Empowering the African Traditional Healers for Effective Holistic Health Care Delivery in Nigeria

Before the advent of colonialism in Africa and its methods of health care delivery, Africans had their indigenous methods of health care delivery. The efficacy of these methods can be attested to by the non-extinction of this race in spite of the sporadic diseases and epidemics which bedevilled the continent over time. But with colonialism and its system of knowledge, technology and social development, African traditional healing methods were seen and labelled as fetish, primitive, witchcraft, diabolical and unscientific. African healers were persecuted as witches/wizards and denied recognition and right to practice their art, an action whose consequences impinged on the effectiveness of health care delivery and the development of indigenous systems of knowledge. The authorial position of this paper is the advocacy of an in-depth investigation into these indigenous traditional healing methods with a view to tapping into their beneficial artefacts and empowering its practitioners. . This approach will accord recognition to practitioners of these neglected health care methods and enhance the goal of an effective holistic health care delivery in Africa.