Nigeria can realise over $100bn yearly from medicinal plants

The Natural Integrative Medicine Practitioners Association (NIMPA) has urged the Federal Government to tap the country’s multibillion Dollar rich biodiversity as a quick measure to revamp the economy.

NIMPA said the action would help to confront global climate change that has collapsed the price of oil from $200 to a benchmark of about $30 per barrel.

NIMPA said in view of the adverse effect of the oil on greenhouse gas emission, which is blamed for the sea level rise and global health and poverty crisis, the global community is at war with crude oil and its by products, a scenario that has wrecked the mono economy of Nigeria in crude oil, impoverishing the nation.

NIMPA in a statement signed by the President, Dr. Isaac Ayodele; and the Secretary General, Dr. Gilbert Ezengige, insisted that Nigeria is capable of realizing over $100 billion annually from the cultivation, production, commercialization and exportation of its rich medicinal plants which are the basic materials for traditional, alternative medicine and some synthetic drugs.

NIMPA said potent drugs such as morphine, quinine, digoxin, atrophine, ephedrine, emetine and artemisinin were extracted from medicinal plants and later synthesized by pharmaceutical companies pointing out that the days of bastardizing made in Nigeria medicine and importing foreign made herbs should stop in the bid to save Nigeria’s foreign reserves.

The association opined that no nation can progress if medicinal items whose equivalents remain untapped within her domain are imported pointing out that plants with tested and confirmed therapeutic actions and safety should be cultivated in different zones of our nation to provide raw materials for the production of herbal medicine for local use and exports.