Traditional Medicine will create jobs — Institute of African Studies, UI

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.