Call it manpower, body energizer or action pill, you are referring to the same thing. Also generally known as ‘qurantanshi’ by its seller most of who are from the northern Nigerian region, or ‘ogun aleko’ by the Yoruba herbal sellers of western Nigeria, aphrodisiac, otherwise called libodo boosters are getting increasing popular amongst young adults and sexually active men to boost their sexual prowess.
No one will openly admit using them, but checks and interaction with users and the growing influx of sellers alike suggests that the sale of libido enhancers is an emerging booming business in Nigeria, with users increasing in bounds by the day.
It isn’t any secret to posit that sexual activity is part of the norm of the Nigerian society as the average man does engage in one form of sexual activity or the other, as the satisfaction thereof, serves as a cushion to the myriads of challenges encountered in the day to day activities of our socio-economic life.
In the face of increasing tasks of surviving in a country like Nigeria, with a harsh socio economic environment, paucity of funds to meet daily basic needs, limiting income generating opportunities, hazardous working and living environmental, work pressures and stress, comes the increasing craving to use sex as a tranquilizer or as an escapist mechanism to cushion the pressures life throws every day.
Unlike before when sexual matters were discussed in hushed tones, the general society today speaks sexual allures, from advert posters, models used for marketing products on billboards, the dress sense and fashion trends of ladies, scenes in music videos, movies shown in television programme, and erotic pictures in the magazines, etc.
Unfortunately, life has made it that it is the men, being the more responsive to erotic allures that are at the receiving end of all the sexual allures and inability or a semblance on inability to satisfy their feminine partners, is a crux or ‘the sword of Damocles’ that they carry on a dented ego. Men are expected to be in charge sexually and it is in this issue of satisfying female partners that the use of aphrodisiacs comes to play, and increasing so, as vendors of aphrodisiacs in their variants, spring up day by day within the city centres.
Just as there are local variants of aphrodisiacs, such as a mixture of local gin and herbs, which come in forms called Agbo Gbogbonise, Sepe or Paraga, so are there well packaged industrially made variants in packets of pills, or tablet such as Spanish fly, Enpulse, Vimax, Virillis, M-Energex, High T, Male X and those in liquid forms like Alomo bitters to mention a few.
While the likes of Sepe and Paraga have its target consumers made up of the mass of not too educated persons like bus drivers, mechanics, labourers and the likes, the package variants like Vimax, High T and Virillis reaches to the elite and upwardly mobile persons across sections of the society of the working class professionals and vocational disciplines. However, one thing is a common, whether for the low class or the upward mobile elite, the users or buyers of both variants of libido boosters have the same and common purpose and mission- the ability to sexually satisfy their partners.
“You know one of the most painful thing that can happen to any man is to be a lily-jelly with his woman”, said Segun Adekanni, a self-confessed regular user of one of the variants of the local herbal mixture. “I cannot forget the experience I had with one lady I wanted to marry some years ago, who because I couldn’t perform satisfactorily left me and followed another man.
The thing pained me because this is a girl that I like so much and have really spent for, even to the point of paying part of her school fees for her National Diploma (ND) programme in a polytechnic. It was because I was doing ‘gentle, gentle’ for her that made her to jilt me and follow another man,” he remorsefully narrated. “The thing really pained me and that was when I told my friend who introduced me to taking ‘agbo’ (the generic term for local herbs), ‘and true-true, I see that the thing make me perform well-well, because I try am’” he recalled, in native Yoruba language interspersed with pidgin english.
“Since then, I have been a regular user and not only because of woman, but also to clear my body of mende-mende (toxicants),” he added. “The type you take depends on what you want it for, like example, Paraga or Sepe is good for manpower, while agbo jedi is for pile, and Opa eyin is for waist pain, and all these are what affects a man’s ability to perform”, explained Adekanni, a steel fabricator and father of two, who said he shall remain a life-long user of agbo Opa eyin, which he credits to being an aphrodisiac made from a mixture of local herbs and alcoholic spirits.
Aphrodisiac, derived from the Greek goddess ‘Aphrodite’, the goddess of love and sexual desire, is a substance that increases sexual desire or that helps stimulate arousal or enhance sexual performance. According to researchers, aphrodisiac is made from both herbal and other kinds of materials in foods, drinks and chemical drugs, and it is used in order to stimulate arousal, treat sexual dysfunction, and make intercourse for men (and also women) more pleasurable.
Though sexual performance enhancing drugs were traditionally designed to rectify erectile dysfunction in men, but the case today is different, as most men who use it now do so with the mindset to show their ‘might’ over and above their female partners during intercourse.
“Use of herbs to solve sexual problems is not new to the Nigerian society”, offered Madam Joke Adebayo, a traditional herb seller, who are called ‘Elewe omo’ in native Yoruba language. “We have all these as herbs around us and the use is derived as part of our own culture. We have been using a combination of these herbs as agbo to treat many ailments before the white man came so, there is really nothing new in using herbs, only that now, we have all sorts of people selling all sort of things as agbo, all in the name of making money.
