Ooni of Ife, Oba Adeyeye Enitan Ogunwusi, Ojaja II, has disclosed that House of Oduduwa Initiative is already partnering with Afe Babalola University (ABUAD), Ado Ekiti on a clinical research aimed at developing drugs and vaccines for viral infections with special focus on Coronavirus pandemic.
According to a statement from Ooni’s palace signed by the foremost monarch’s spokesperson, Moses Olafare, Ogunwusi revealed this after receiving reports from his Clinical Research Team.
The Monarch stated, “Baba Afe Babalola at the age of over 90 is still very committed to the greatness of Africa. Nigeria is indeed blessed to have him and I am particularly blessed to have him as a descendant of Oduduwa. He has already invested millions of dollars in the ABUAD College of Medicine which is very outstanding in Africa and he is currently making great efforts to upgrade his Laboratory to Level 4 Biosafety that can handle very sensitive and other deadly infections like covid-19. There is a need to develop joint clinical research on drugs and vaccines from plants / herbs to fight the Covid-19 infection with its peculiarity in the black race. With this, lots of vaccines to prevent sensitive and deadly infections will be rolled out for use globally. This is unprecedented! May the Almighty Olodumare keep this Baba Afe Babalola for us”.
He called on Nigerian government and well-meaning Nigerians to support ABUAD’s researchers and partner on massive industrial revolution that would enable internal solutions to national challenges.
He said, “We must look inward and solve our problems by ourselves. There is no need for our government officials and wealthy ones to go abroad for medical check-ups. They should rather focus their resources on making Nigeria medical system work better”.
“Now that the House of Oduduwa under my watch and Afe Babalola University are about to start aggressive clinical research against all deadly diseases including Covid-19, it is about time we stopped looking up to the foreigners to solve our problems for us. With the ABUAD Multi -System Hospital and research facilities in place, we do not have to go outside Nigeria again for solutions to our medical problems”, he added.
