File photo: Afe Babalola University gate
The Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, has urged Nigerians to embrace Nigerian-made herbal medicine and reduce their dependence on foreign ones.
The Deputy Director, AB Pharmaceutical Services, Oluwatoyin Afolabi, said Nigeria’s continued reliance on foreign herbal products, despite the country’s indigenous medicinal resources and growing research capacity, amounted to a form of economic and medical dependence that must be urgently addressed.
Afolabi spoke in Ado Ekiti on Saturday during a two-day
AB Pharmaceuticals Business Summit organised by ABUAD in collaboration with pharmaceutical marketers.
At the summit, ABUAD presented three pharmaceutical products of the university – AB Mal, ABUAD Virucidine and AB Health Animation 250mg, as part of efforts to expand the reach of the products developed by the university.
The deputy director said that the summit initiative was driven by ABUAD founder’s vision of ensuring that Nigerians could increasingly rely on medicines developed and produced within the country.
She said, “The ultimate reason we are here today is to establish a marketing plan that will help us take these products to the Nigerian people.
“We have served the Indians enough, and we have served the Chinese enough. We have embraced different forms of multilevel marketing and imported their traditional medicines, while Nigerians continue to work hard to promote these foreign products.
“It is time for a revolution, and a revolution does not necessarily require a crowd. Sometimes, it takes one determined individual to change the world. We have seen people change the course of history,” she said.
Afolabi said that the ABUAD founder, Aare Afe Babalola, developed ABUAD pharmaceutical products based on his vision for Nigeria to begin treating its people with medicines produced locally.
She said, “Before the advent of orthodox doctors, our people relied on traditional medicines, including those derived from local resources, and these medicines served them.
“However, we have yet to embrace our own products with the same enthusiasm with which we promote Chinese medicines and other foreign alternatives.
“That is why we are here today – to establish a business relationship with the Association of Pharmaceutical Products Marketers of Nigeria and other stakeholders that will help promote ABUAD pharmaceutical products and change the mindset of Nigerians.
“We want our people to stop depending excessively on Chinese and Indian medicines when we have the capacity to develop and promote our own products.
“If you know the volume of imported medicines entering Nigeria every day, you will be amazed. A significant amount of our economic resources goes into purchasing foreign products. We must begin to reverse this trend by investing in, producing and marketing medicines developed in Nigeria,” Afolabi said.
ABUAD Vice-Chancellor, Prof Smaranda Olarinde, stressed the need to reduce Nigeria’s dependence on imported pharmaceutical products.
Olarinde advised that the country should create an ecosystem whereby university, industry, regulators, healthcare professionals, investors and consumers would work together to move promising innovations from the laboratory to the marketplace.
The Chairman of the Association of Pharmaceutical Products Marketers of Nigeria, Ekiti State, Peter Ajayi, hailed Afe Babalola for his exemplary vision in all fields, saying the association would do what was possible within its reach to make the products reach prospective individuals.