Opinion

Planned Introduction Of Herbal Medicine In Nigerian Varisties: How The People See It

Published

12 years ago

April 21, 2014

The Minister of Health, Prof Onyebuchi
Chukwu, recently disclosed the Federal Government’s plan to introduce herbal medicine studies in the Nigerian universities curriculum.
By this, herbal medicine often regarded as esoteric science, studied and practiced by a select few, will be studied by all interested, qualified students in Nigeria.
How do Nigerians react to this development? Our Chief Correspondent, Calista Ezeaku and Photographer, Dele Obinna sought the views of some Port Harcourt residents on that.
Dr Ibitrokoemi Kurubo-Chairman Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), Rivers State Chapter
You see, we need to understand the issue in the right context.
We must understand that even outside this country, herbs have been known to have medicinal properties and what the minister is trying to say is that there is now the need to properly regulate herbal medicine so that those that are interested in extraction of herbs for medicinal uses will be properly trained on how to use them. That is different from when you have herbalists that are like magicians, producing things that can cure every thing, no. What they are saying now is that we do have herbs that have medicinal properties and that there will be a system of extracting them to know those qualities and all that. That’s a good way to go. It is not a bad idea. If you are saying that you want to introduce scientific approach to the use of herbs, I am for that.

Mr Gentle Oge- a navigator
I think it is a right move. For sometime now, herbal medicine has played vital role in the health sector in terms of maintaining good health of the citizenry.
Herbal medicine makes use of natural herbs from the bush which is very healthy. People who are narrow minded look at herbal medicine as being dirty and diabolical, but people who have travelled far and wide know that herbal medicine is a key to the treatment of diseases like stroke and others.

Hon. Brilliant Amadi-Politician/Businessman
I think it’s a step in the right direction because herbal medicine for now has come to stay in Nigerian and a lot of people get themselves treated through herbal medicine. So I think it will be proper for government to assist in making it a known treatment rather than the way it has been before now where a lot of quacks are into it. But if it is studied in school I think more and more professionals will come into it and professionalism will be introduced. Rather than us seeing the quacks we are seeing now, we will begin to see professionals.
I know very well that all medicines come from herbs and roots but then the way they do it is a bit worrisome. You know everybody is looking for money, so a lot of fake herbal doctors are using this means to make money for themselves, But we are saying if it is introduced in schools and people study it professionally, more persons will come into the field as professionals and then medicines from herbs will be gotten and will be used to treat people professionally and not what we see today.
For instance one person will come on television and say we have one medicine that cures a lot of sicknesses. How true is that? What are the scientific proof to show that these claims are true?
But if it is introduced in our Nigerian universities curriculum and people are studing it, for God’s sake, there will be scientific proofs to this effect. And when you are introducing a drug that is scientifically proven, people, the society will feel confident taking your drugs, knowing too well that it cures malaria, stroke or as the case may be rather than what we see today. And I believe that is the reason why a lot of people do not come out to say they are patronizing herbal medicine dealers because there is no proof. So I feel it is a step in the right direction. Government should go ahead and introduce it in universities, and let professionatism be introduced in the field. A lot of herbal medicine practioners today carry out diagnosis on patients when they are not trained to do so and studing herbal medicine in universities will equip them to do so.
But I will advise that government should not rush in introducing this course in the universities. They should be gradual about it. They should take one or two institutions as a case study and see how fast it will grow and how good it is before they can bring in other universities.

Mrs Chinyere Nwachukwu-Business woman
It is a very good initiative. Orthodox medicine is no longer reliable. There are a lot of fake medicine in the market. The people that deal on these drugs go to China and produce nonsense for us. These herbal doctors go to the bush, get the herbs and roots, prepare their medicine and when you take it, you will see it working while the one we buy from all these foriengners are nonsense. When you take it there is no improvement. You continue to take drugs without getting better but when you take herbal medicine, you see changes in your body. And don’t forget that herbal medicine has been in practice since the olden days even before the introduction of orthodox medine. People relied on the herbal doctors for diagnosis and treatment of their illnesses. And if we can properly train people to study herbal medicine, it will be better for us. That will take Nigerian herbal medicine to a higher level.

