To convince the doctors at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja and Christ the King Catholic (CKC) Primary Health Clinic, Akowonjo, Lagos that my diabetes was cured in 2002 with herbal medicine, I always told them to send me for a test in their institution’s laboratory. And each time I returned with the result in the last 16 years, the fasting period reading had always been 76 – 85mg/dl (i.e. milligram/deliciter). While the random testing done two hours after having a meal would be 76 – 120mg/dl. The upper limit for the fasting period is 110mg/dl while that of random assessment is 150mg/dl.
Since 2002 it was only twice that my fasting period result went up to 90s. These were three years ago when it was 95mg/dl on one occasion and last Saturday when the reading at the CKC Hospital was 90mg/dl. And this was because I did not carry out my twice or thrice a week 15 – 30 minutes skipping – rope, jogging and aerobics exercises, two or three weeks before having the two tests.
Since my blood sugar level readings are always normal, whenever I returned with the result I always teased the doctors when going through the report, asking them: “do you still insist that I must resume medication?” They would say no, you don’t need to take drugs again. I would then follow up with: but you said diabetes is incurable?
They would just reply that mine was “the first time they were coming across such a situation.” But they would never use the word cured. But instead of writing on the report that my blood sugar level had been regularized and that I did not need to take medicine again, they would return the test paper to me. Of course, they always behaved this way because they did not want it placed on record that a diabetes patient had been cured, since orthodox drugs cannot yet heal the disease. So, they don’t want to commit what their colleagues would consider abominable.
In fact, the lady – doctor who attended to me at LASUTH last month said if I claimed to have been cured it must be that I was not diabetic when I was so diagnosed in 1992. She said it was possible that the laboratory technician who conducted the test mistakenly wrote the result for another person for me.
I then asked her if it was possible for a non – diabetic person to have used daonil or glucophage for ten years (1992 – 2002) and still be alive sixteen years later? When the drugs are used to lower the blood sugar level in people whose readings are very high. But she gave no answer to my question as she could not controvert what I said.
If I was not diabetic would I have joined the Diabetes Association of Nigeria on August 4, 2001 at the General Hospital, Ikeja (now LASUTH), with registration number 2176 during the tenure of Dr. Onyejekwere? I pulled out of the organization the following year when my diabetes was cured with herbal medicine.
Beginning from tomorrow through next weekend I should be able to make available to the three readers I had selected to give free of charge the diabetes medicine prepared by the Ado – Ekiti cleric for the cure of diabetes. I chose them because they travelled to Pa Giwa’s village in Kogi State to collect their drug from him and therefore spent more money than any other person.
The three readers to have the medicine free are a Yoruba woman in Ikare, Ondo State and the first to visit the old man, an Igbo man in Minna, Niger State and a 76 – year – old Edo State – born chief in Lagos. They have all agreed to have their names and telephone numbers published after the drug by the Ado – Ekiti cleric had cured their diabetes. This is to convince everyone of the efficacy of the medicine.
Eternal rest in paradise General Shagaya
The news of the death of Brigadier – General John Nanzip Shagaya (rtd) in a car accident on the Langtang – Pankshin highway on Sunday came to me as a great and devastating shock when I heard it on television late that day and I was sad that he departed in such a gruesome situation. Brigadier – General Shagaya was one of the finest Nigerian military officers, particularly in the army cadre, I ever met. He was a complete gentleman and kind-hearted person. I met him in the late 1970s through a mutual friend, the late Major Abiodun Doherty (Monday, December 1944 – Monday, October 31, 2016), a boyhood pal of mine in Akure and on Lagos Island. Shagaya took special interest in me from the word go for two reasons. The first was that we were both born in the month of September. He on September 2, 1942 and I on September 4, 1944.
The other was my surname. On hearing that my family appellation was Adedipe, he asked if I was related to late Justice Basil Agbolade Adedipe (1912 – 84) under whose chairmanship he served as a member of a Lagos State Government Committee which investigated the scandalous purchase of the Leyland buses in the 1970s. I told him the answer was yes and no.
I said the judge was an Ijebu man from Isiwo, a town in – between Epe and Ijebu – Ode in Ogun State while I was from Akure in Ondo State. But that he and my dad (1904 – 72) who was eight years older than him were close friends. I told him the yes part of my answer was that Justice Adedipe was the father of my wife, Basilia Ibironke Adedipe.
I visited him a couple of times in the 1980s when he was a Colonel and the Commanding Officer of the Nigerian Army Cantonment at Ikeja and when later he was the Minister of Internal Affairs and in charge of the Federal Capital Territory (Abuja). I was then the Editor of the Sunday Concord. Unlike some other people in such a position, who would decline if one asked them for land allocation in Abuja. John was the one who, on his own, offered me a plot in the city.
Indeed, he thought that was the reason why I came to visit him on the first occasion. But when I did not raise the issue, he said “Sina, don’t you want land in Abuja?” He was surprised when I told him that as a newspaper Editor, it was not right for me to apply for land from their government. This was because it would prevent me from taking up their administration if I did not like their policy at any given time. He was surprised, but respected me as a principled person. May his soul rest in peace and may he make Paradise.