Paper short abstract:

This study investigates the anthropocentric and other causative factors for the sudden collapse of Nigeria’s hitherto sublime health regime and the onset of serious health ailments unknown to Africans before now and seeks new ways of improving the connectivity between the environment and health.

Paper long abstract:

This study documents oral and written narratives that form a major part of Nigeria’s history, reality, and identity and analyses the connection and impact of the environment on the total health of her citizens. One such narrative shows how communities in Nigeria, a century ago, were known for the longevity of people’s lives and a high level of self-dependency, especially in the provision of food and healthcare. The lands yielded sufficient produce that served not only as food but as medicine to the inhabitants. There was little or no complexity in medical care as there was a cure for every ailment in the natural care largely dependent on herbal remedies, exercises, and organic foods, unpolluted and unsaturated ecological settings. Things fell apart as the invasion of African cultures by foreign lifestyles appears to have changed the paradigms of health status from the time of yore as told by our grannies. The change in everything and not just climate change cannot be overemphasized in African histories, especially contemporary narratives. The study therefore investigates the anthropocentric and other causative factors for the sudden collapse of Nigeria’s hitherto sublime health regime and the onset of serious health ailments unknown to Africans before now. The study relies on critical and comparative analysis of the histories to document the history of planetary ill-health and socio-cultural health practices that remain underrepresented in scholarship, and to establish new ways of improving the connectivity between the environment and the health or general well-being of Nigerian citizens.