Formal education validated my ancestral wisdom. In secondary school, St Gregory’s College, Obalende, Lagos, I fell in love with Chemistry. My teacher encouraged me. Mr Odedele, our chemistry teacher did everything possible to encourage me and nurture my interest. After school, I would help out in the lab, as well as help set up for the next day. He would do experiments while I was around. Eventually, I went ahead to university in the USA and accomplished my first degree in chemistry – a Bachelor of Science degree.
While an undergraduate at George Washington University, I learnt about Organic, Analytical, and Industrial Chemistry. I met a PhD chemist who did analysis on African grains and more. I worked with Professor Folahan Ayorinde for a summer and learnt high-tech practical analysis, using machines like GC/MS, gas chromatography and mass spectrophotometry machines.
After Chemistry, I proceeded for another bachelor’s degree in pharmacy at Howard University. Pharmacy is the herbal medicine of the 21st century but has been misguided by big pharma. I met two Indians doing research on African bitter leaf – a native doctor’s dream herb that exemplifies the unity of food and medicine. I learnt of the hypoglycaemic and fertility benefits of the vegetable/herb, and lots more. Darn, we Africans are blessed with earth and knowledge. This is likely a reason we historically rarely got malaria and were very fertile.
I later proceeded for a medical doctorate degree, MD, also from Howard University. This was about learning the fundamentals of the human body. It was a tool to broaden my traditional doctor mindset and build scientific roots.
I went further to specialise in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins University, in Baltimore, Maryland. There, I met professors and doctors who encourage me to look at ancestral knowledge. I recall Dr Williams, who would ask, “What do you do in Africa to treat diabetes and asthma? He was unknowingly planting seeds to reconnect me to my ancestors’ knowledge of healing. After this, I joined a group of doctors in Lakeland, Florida. While I was there, I got inspired to do my MBA, which I did at the University of South Florida, in Tampa.
I must put this in context. God had a chessboard for me. I was a pawn on his chessboard, but I am still playing the chessboard. I don’t fully understand how it’s unfolding, but I appreciate the bit I understand thus far.
The next consequential milestone in my journey was my getting married to a nutritionist. The plot could only sweeten and thicken – nutrition plus traditional doctor plus orthodox training. Wow!
Along with my journey, I encountered Father, Adodo, a monk and herbalist, here, in Nigeria. He founded Pax Herbals. There is, indeed, knowledge and wisdom in those ancient cultures. Gradually, the seeds were planted in me. All these have influenced my practice today. I have a healthy respect for traditional knowledge, knowledge of herbs and their utility, as well as knowledge of nutrition and its central role in our health. You know, illness or wellness?
These are all the influences that have come together to work on God’s chessboard, for the native doctor who went to America to study and returned home to Nigeria. There is ongoing work to realign and apply all these skills and work into a reincarnation and blend of Western Waha