Mrs Ngozi Victor-Ogolo – Herbal medicine practioner/Biochemist.
It’s a good idea. When you see what is happening in the world this time around, most times, the orthodox drugs are not really helping. Most times you see so many patients come into our clinic who have been disappointed using orthodox drugs. Some will tell you that they’ve been taking orthodox drugs for a very long time but to no avail but after taking herbal medicine, you’ll find out that they get what they want.
So I think introducing herbal medine in universities will really help us to know more. It will help us to have more doctors. Some of us that are currently in the practice still read books on herbal medicine. It does not really follow that one must learn herbal medicine from his grandfather who was a herbalist and all the rest. If you want to devote your mind to learning it, you can.
But a way to help in realizing government’s dream is to liaise with the main herbal practitionals, those that know the field well and have been into the practice for a long time.
Government should co-opt them in teaching some courses because you see, herbal medicine is good. I love it. It has really helped me and my family. And herbal medicine in Nigeria today has really developed. Contrary to some people’s believe that herbal medicine is fetish and being practiced by uneducated people, there is nothing fetish about it and as you can see most of us in this clinic (Emione Clinic) are graduates. We have our own factory, we produce the medicine under high hygeinic condition and all that. What is required is just getting the right roots and herbs and knowing what to do.
So I think introducing herbal medicine in our universities will help our health sector to grow.
It will help our people greatly in future.

Dr Nnanna Victor Onyekwere, Director, Public Health, Rivers State Ministry of Health.
The herbal practice or traditional practice as we know it here is something somebody got from his grandfather, his grandfather got it from his great grandfather and so on. It is a family thing and everybody keeps it a secret. And that has been the problem. Let the traditional medicine practitioners tell us what they are doing, let other people try it and document it so that it becomes approved for use by all but they say, “no it’s my remedy.”
So what the minister now said is like, rather than allowing us practice in this crude way of tradition hidden and shrouded with some secrecy and some kind of spirituality, let us formally study what is with us and see how they could be useful.
If you remember those days, leaves like dogonyaro were used for malaria. You ’ll find that the chewing stick we chew contains some chemicals that clean the teeth. Traditionally before now, we have always used even charcoal, ash to clean our teeth. So what they are saying now is, let us now study these herbs that we have to know their medical efficacy. Once that is known it becomes useful for pharmaceutical companies to see how they will use those herbs in treatment.
That’s the essence of it. Let’s study how useful all these herbs, leaves and plants are for medical treatment, Once that is confirmed, it means that pharmacy shops will start using them to produce drugs on larger scale. It means that we can now start cultivating them and using them for treatment.
So it is not as if it is encouraging traditional practice, remember that even in orthodox practice, most of the drugs come from herbs. It’s first of all discovered from herbs, then they try produce it artificially. But the original ones are almost, always from herbs. So we are now looking inward to study the herbs we have with us to see what we can use them for medicinally, not necessarily in the usual traditional way. You know that in any plant, there are more than one or two other drugs, in using it you extract the one that is useful and remove the other ones unlike when you put dogonyaro or back of tree into Kai Kai, it extracts every thing both useful and non-useful and even harmful ones. But now we will extract the useful ones, remove the harmful ones. It will almost look like a pharmaceutical study.
It will look like a school of pharmacy where rather than looking at theory, you’ll be concentrating on trees, plants and schrubs that exist locally and see what they can be used for.

Opinion

Agony In Ivory Tower

Published

13 hours ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: A university that tolerates missing scripts, result manipulation and ‘sorting’ is not merely failing students—it is quietly destroying the moral foundation of education itself.”

