The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, (MDCN), has shutdown the Federal College of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (FEDCAM), Abdul-Salau, Isheri Olofi, Idimu, Lagos.
Speaking on the development, Head of Department (HOD) Inspectorate of MDCN, Dr. Henry Okwuokenye, said that the provost of the school, Dr. Idowu Ogunkoya does not have the licence to practise. He also disclosed that the school is not registered with MDCN. In his words: “A good Nigerian wrote us a letter that there is a fake medical school that is training people in this place. So we did investigation for two months until we were able to locate the place and confirmed that it is true. We contacted the state Ministry of Health and we came on a visit and found students in class receiving lectures as alternative medical medicine doctors.”
“Before anyone practises in this country, no matter where you are trained, you must come to our office to get a licence to practise and every year, you must renew it. This is aside the full licence registration a doctor must have to practise as a doctor. More so, for a medical school to run in Nigeria, we also are saddled with the responsibility of accrediting it to do such and again the curriculum, which is content of knowledge to pass to people for them to become doctors, is also provided by my office but the management did not do any of these things.”
Speaking, Dr. Ogunkoya, however, maintained that the school is no way illegal, adding that operation started in 2001 and is still in the registration process.
“We have more than 3,500 alternative practitioners in Nigeria as of today and they have only registered eight so far. So it is not my fault that I don’t have a licence but we are making a good contact with the Minister about reopening and doing alternative medicine colleges very well in Nigeria,” he said.
‘’Prof Atilade was the federal representative of alternative medicine with the MDCN, during his time; he spent about two or three years. They only registered two people. Now they are working out our registration.”
He further said that the school was founded by the Council of Physician and Alternative Medicine.
“We started with natural college of complementary and alternative medicine. It was in year 2004; we agitated for the government to take the school up because there is nothing like that in the country. By 2004, they appointed Prof Atilade as the registrar of this college. We were communicating very well with the federal government in Abuja. ‘’We were trying to make sure that the college is approved because definitely, we know the standard for accreditation. By 2007, Professor Atilade was appointed as the rector and Dr. Ayodele Akinipe was appointed as the registrar by the Federal Ministry of Health, Abuja. Dr. Awe and others came and changed the name of the college to Federal College of Complimentary and Alternative Medicine. Having done that, they said the government would give us a budget, which they did in year 2007.
‘’So, we gave the then registrar all the documents to go and process in Abuja. We gave him altogether about N450,000. He processed the budget, got it out and they called Prof Atilade to come and be a signatory. He signed one paper from the Central Bank, apparently, before he got back to Lagos. The name was changed.
“They formed another federal college of complementary and alternative medicine in Abuja. They rented an apartment and started running it. I don’t know how he did it. He just told them in Abuja that there is nothing like again that in Nigeria. Since then we have been agitating. God being who He is, the college was closed in 2010 because they were running a degree programme, as by then, they were not accredited. Thereafter, people from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) came and arrested the six of us because a petition was written against us.
‘’This is just a clinic to demonstrate to our students. We can’t run a medical school without a clinic. We are using what we have. A budget was given to us but they did not give it to us and it is up to N300million. The federal government releases it every year,” he added.
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