Most of the hawkers you see around selling agbo in the bus stops and parks are actually selling slow poison because most of them do not know the history, use or the origin of the herbs they sell, especially those people that sell it with mixtures of Ogogoro or kain kain (local dry gin). What is Sepe, what is Paraga? They are all of the same but with different names to lure people, using Ogogoro as a bait. They just get some herbs mixed with Ogogoro and sell and when you take it, you head will swell and you will feel high, when actually, what they are taking is pure alcoholic spirits, which is harmful to the body”, she noted.
According to her, “elewe omo” (tradition herb sellers or trado medicals or alternative medical practitioners) do not sell mixture-like concoctions. “We also do research and have names for different herbs and each herbal plant have their specific uses. The knowledge of herbs is ancient and passed down from generation to generation and what we do when people come to us is to prescribed herbs (of relevant tree barks, plant leaves or roots), depending on what ailment your want to treat, and you go home and do the mixture yourself, in measured quantity that we shall tell you, and mostly with water and not with ogogoro.
We have a registered association and we have guidelines for the operations of our members. Most of these people who sell agbo mixtures at the bus top are quacks who just get some herbs, mix it with ogogoro and sell and the people who buy it, take it for the sake of the ogogoro inside, not because of the herb”, she further added.
Buttressing this point of view, a regular consumer of local herbal mixture, Kunle Afolabi noted that people take Sepe or Paraga just to find a short cut to staying strong. “There is nothing really beneficial in taking Sepe other than for just wanting to make yourself high or feel some sensation in your body. The ogogoro is the main influence for taking it, because it makes me feel hot and high. Sometimes, when I am feeling dull and not happy, I will take it so that I will have some hot sensation to clear my head.
It charges my body quickly and I stand up strong”, he noted. Afolabi who is a mechanic said though he knows it is harmful, he still derives pleasure in taking it, especially at the close of the day as that is part of what relaxes his mind and puts him in the mood to going home happy. “I know that it is not good for my body, and that is sometimes why I take Paraga, which is better refined than Sepe. The difference between the two is that Sepe is made with mixture of ogogoro while Paraga is made with mixture of dry gin or Chelsea and has flavour,” he added.
“You know every man has his levels, so sometimes, I will take Paraga, instead of Sepe because it has the chemical of dry gin inside. Sometimes, I can ask the women to also do a special one and make the agbo to be fortified and mixed with 501 (a brand of whisky) to enhance my alertness and virility for sexual performance,” he further declared.
Afolabi’s friend, Rasheed Raji, however, noted that taking of alcoholic based herbal mixture is an attitudinal problem.
According to him, most people who take Sepe or Paraga do so in relation to their financial level. “I cannot take Sepe or Paraga because it doesn’t agree with my system. I tried it sometimes ago and I develop terrible headache, so for me, what I take to boost or charge myself is stout, which is also okay. The truth is that our body systems has to be de-toxicated as a lot of fat is gained from the food we eat which affects a man’s sexual performance and virility, so when I want to charge myself, I mix a tin of milk with a bottle of stout which increases my sexual performance”, he explained. Describing Sepe and Paraga as killers because of the alcoholic content in it, he say a simple test to proof this is to cut a piece of fresh meat and then pour ogogoro on it.
“When you pour ogogoro on a piece of raw meat, the ogogoro within few seconds, will cook the meat and you will see the meat looking as if it has been boiled. This shows what ogogoro does to our heart and intestine. It is not good for the body but because people just want something to burn them and make them shine their eyes and feel high, they continue to take it”, he added, however, noting that he believes in herbs and does take it, but it is the one prepared with water. “Agbo is good and has curative tendencies, and there are different kind of agbo, like one for jedi-jedi (pile), iba (malaria), opa eyin (waist pain) and so on. These agbo works, but what is not good is when you now use style to be drinking ogogoro, under the pretences that you are taking herbal mixture,” he admonished.
“I dey sell am for manpower and also wetin you fit use if you get small thing wey you want to make big and strong”, said Sule Adamu, a retail seller of herb based aphrodisiac known in Hausa language as burantanshi. Sule, who plies his trade in the Agege area and has about five years in the business, said his clients, mostly men, come around to his makeshift mobile stand, especially in the evenings. “This one is for jedi-jedi and to wash away sugar and waste pain so that you go dey strong kakaraka for woman, he said producing a plastic bottle containing dried tree barks which cost N500.
“You go mix am with water make it soak before you come use am, and you go use am morning and evening so you body go clean and your body go dey strong”, he added, in quivering pidgin English as he tried to convince the writer of the efficacy of his products. In three minutes, he had mentioned a range of his products, including bringing out different packets of libido boosters, which are not displayed on his table, whose price ranges between N1, 000 to N2, 500, though it is also available at retail prices of N50-N100 per sachet and pills.
However, in spite of the existing misgivings and infiltrations of quacks into herbal care provision in Nigeria, there is no disputing the fact that herbs have power to boost libido as a study by Nigerian researchers have unveiled nine local plants that can repair sexual and reproductive disorders in mammals. According to the study carried out by the researchers from the College of Medicine University of Lagos (CMUL), Idi-Araba, there is evidence to support the acclaimed role of plants as aphrodisiacs in traditional medicine.
