My life as a female herbalist
– Dr Sandra Ekwunife,CMD, Perfect Herbal Clinic
By PETER ANOSIKE
Monday, April 24, 2006
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• Dr
(Mrs.) Sandra Ekwunife
Photo: The Sun News Publishing |
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Most of her peers would like to remain at home eating out
of the sweat of the man. To her, this can be perilous, as
the housewife is prone to misbehave any day the sole bread
winner faces a misfortune.
Therefore, the Chief Medical Director of Perfect Herbal Clinic
based in Ikeja, Lagos, Dr (Mrs.) Sandra Ekwunife, sees more
danger in men keeping their wives in the house in a bid to
make them become full-time housewife.
She believes that the best way to secure a woman’s faithfulness
is to make her become self reliant. By this, she says the
woman would be able to take care of her immediate needs like
buying her cream and maintaining her hair, saying that once
she could do all these by herself, she would not fall victim
to men who like to take advantage of those little things to
abuse and exploit women in need.
She wonders how men who prevented their wives from working
would feel when they are no longer there and their best friends
would start exploiting their wives for money like the children’s
school fees simply because their wives were not encouraged
to work so as to take care of their needs.
Mrs Ekwunife also speaks about the challenges of women in
business and other issues
Background
My name is Dr. (Mrs) Sandra Ekwunife. I am a natural medicine
practitioner. I specialise in fertility health, cosmetology,
skin care weight loss and body enhancement.
I am a graduate of Sociology of the University of Nigeria,
Nsukka.
I am also a graduate of the International Institute of Herbal
Medicine in Hong Kong. I studied natural health in the institute.
I also did courses in obesity control and body enhancement.
Inspiration
Actually, herbal medicine runs in our family. My mother is
still into it. But it will surprise many that initially, I
was running away from it. Like I said earlier, my mother is
a herbal practitioner. She does massaging of the womb. She
uses herbs to cure fibroid and so on.
But the difficulty she undergoes in the exercise made me to
detest it. Imagine me coming home from the university during
the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) strike to
stay at home for three to four months and I would be asked
to be going from one bush to another in search of herbs. I
have a very sensitive skin and my skin is allergic to grasses.
Then, if you see my skin, you would not like it. It would
turn red, itch and torn.
Because of that, I did not like staying in the village. But
fate or providence has a way of drawing somebody back to his
or her destiny.
After my graduating from the university, I came to Lagos where
my husband is working and tried to get a job, but none was
forthcoming. So, I became a freelance journalist and later
went to the Nigerian Institute of Journalism in order to get
a good job, but to no avail.
Later, I was able to raise a little money from my husband
and brothers with which I started a boutique at Alade Market
in Ikeja.
At the time, I was having fertility problem. I had been married
for six years without an issue.
One day, I travelled to Hong Kong to buy clothes for my boutique.
In the hotel where we stayed, we were four in number and there
was a woman by name Toyin. Every morning she would run out
of the hotel room and always come back sweating.
On my own part, I did not know anywhere . I was afraid. Even
there were tales of human organ scavengers. We were told that
the scavengers could kidnap people and sell their organ. Because
of that, we confined ourselves to our room. But one day, I
picked up courage and asked Toyin where she used to go every
morning and she told me that it was the health club for weight
loss and other health cases.
I decided to follow her the next morning and when I got there,
something happened. It was a laughing therapy session in the
morning and immediately the bell was rang, everybody started
to laugh. I told myself that this thing can’t work for
me.
I even went further to think it is a cult. I told myself that
I won’t join but by looking at them I laugh more than
everyone of them. And at the end of the day I joined.
But before that, I had done a lot of weight loss here in Lagos
to no avail. All the big names in the industry I had visited
them but nothing happened. In Hong Kong, just one tablet that
they gave to me. I took one capsule I went home around 6 O’clock
in the evening. In the hotel that night I did not sleep. I
was just sitting in the toilet. I called the clinic and they
told me that there was no problem. They said I had a lot of
fats in my system that I should only be drinking water.
The next morning, I went on scale and discovered that I had
lost four kilos. I stayed about two weeks in Hong Kong and
lost about 12 kilos. It was wonderful. I could feel life in
me in years. It was when I was about to come back that I met
a Ghanaian who was pregnant. I asked her how she was able
to come to Hong Kong with heavy pregnancy. She told me that
it was there that it happened and she has come for treatment.
She told me that she was also a student of the health club
and was making it big in Ghana. She told me of her fertility
trials and triumphs and how the herb helped her.
Then I had a blocked tube, fibroid and other health conditions.
It was like it cannot work for me, but she encouraged me.
The bill they gave me for the treatment was $6,000. I did
not even have up to that when I travelled but they gave me
a guarantee that if I could afford the bill, I would have
a baby. At that time I discovered through hand bills that
they were holding a programme and I inquired about the fertility
programme. I discovered that it would be cheaper for me to
enroll for the programme than the treatment.
