Prof. Samuel Oluwalana from Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta, stated that Nigeria loses significant money by not exporting human feces, cockroaches, and scorpions.
The lecturer noted that the American government receives $3.5 billion every year for protecting astronauts in space.
The Forest Resources Management Professor discussed “Unearthing The Treasures In The Forest” at the 47th Annual General Meeting in Abeokuta.
The don also mentioned that Nigeria has a great opportunity to earn billions of naira by exporting a large number of cockroaches to China, where people consume them.
He cited cases from indigenous knowledge, some of the uses of forest and animal resources for health, commerce and wealth creation.
He questioned Nigeria’s abundant forests and their potential to address poverty and health challenges, including various conditions like cancer, diabetes, and infertility.
The don encouraged Nigerians to value Indigenous Knowledge, considering it a gold mine of age-old methods for understanding nature’s uses as medicine and wealth.
According to him, one butterfly is bought for $500 in Singapore. We can imbibe the South African culture by producing bees. Cricket also generates money. Nigerian scorpion, one is $50,000.
“A gallon of 4.75 litres of the venom is $99 million. The Chinese are taking it away, no one is questioning them. Instead of destroying scorpions, you can sell them.
He added, “Cockroaches are the number one food now, we don’t eat cockroaches in Nigeria, they eat in other places, we can produce and send to them, and they will buy. There is a man in China, that has up to six billion cockroaches, overnight, he became a multi-billionaire.
“Human faeces can be processed into charcoal for cooking. Now, Americans will be making $3.5 billion every year from gold extracted from human faeces. They are also taking human faeces to space to protect the astronaut.
In Kenya, people use human feces to build bridges and construct houses. They construct new toilets that convert human feces into cooking fuel, and they can also produce hydrogen from human feces.. You can now transplant human faeces from one person to another. We need to be creative.”