In the study titled: “Lipid Peroxidation of selected Aphrodisiac Plants” and published in several international journals including Planta Medica (An International Journal of Natural Products and medicinal Plant Research), Chukwuma Muanya, under the supervision of Dr. Olukemi Odukoya of the Pharmacognosy Department, CMUL, interviewed a total of 17 herb sellers in Mushin-Olosha open herbal market in Lagos using unstructured questionnaires. Findings from the study reveal nine plants which the herb sellers recommended and which were identified at the Department of Pharmacognosy, CMUL through literature using local names.
Further confirmation of the identity of the plants identity carried out with assistance of Mr. Wale Ekundayo at the Forestry Research Institute of Nigeria (FRIN) herbarium in Ibadan, named the plants as Lecaniodiscus cupanioides, which belongs to the Sapindaceae family and is called Kaa-fi-naamaa-zaaki in Hausa, Okpu in Igbo and Egbo Akika in Yoruba; Cnestis ferruginea, which is of the Connaraceae family. It is called Fura amarya in Hausa, Okpu in Igbo, and Egbo Gboyingboyin in Yoruba; Carpolobia lutea, of the plant family Polygalaceae and known as Agba or Angalagala in Igbo and Egbo Oshunshun in Yoruba; Cissus populnea, belonging to the plant family Vitaceae. It is called Daafaaraa, Malaiduwa or Maleduwa in Hausa, and Ogbolo pupa in Yoruba.
The others include Microdermis keayana, which is of the plant family Pandaceae. It is called Akpalataa in Igbo, and Idiakpata in Yoruba; Cassia sieberiana, which is of plant family Leguminosae and known to the Hausas as Araho, Gama fada, Gamdafadaa, gwazkiya or Margaa, and Aridan toro in Yoruba; Chasmanthera dependens which is of Menispermaceae family and known as Egbo Atoh in Yoruba. The plants also include Anthocleista djalonens belonging to the plant family Loganiaceae and known as Kwarii in Hausa, Okpokolo in Igbo, and Egbo Sapoo in Yoruba, as well as Dioscorea cayenensis, which is of the plant family Dioscoreaceae and known as Dooyar kudu in Hausa, Ji-Agbana in Igbo, and Egbo Igangan in Yoruba.
The researchers concluded thus: “Results of this study have provided evidence to support the acclaimed role of these nine medicinal plants as an aphrodisiac in traditional medicine. It has also provided scientific evidence to its purported aphrodisiac effect. The aqueous extract of the roots of these plants may be adduced to increase the testosterone level of the blood, which may be due to saponin component. The aqueous extract of freshly cut roots: L. cupanioides, C. ferruginea, C. lutea, C. populnea, M. keayana, C. sieberiana, C. dependens, A. djalonensis, and D. cayenensis may thus be used to modify impaired sexual functions, especially in men.”
However, beyond the use of local herbs, there are also well package libido boosters from other lands, which are the hotcakes for the elite and upward mobile in the aphrodisiac market. These ones are not sold in the open drug market, but by specialized vendors and organizations who serves as Nigeria outlets and subsidiary companies of the manufacturers.. Such outlets are located in the high brow and posh areas like Ikeja GRA, Victoria Island and Lekki axis of Lagos where their clients and customers are located. These vendor and outlets also have cute and dedicated staffs to meet the kind of clients they are targeted for.
While a few these outlets have syndicated columns in newspapers which they use to drive the attention of clients to their products, others use web based and social media platforms to reach target customers. Vendors in these variants of libido boosters targets the rich of the society, the young elite and the upward mobile. The prices of the products speaks to the class of the target audience as prices of their products ranges between N2,500 to N15,000. Investigation also reveals that apart from products for men, these vendors and outlet also have sexual arousal products for women too!
Emeka Eze, a businessman, however does not believe that people should use sex enhancers. According to him, aphrodisiacs may have side effects that would on the long run affect ones health. “Why should a man shorten his life trying to satisfy his partner in bed? There are a lot of side effects in using such drugs” he declared, as a matter of fact. This, Dr. Kunle Taiwo of the Medical Emergency, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) said may always not be the case. According to him, using sex booster is good for those who have problems with their sexual life, but at the same time, it is not advisable to use for people who have heart related problems.
“People who have health problems should avoid using sex enhancers or libido boosters because it can lead to sudden death. Apart from that, it is safe”, he said. “If you have been diagnosed to be hypertensive or you are managing a heart related problem, heart failure and things like that, you should avoid using it” he warned. According to him, people who also use herbal mixture as stimulants are also endangering their lives. “It is all a lie when people tell you that Sepe, Paraga or Alomo increase their sexual performance. These substances have up to 40 per cent alcohol content which is harmful to the body. They are just deceiving themselves and endangering their health and lives,” he said.
Culled from : Sunnews online
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