The sad cases of missing scripts, compulsory Sorting, inputting of wrong results and other obnoxious practices in some public universities, leave much to be desired. One cannot imagine how a student will be compelled to suffer consequences of the flagrant negligence of a Head of Department, a lecturer, Department staff or an ICT staff.Many academic and non academic staff in several public universities seem to be performing far below standard, thus unproductive to the university system. The unacceptable cases of sorting, missing scripts, missing results, inputting of wrong grades to students, should not be mentioned in a university, not even in any academic community. This is because people who are employed to work in various positions should have cognate work experience and unquestionable competence. They should not be seen as certificate welding illiterates but people who have been proven to be worthy in learning and character, diligent and competent to carry out assigned responsibilities with minimal or no supervision.

The university as a citadel of learning should boast of men of integrity, people who are repositories of applied knowledge and competence to drive the much desired holistic development in a nation that functions on quality teaching and learning. A situation where a student having gone through the crucibles of learning and written a prescribed semester examination or class-based evaluation test, is told that his or her script is missing or that he or she did not participate in that academic exercise, or must sort to pass, is an unpardonable error and a height of callousness. In fact some lecturers and staff of Departments are using the seeming systemic defect (which is their architecture) as an opportunity to extort students. Sometimes it is discovered much to students chagrin that the supposed missing script was later discovered when a ransom was paid.

Since a lecturer, or Head of Department has in their disposal both Yam and the knife and determines who takes what (if they wish to give without strings), students have no alternative but to submit to their importunate demands in order to graduate at record time.Such practices should be unheard of in an institution that should be a vanguard of moral and ethical values and conduct. What people learn in school constitute their behavioural patterns in the society. Where the school as an agency of socialisation cannot drive positive change first in its immediate environment, then the objective of education as a bedrock for the development of society, is inevitably compromised and counter-productive. The German Reformer, Dr. Martins Luther was quoted as saying, “I advise parents not to put their wards or children in any school where the Bible is not being used as a rule of life because such institutions will unnecessarily be corrupt”.

Gleaning from Luther’s sentiment one can deduce that the lack of respect and regard for values as well as the absence of the fear of God is the greatest undoing of most public schools. Another major challenge is that lack of Information, Communication and Technology literacy or compliance on the part of some lecturers and heads of department, may have informed the decision to give students’ scripts to secretaries to compile and input students results thereby making the secretaries the determinants of students’ fate. It is not saying a new thing that some of the secretaries in the process of compiling results have inputted wrong results, omitted names or down graded some students or given unmerited grades to others.Society today is ICT-driven and ICT-literacy enhances efficiency, speed and a reasonable degree of accuracy if the person behind the computer is level headed, articulate, competent, alive to responsibilities and is aware that negligence on his or her part is not only tantamount to a disservice to the university but to the students who may not graduate at record time because of his or her (computer operator’s) gross ineptitude or carelessness.

The ICT era makes the carrying of hard copy of results obsolete as lecturers through the Heads of Department can log on to the central server of the Exams and Records (if any) or ICT unit and input students’ results directly. By so doing the incessant cases where result on spread sheet is different from the one published online, more often than not, caused by abject negligence, will be avoided. The process will also end the intermediary services of some staff in the universities’ Information, Communication and Technology Department which has become a money spinner-a lucrative source of income to many of them. In fact some ICT staff reserved the power to award grades to students depending on students’ degree of compliance to terms and conditions. They can dubiously make or unmake a student. The university community should be considered too lofty to have careless, negligent, immoral and academic or professionally deficient people as academic or non-academic staff.

The Governing Councils and Senates of universities should be proactive in addressing the menace of missing Script, inputting of wrong results and sorting. This is necessary to end the slogan “Education is scam” so the system can produce quality students who are truly found worthy in learning and in character by operators who exemplify diligence, moral and ethical values. The much-needed reform must begin within the institutions themselves, because the future of any society is shaped in its classrooms.

By: Igbiki Benibo

Opinion

Strength of Emotional Equality

Published

13 hours ago

March 9, 2026

The Tide

Quote: “Love thrives not when one gives more, but when both give fully — not in competition, not in performance, but in partnership.”