I was told that I would be doing my lectures on the Internet
and when the time for exam comes, I would go to their affiliate
in Togo. I also discovered that some of the herbs they gave
me for practical were the ones they were supposed to use to
treat me for my condition. So I decided to be using them and
it worked .
When I came back to Nigeria, I started looking for the species
of the herbs. Some are available while some are not. Some
you will see in the wild. That was how I started to deal in
herbs. At a point I stopped dealing in clothes and concentrated
fully on herbs.
Initial challenges
When I went into the business, the first challenge that I
encountered was acceptance. Some people were skeptical of
the efficacy of the product. The other challenges include
accessing the herbs .You know that when you go to the forest
to look for herbs, anything can happen. Some mad men can attack
you. Snake can bite you, even some wild animals can attach
you.
The problem of convenience is also there .I am a working mother
as well as a wife. I have to care for my husband and children.
All that was not easy.This is not a business you can entrust
to somebody to go into the bush and bring the herbs or the
roots for you because they might end up bringing the wrong
ones. A particular root will work under certain conditions.
For instance, if the root came from a live tree it will work
better than if it had come from a dead tree.
Management style
I delegate a lot but most often, I try to find people who
are suitable. There was a time that I tried to do it all but
it was terrible. You see me running helter skelter and at
the end of the day, achieving very little.
Now, I delegate responsibilities and I have broken my visiting
days to make it easier for me.
Saturday is for people with fertility problem. Tuesday is
for people with skin disorder.
Thursday is for body enhancement. Maybe you want to reduce
extra-large breast or you want to increase your breast. That
is when a woman is looking like a man – flat-chested
and all that. The same thing with the hips. Every Wednesday
we do weight loss. This is for people with weight problem
of any capacity. You see now in Nigeria, everybody is tommy
tommy, tommy.
You have seen the result of those that went for tommy tuck.
So many people are paying dearly for a very simple thing.
What causes the dropping of the tommy is nothing but the accumulation
of excess fats at the lower abdomen. This could be cured with
herbs. Look at our mothers in the village, their tommies are
at the back while they did not do any tommy tuck, it is herbs.
All they do is after giving birth, they would boil the herbs
and drink. It would condition the womb and contrast it backward
and within three months, you won’t know that they have
ever had babies.
You can see my tommy, I have gotten three children and the
fourth is on the way, but do you see any dropping?
Marketing style
Mostly, we use advertisement, but you know adverts are quite
expensive these days while our herbs are not expensive. For
instance, our breast enlargement product sells for about N4,500,
but you can imagine the kind of money spent on advertisement
. There was a time we did a little jingle in the television,
the sales really increased but when you check your overhead
cost, you will discover that you lost money because people
don’t care about how much to spend on advertisement.
Future of herbs
The future of herbs is very bright. I am not saying that it
will take over the orthodox medicine, but it will be modernised
and people will have a choice. In China today, doctors will
prescribe something like Paracetamol and Javar tea. Javar
tea will relax you if you are having a problem of sleeplessness
and you sleep like a baby while the Paracetamol will take
care of the ache. So, in the future, I see herbs and orthodox
drugs complementing each other.
Vision
My vision in the business is to be the best. I see a situation
where from the stable of an African company, will come the
world most efficacious herbal medicine. We are talking about
potency. Some Nigerian women have been using all kinds of
cream but they don’t work because the creams are not
suited for their skin. You will be seeing burns, patches and
all that. We don’t need all that but herbal creams work
wonders because it is natural and suits the skin.
Combining office and home
It is very tough. At times, I have to leave my house by 7a.m
but before then, I should have prepared breakfast and lunch
because you cannot entrust everything to the care of the house
help. My husband is such a man who doesn’t joke with
his stomach before he leaves the house in the morning he makes
sure that he takes his breakfast. And as a lawyer, he prefers
heavy breakfast because he will tell you he is going to talk
a lot in the court. He doesn’t believe in taking light
breakfast and you have to give him what he wants.
Housewife
It is a very serious case. I used to tell some men, if you
love your wife so much and you cage her, what happens when
you are incapacitated or when you become immobile? What happens
when you are lying there unconscious. Then your wife will
be exploited for every little kobo she asked from somebody.
I am telling you a practical experience of women I know. What
happens if the bread-winner, God decides to call him, how
will you feel if you look back and see your wife being abused
by your best friend just because of peanut? We are talking
about money to pay children’s school fees. How much
is it? That happened because for a long time she did not know
how to earn money.
My husband is proud of me today because if he wants to travel
he doesn’t need to make any preparation. He knows that
if a child is sick, I am equal to the task. But if I am not
working, where will the money come from? I am encouraging
men, if you want your wife to be faithful to you, it is not
a matter of trying to lock her up in a cupboard, release her.
Let her be free and make her self-reliant. Even if she is
weaving at the end of the day, if it is N500 she makes, she
can buy her own things without permission. She can do her
hair, buy her body cream. The temptation of flirting will
not be there again and then, if she does it, you know that
she wants to do it.
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