Culture and Medicals with Dr. Dan-Fulani

Traditionally, it is believed that medical is one of our cultures and there is no doubt it is our culture. Treatment is one thing that is done in every part of the world carried out on a sick fellow either on the young ones or the older ones, the male or the female. In the days past, leafs, tree peals, tree seeds, and all produce of the farmland is been used to perform the medical treatments.

In the meantime, the development has prune the scientist to carry out a lot of researches on the use of these herbs to produce them in a form which they can be taken directly as bought from the pharmacy unlike those time when you will need to cook, wash, mix them up with other things for its uses.

The interview with the Medical director, Kubwa general hospital, Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani gives more light on the relationship between the medicals and culture.

The Heritage: can we meet you sir?

M. D: My name is Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani.

The Heritage: In time past, it is believed that medical is traditional whereas, believed that tradition is ritual. What would you have to say about this?

M.D: To start with, I will let you know that the traditional behavior of man “African” in general, has both the positive and the negative aspect especially in medical. Medical practice itself has some background in the traditional activities of people over the years, so it will not surprise me to see some of these practices of Africans that are still in practice today. If we start from some of the traditional ways of life, the religion, the practices, the culture, and many of them now, you will find out that there is something. When we look at the family lives in Africa, you will find out that there is very strong coition between the family lines, in other words, you will see people who care for each other and you will see a lot of interactions between the members of the families. If we also look into some of the traditional way of the old fashion things like our marriages and part of things we do in Africa, a lot of occasions, people go and get fresh fruits like leafs, tomatoes, fresh everything directly from the market and which is a lot better than what we have in terms of refrigerator foods, processed foods, and lots of that so, that also have a positive sides in our culture.

The Heritage: Sir, while you were talking, you mentioned something “Religion” please, what would you say about the relationship between Culture and Religion?

M.D: Well, there is little difference between religion and culture but the difference is such that most of the religion we are practicing today has its background.

While those religion are been practicing, knowingly or unknowingly, the culture of those people that brought them were chipped into that religion and so, people finds it difficult to separate between the tenets or belief of the religion from the culture. So, there is a lot of things tagged in the culture and that is why we see that both Christianity and Islam when they came to Nigeria, there is a lot of difficulties in getting people away from their culture that they were already used to, which is not in consonant with the religious belief of they want to follow.

Now, typically if you look at one, let start from dressing. Islam doesn’t have a dressing code other than description that you must not expose this, you must do this, but anyhow you can do it would be acceptable by Islam. But unfortunately or fortunately, where the religion came from, they already have a particular way of dressing and that is what we expected down to this line.

If you see an average pastor, you will see him dressed like me, wearing suit and all of that. That’s not African culture. it is the culture of the mothern people. But because those who brought the Christianity wear it, it has been imported. But there is a little gap between the strict religion belief and culture. So, whatever we do is what form the part of our culture, the way we do naming, marriage ceremony and all those, forms the background of our culture. Most of the time you will see an overlap between religious belief and cultural belief, that is why you will see some of our culture today, going away, through the importation of western beliefs which are not necessarily religious, it’s just their way of life.

Dr. Hammed Dan-Fulani, Medical Director Kubwa General Hospital, During the Interview.

The Heritage: what would you have to say about those negative sides of the traditional religion that are making the people to deviate from our culture?

M.D: in Nigeria and Africa at large, there are great similarities between the culture of the people and the traditional religion we practice.

The earlier people before the coming of the religion have the way of life which they also referred to as religion, some worship some kind of deity, some worship rivers, and all kinds of things and they also have the way of doing some certain things. For instance, in Yoruba land, I don’t know how true it is, that if someone wants to become a king, they will remove the heart of the recently dead king and cook it for the person who wants to become the next king. That is a cultural/religious practice which a man cannot stand to tell sometimes, but is no longer practicable.

That is one of the negative parts of the tradition, as I earlier said that the culture has its positive and negative parts. To me, that is what I understand to be negative.

You should also know that they kill people for rituals. I schooled in ile-ife and one of the rituals is they kill one person each day. So, you can imagine where they kill 365 people every year. So, many traditional things that even in traditional religion may not have a say, those are the things to be referred to as traditional culture.

So there are lots of cultural practices that are positive and that are negative and I’ve given you some instances. Even the traditional way of dressing, is the aspect that borders me a lot. If you go to India, china, they don’t allow the western culture to dominate their culture, which is the tragedy in our society today, we have allowed the western culture into our midst, seeing a girl wearing jeans and shirt, from a far you won’t know either she’s a boy or a girl and we don’t see anything wrong in that. We are wasting our time and we are leaving our culture. So many things are wrong.

What is wrong with the “Iro and Buba” (the Yoruba traditional wears) that our ladies can’t wear?

One, it will create more opportunity of jobs for people. Secondly, people will come and respect our culture from outside; it’s even cheaper most of the times.

Definitely, we are encouraging other people’s economy, and now they are introducing “Homosexuality” to us. So, those are the parts of our cultural analysis that are chipping into our own culture.

The Heritage: Sir, what are your profound suggestions on how to solve these highlighted problems?

M.D: There are so many ways that we can encourage our culture, one is by encouraging the presentation of our cultural heritage and again we must encourage dressing codes for our women. It may sound very hash but I believe in the manner that introduction of dressing code which some universities are doing.

Sometimes, youths are just being exuberant, they don’t know what they are doing right or what they are doing wrong such that they may need guardian, they are the future of the society, and we can mould them such that they will appreciate the traditional way of doing things. Competitions can also be organized in our own traditional ways of doing things, let them wear traditional dresses. Encourage the most beautiful girl and all of that. Even some can be done in all this home videos where they do something traditional/cultural and moreover, and legislation can look into where things are difficult.