In every healthy relationship, there exists an invisible balance. It is not measured in grand gestures, expensive gifts, or public displays of affection. It is measured in something quieter and far more significant: emotional equality. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, love becomes less of a negotiation and more of a partnership. Emotional equality does not mean both individuals express love in identical ways. It does not require matching personalities or mirroring temperaments. Rather, it speaks to balance — a shared willingness to invest, to communicate, to be vulnerable, and to grow. It is the difference between two people walking side by side and one person constantly trying to catch up.

In many relationships, imbalance begins subtly. One partner initiates most conversations. One apologizes more frequently. One carries the emotional labor — remembering important dates, managing conflicts, sensing tension, and attempting reconciliation. Over time, this uneven distribution of emotional effort breeds exhaustion. The partner who gives more begins to feel unseen. The one who gives less may grow comfortable in emotional passivity. Love, in such a space, starts to tilt — slowly at first, then significantly. Resentment can creep in quietly, disguising itself as patience. Silence may replace honest dialogue. What once felt effortless begins to feel heavy.

When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, responsibility is shared. Both people are accountable for the health of the relationship. If conflict arises, neither hides behind silence nor dominates through control. Instead, they engage. They listen. They speak honestly without weaponizing words. Equality creates safety — and safety strengthens intimacy. It allows both individuals to express needs without fear of ridicule or rejection. One of the most overlooked aspects of emotional equality is vulnerability. True connection requires courage. It demands that both partners risk being misunderstood. But when vulnerability is one-sided, it becomes exposure rather than intimacy. If one person consistently opens up while the other remains guarded, trust cannot fully deepen.

Equality ensures that emotional risks are mutual. Where one shares fears, the other shares too. Where one admits weakness, the other responds with openness rather than judgment. In such a space, authenticity flourishes. Another crucial element is validation. In emotionally balanced relationships, both partners feel heard. Their concerns are not dismissed as “overreactions.” Their feelings are not minimized or compared. When couples operate on equal emotional ground, they acknowledge each other’s experiences as legitimate. They may not always agree, but they always respect. Validation does not mean surrendering one’s viewpoint; it means recognizing that another’s emotional reality matters.

Equality also protects individuality. Contrary to popular belief, healthy love does not erase personal identity — it enhances it. When both partners are emotionally secure, they do not feel threatened by each other’s independence. Personal ambitions are encouraged, not resented. Friendships are respected, not restricted. Growth is celebrated, not feared. Standing on equal emotional grounds means neither person shrinks to accommodate the other. Instead, both expand, knowing the relationship is strong enough to hold their evolution. Power dynamics often expose emotional inequality. When one partner controls communication — appearing and disappearing unpredictably, withholding affection, or using silence as leverage — imbalance emerges.

Emotional dominance weakens intimacy. It creates anxiety instead of assurance. But when couples share emotional power, there is consistency. There is clarity. There is no need to decode affection because it is offered freely and intentionally. It is important to understand that equality does not imply perfection. Couples will still disagree. They will face stress, miscommunication, and moments of frustration. However, when emotional footing is equal, conflict does not threaten the foundation. Instead, it becomes an opportunity for understanding. Both partners approach challenges as teammates rather than opponents. They choose resolution over ego and repair over pride.

Time often reveals whether emotional equality truly exists. In the early stages of love, intensity can disguise imbalance. Enthusiasm feels mutual. Effort appears equal. But as routine settles in and novelty fades, the structure of the relationship becomes clearer. Who still initiates? Who still invests? Who still shows up consistently? Sustainable love requires sustained balance. It is built not merely on attraction, but on deliberate reciprocity. Standing on equal emotional grounds requires intentionality. It demands honest conversations about needs and expectations. It requires both partners to examine their habits — whether they withdraw during tension, avoid accountability, or rely on the other to carry the emotional weight. Emotional maturity is not about avoiding conflict; it is about handling it responsibly and returning, again and again, to shared ground.

