Traditional Medicine and Belief System, Institute of African Studies, University of Ibadan, has said that African medicine is a form of economy diversification with a huge view of job creation in Nigeria.
The institute, which has done many researches on the natural ways of healing all forms of ailments, such diabetes, fibroid, insomnia and sickle cells, without orthodox medicine, has given its stand on restructuring traditional medicine in Africa to enable Nigeria emulate the pathways of China in advancement of human health.
Speaking to the Nigerian Tribune, the unit coordinator of the institute, Dr Obafemi Jegede, said the institute wouid continue in training students practically and expose them to traditional healing medicine, so that they would be able to cure about four aliments before they finish their programme.
“With this, we will be able to bring up a cohort of practitioners who will be able to bring a new meaning and be constructive to practice,”he said.
He averred that the the major challenge of traditional medicine is education, “we found out that those who practice it are not properly educated; they are not epically and ethically brought up, that’s why we are thinking on how to train people who would be sound in traditional medicine and make them effective practitioners.
Also, Christians Olapade, corroborated the fact that the institute, through the unit, is capable of creating job for the unemployed in the country; “we will try to solve the problem of unemployment in our own way”.
“Even now, institutions are turning out graduates, who are looking for jobs but we are looking out to turn out individuals who would be job creators. This is an existing programme that can help to develop our indigenous industries. We are talking about multibillion-dollar industry, just wasting away”, she said.
She said her project would focus on the issue of dosage and toxicity, being a major issue in traditional medicine in Nigeria, to showcase to the world that traditional medicine works in reality.
In the same vein, speaking on the programme, Buki Fagbeule said, “America earn over 22 billion dollars every year in herbal medicine, Britain, earn in excess of 20 million pounds. Everybody is trying to help because orthodox drugs have side effects that they cannot cope with”.
“We are trying to educate people about what we have in our package like garlic, bitter leaves and their uses. Not just that, we are trying to bring in the local herbalisst to train them. So, we will embark on workshops to train individuals”, she added.
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