From Edirin Robinson, in Kaduna
Nigeria has a national vitality problem. With life expectancy hovering around 55 years, a figure sharply contrasting Japan’s 84 years, the longevity gap becomes evident.
According to Ósìnákáchī Àkùmà Kálū, a biophilosopher and longevity scholar, the aging gap isn’t fate but a policy failure —the result of several conditions and choices. He opined it is more than just a health crisis—it is a crisis of capacity.
The World Health Organization (WHO, 2015), defines healthy aging as the ability to sustain the intrinsic capacity of the human organism, its physical, cognitive, and psychosocial reserves, at the highest level possible, in a way that enables individuals to be and to do what they value, not merely to survive, but to live well.
Kálū observed that Nigerians are not just dying early; they are spending their older years struggling with mobility and sick health. The burning question then, is not how long Nigerians live, but how well they live.
The solution, he pointed, is not waiting on imported Western cures, but returning to two powerful, often-ignored national resources: preventive physiotherapy and indigenous biodiversity.
Physiotherapy (also known as physical therapy) is a science-based healthcare profession concerned with maximizing human movement and functional ability. It involves the use of physical approaches—such as exercise, manual therapy, and various physical modalities (like heat, cold, or electrical currents)—to promote, maintain, and restore physical, psychological, and social well-being.
.Why Nigerians are Aging Prematurely
Kálū described Nigeria as facing a “perfect storm” that accelerates decline, one where modern lifestyle is actively undermining the health of many Nigerians due to several factors such as sedentary Urbanization — Millions of Nigerians sit for hours daily, trapped in traffic. This dramatic decrease in physical activity erodes muscle mass and capacity.
He lamented the dietary shift from biodiversity-rich staple foods to ultra-processed carbohydrates, which affects genomic stability and fuels inflammation, and an unfriendly environment choked with polluted air, water, untested drugs and chemicals taking a toll on the population’s physical and mental well-being.
He insists that the ability of Nigerians to sustain intrinsic capacity—physical, cognitive, and psychosocial reserves—is the true measure of a healthy nation. If aging is a disease, then physiotherapy, Kálū argues, is the primary preventative medicine hence, Nigerians must discard the notion of physiotherapy as merely a recovery tool for accidents or surgery.
“A community-based physiotherapy program can help older Nigerians maintain their mobility, independence, and active social participation. By restoring muscle strength and joint flexibility, improving balance and coordination, physiotherapy is not merely a rehabilitative intervention but a vitality-sustaining intervention,” Kálū states.
The Power of Indigenous Foods
This crucial solution, however, must not stand alone. Kálū advocates for pairing physiotherapy with evolutionary nutrition, grounding health strategy into ancestral diet. Nigeria is blessed with a diversity of foods that are rich in nutrients and capable of not just repairing tissues or healing the body but also keeping us sound in mind.
He is critical of the billions of dollars Nigerians spend on imported nutraceuticals and supplements, often with questionable research backing, when far superior solutions are in our backyards.
“Our indigenous foods, which Western biomedicine has ignored at its own peril, are some of the most powerful solutions to our longevity problems,” he cautions. “Ukwa (breadfruit), ogbono (Irvingia gabonensis), moringa leaves, bitter leaf, millet, and palm fruit oil are all bioequivalent to, if not better than, many of the imported nutraceuticals, vitamins, and functional foods on which Nigerians have spent billions of dollars.
“Moringa’s antioxidants, for instance, are comparable to those found in pharmaceutical-grade drugs; palm carotenoids are pharmaceutical equivalents of vitamin A. These foods can help repair mitochondria, stabilize DNA, and prevent inflammation.
However, a majority of Nigerians are ignorant of these local resources. The faddish promotion of imported supplements and so-called superfoods far outstrip what can be found in farmyards.
Aligning with researchers like Dr. Nadine Hoosen of South Africa who stressed that physiotherapy must not be a stand-alone solution but one that is integrated with culturally-grounded nutrition, Kálū insists any intervention must be specific to our ecology.
“We must launch a biodiversity-based nutraceutical industry in places like Enugu, Ibadan, and Abuja, transforming local foods into valuable functional products that create jobs and protect families.”
The Economic Implication of Healthy Aging
The Longevity Scholar highlights an undeniable economic logic: an older Nigerian who can walk to the market without pain, climb stairs without a cane, and support grandchildren without musculoskeletal pain is not only healthier but a continuous contributor to the family economy.
He or she also becomes a continuous contributor to the family economy, avoids expensive hospital visits and potential bedsores, and alleviates the burdens of younger caregivers. Imagine this repeated on a mass scale of tens of millions of households.
“For most Nigerians, this is a personal question. Will their parents and grandparents be able to maintain mobility and independence into their seventies? Will they, as a community, have to bear the financial and caregiving costs of avoidable disability and decline? Will Nigerians, as a nation, consider aging to be a form of decline, or a form of continuity?
“This is fundamentally an ethical question, too. As the Igbo proverb says, ndụ bụ isi (“life is the head”). Life well-lived is more precious than a good funeral. Vitality is necessary for the elderly to express and pass on the wisdom that defines our culture.”
He estimates that, preventive physiotherapy alone can save billions of naira in hospitalization costs, avoidable falls, and fractures while creating entirely new markets: physiotherapy clinics in the suburbs of Lagos and Ibadan, physiotherapy mobile applications in Abuja, B-D-STRO’s wellness tourism in Calabar, or the biodiversity-based nutraceutical and functional food industry in Enugu, Ibadan, and Abuja.
“Every innovation creates jobs, protects families, and sustains national productivity. A shift to community-based physiotherapy programs can help older Nigerians maintain mobility and independence, saving the healthcare system billions.”
The investment opportunity here is also huge. By some estimates, the global longevity economy will be worth more than $27 trillion by 2050. Nigeria has one of the world’s fastest-growing older adult populations, and if we are not careful, we will be left behind in the new bioeconomy.
.The Policy Choice: A Call for Change
The stakes couldn’t be clearer as the cost of premature aging becomes evident —workforce dropouts as a result of musculoskeletal decline, healthcare costs of otherwise preventable chronic diseases, truncated intergenerational support cycles.
The World Academy of Medical Sciences (WAMS) has already established that integrative approaches that combine rehabilitation medicine, regenerative biomedicine, and preventive care are the way forward in healthy aging.
Kálū’s organization —Afrolongevity and Health of the Future, advocates for closing the longevity divide by leveraging biodiversity and integrating physiotherapy into mainstream healthcare. They emphasize professionalizing indigenous nutritional wisdom to promote vitality and well-being.
“Healthy aging is not merely about individuals. It is about the Nigerian economy, our Nigerian culture, and our Nigerian future. Physiotherapy is that bridge between science and society, between clinical medicine and daily living.
“Intrinsic capacity can be sustained to a high level deep into advanced age, but only if we act now. Our biodiversity is waiting. Our physiotherapists and clinicians are ready. The only question is whether Nigeria is ready to invest in vitality,” he stated.
Nigeria stands at a crossroad, faced with a choice: continue down a path of dependence on imported supplements and superficial foods at the cost of billions, or tap into the vast potential of its local resources by investing in physiotherapy and evolutionary nutrition to bridge the longevity gap.