Perhaps the greatest benefit of emotional equality is peace. There is no constant anxiety about where one stands. No guessing games about commitment. No fear that affection may suddenly disappear. Instead, there is stability. There is reassurance. There is mutual effort. In a world where relationships often blur the lines between attention and commitment, equality offers clarity. It reminds us that love should not feel like competition or performance. It should feel like partnership. When couples stand on equal emotional grounds, they build something resilient. They build trust that does not fracture easily. They build respect that does not depend on mood. They build a connection rooted not only in passion but in balance. And in that balance, love finds its strength — not in who gives more, but in how both give fully.

By: Sylvia ThankGod-Amadi

Opinion

NDDC: Time To Illuminate Homes

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

The Tide

Quote:“Twenty-five years on, the Niger Delta cannot celebrate illuminated streets while families sit in darkness. Development must begin inside the home — where children study, businesses grow, and lives are built — before it glows on the roadside.”

The Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) was established in 2000 with a clear and urgent mandate: to facilitate the rapid, even, and sustainable development of Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta region. The creation of the Commission followed decades of agitation over environmental degradation, infrastructural neglect, and socio-economic marginalization in the region. Its core mandate included the development of roads, bridges, electricity, water supply, health facilities, education, housing, environmental remediation, and economic empowerment initiatives. At inception, expectations were high that the Commission would transform the Niger Delta into a model of regional development. Over the years, the NDDC has indeed implemented numerous projects across the nine Niger Delta states. Roads have been constructed and rehabilitated in several communities, easing transportation challenges.

Schools have been renovated, and new classroom blocks have been provided in underserved areas. Health centres have been built or upgraded, improving access to primary healthcare services. The Commission has also awarded scholarships to students, including foreign postgraduate scholarships, empowering thousands of youths academically.Skills acquisition and youth empowerment programmes have helped many young people gain vocational competencies.Through various interventions, the NDDC has contributed to job creation and local economic stimulation.Solar-powered street lighting projects have been widely implemented in urban and semi-urban communities. These streetlights have improved visibility at night and contributed to enhanced security in some areas. Markets, highways, and public spaces illuminated by solar lights have experienced extended business hours.

For these efforts, the Commission deserves acknowledgment and commendation. However, development must always align with foundational mandates and pressing grassroots realities. A growing concern among residents is that while streets are illuminated, many homes remain in darkness. Rural electrification and household power access remain inconsistent and inadequate across large parts of the region. In riverine and remote communities, families still rely on generators, kerosene lamps, or complete darkness after sunset. The irony of brightly lit streets juxtaposed with powerless homes cannot be ignored. Electricity at the household level directly impacts education, health, and small-scale enterprise. Students cannot effectively study at night without reliable indoor lighting.Families cannot preserve food or power essential appliances without stable electricity.

Micro and small businesses struggle to grow without dependable energy access. While street lighting enhances public aesthetics and security, it does not substitute for domestic electrification. The proverb “charity begins at home” is especially relevant in this context. True community development must first empower households before beautifying public spaces. The Commission’s original mandate emphasizes integrated and sustainable development, not isolated infrastructural gestures. Balanced development requires that energy interventions prioritize homes alongside streets. Solar technology presents a unique opportunity for decentralized household electrification in off-grid communities. Extending solar solutions to individual homes would have a transformative social impact. Home-based solar systems could power lights, fans, small appliances, and communication devices.

Such interventions would reduce poverty, improve living standards, and stimulate grassroots productivity. By broadening its energy focus, the Commission would better reflect the spirit of its founding legislation. This is not a call to abandon street lighting projects, which have their merits. Rather, it is an appeal for balance, inclusivity, and alignment with core developmental objectives. Strategic planning should ensure that rural electrification and household access form a central pillar of ongoing interventions. Community engagement and needs assessments can help determine priority areas for household solar deployment. Twenty-five years after its establishment, the NDDC stands at a reflective moment in its institutional journey. The people of the Niger Delta say: thank you for the efforts so far—but not very much—because true appreciation will come when development begins at home and radiates outward, not merely when streets shine while houses remain in darkness.

By: King Onunwor