Elegbede, the Assistant Production Editor, was on vacation. From vacation, he was sent to the Sunday Times on a higherappointment. To my shock, Prince Momoh gave me, not Odesanya, a letter to take over the desk vacated by Elegbede.

Apparently, he had been noticing who was doing the job while joining our debates. I took something along from him. George Okoro was a fantastic Chief Sub Editor who made even his flat a training school for young trainee subs the older ones did not wish to train in fear for their jobs. Tunde Oshuntokin (a.k.a ESBEE) was, arguably Nigeria’s best sports commentator and editor. He could give you one of his eyes if you lost both yours.

There was Lai Mabinuori as, I think, Night Editor. He helped to bring to limelight Dr. Olusola Saraki. Angus Okoli was features – inclined. I still remember one of his articles titled GOOD EVENING STREET, a report on the invasion by evening business women of posh residential areas in Apapa, Lagos. Clement Okosun, like Gbolabo Ogunsanwo and Tony Momoh, were among the first university trained journalists to work in or to edit the Daily Times. He brought some philosophy to the Lagos Weekend on which he and I worked. That newspaper, with a circulation averaging about 250,000 every week, was then Nigeria’s second  largest, trailing the Sunday Times edited by Ogunsanwo (about 450,000 copies). Okosun kept a weekly column tittled THE TIME BEFORE THIS.

An article in that column I have not forgotten is titled A CHILD WITH A CHILD. It was lamentation that cultures had broken down and that girls who, literally should still be breast-feeding, were becoming mothers themselves. Another was STRANDED AND ALONE. It was about my departure to Nsukka from September 14, 1974, which left him with all the work. Sola Odunfa was a reporter and feature writer rolled into one. He taught me to beinnovative. On the first day of our work together, he assumed I knew all ramifications of lay-outing. In the Daily Times title, sub editors worked largely on single pages. At the Lagos Weekend, I was confronted for the first time with a center spread. There was a five emsgutter I had to address without making the spread look untidy or unsightly. I slept in the office, wasting one sheet after another until he arrived next day. Gbolabo Ogunsanwo was a wordsmith. He edited the Sunday Times, as stated, galvanizing readership from the academia and the streets alike, to produce African’s largest weekly newspaper. I did not work directly with Sam Amuka (a.k.a sad Sam), but read his hilarious columns, one of which I always remind him about… WILD, WILD WEST.

A commentary on political violence in South-West Nigeria. Dipo Ajayi was amiable. If my memory serves me right, it was under him that the Lagos Weekend Cast headlines that almost tore Lagos apart. One of them was I WENT TO MECCA FOR FUN. Shade George, remember Ebenezer Obey’s standy Botique in Alaja lo Sobokun fun Alajala, said she, a Christian, went on pilgrimage to Mecca to please her boyfriend Olabisi Ajala. When she was asked on her return why she went as a Christian, she replied: “I went to Mecca for fun”. These days, the matter would not end there. Another violent headline was ALHAJI FADIYA.

Many readers did not understand the headline, reading it as though it were English. The story was about an Alhaji in his seventies who had carnal knowledge of an under-aged girl and caused her vaginal tear. The headline, was cast in Yoruba!

There are more teachers to mention… Alex Ibru, Stanley Macedua, Oyinlade Bonuola.etc.