By Osigbesan Sultan Luqman Osinowo
The first time this writer met ‘Dr’ Sylvester Anosike alias “‘Dr’ Okoro”, “Baba Flusher”, “Baba Cruise” in a bus belonging to the Abuja Urban Mass Transportation Company (AUMTC), he reluctantly bought one unit of Mazi Anosike’s Pure Cruise Natural Oil (PCNO).
The next time the writer would see him, having called “Baba Flusher” up himself to meet him at the popular Sky Memorial Bus Stop, Wuse Abuja, the writer purchased 10 units of Anosike’s Pure Cruise Natural Oil, willingly – four for himself and six for a friend who had never set an eye on the oil or Anosike.
One would not have met the 55-year- old mobile marketer from Obowu Village in Obowu Local Government, Imo State, if one had not taken the decision, about a decade ago, that whenever Nigeria decided to happen to her citizenry via the shameful act of fuel scarcity in one of the top-10 oil-producing nations of the world, one would rather take to the public transportation system – with all its existential imports – than suffer the indignity of sleeping on any fuel queue, or shelling out your hard-earned cash on black market oil channels, which, somehow, continue to flow while supplies convulse at the pumps.
Now, the leap from buying a unit of Pure Cruise Natural Oil to 10 in one swoop fell was not as straightforward as it reads above. Indigenous medicine does not have a huge advertising budgets of conventional pharmaceutical companies, apart from the slander and libel it faces from the educated elites as a group for a sundry of reasons beyond the scope of this piece. So you could understand my reluctance.
However, it helped that Anosike first offered several copies of an overly photocopied presumably long-lost, original of his Black and White flyer advertising his Pure Cruise Natural Oil spiced with grainy pictures of the surfeits of ailments it can either cure or alleviate – from eye-related problems to pains, to scorpion bites and what have you – Gbogbonise (Cure-All) we call it in Yoruba.
Taking a break from thumbing at my laptop, I skimmed through Baba Cruise’s claims in the flyer. I was impressed by his candor. While he pitched his oil as a silver bullet for a lot of bodily disorders, the caveat: “All claim (sic) not evaluated by NAFDAC” was printed boldly on the flyer.
“Good enough,” the Inner Being quipped at the Sceptic Self. “Buy it for the dry eye you have been buying ***fenac for every 30 days and over years. It is N800 now. You part with N800 every 30 days for it. Do you know how much you have spent on that tiny thing all these years? Has it cured you of dry eye all this while?
By now, Anosike has produced a small bottle of Pure Cruise Natural Oil from a weather-beaten sling-bag across his tall frame and dishing out how to apply it to several infirmities. He consistently dipped a finger in the bottle to lick it.
“He said you should not put it into your eyes; just rub it on your eyelid, morning night, for three days. So what are you waiting for, Mr. Doubting Thomas? O ya buy one!,” Inner Being mocked.
So I bought a bottle at N500 – reluctantly still.
I refused to lick the oil at home – only rubbing it on my troublesome left eye – and rubbing it on the left, creaky side of the body.
After a day or two – I did not tract it – I noticed I could sling my laptop bag on the left side of the body without feeling that I had turned off the flow of blood to it and the aches were gone.
Suddenly, I also realized that I have not use the half-gone tiny tube of ***fenac I carried on my person everywhere since I stated using Pure Cruise Natural Oil. No sharp pain in the eye. No redness as a result of non-lubrication with conventional eye-drop.
The full efficacious weight of Pure Cruise Natural Oil for my dry eye would hit me some days later on a 300-kilometre journey. Hours after arriving at my destination, it suddenly occurred to me that despite being exposed to full gusts of dry, dusty winds on the journey my left eye was as moist as the right, and had not acquired the redness such windy assault brought on in less than five minutes of similar exposures in the past – with searing pains and headaches.
Placebo effect?
Well, let me recruit another chronic sceptic of traditional medicine. I pitched the oil to Madam who also reported undoubted relief from an aching foot – and urged a purchase of a spare bottle when next I encounter Mazi Anosike.
I had also glibly told a senior journalist about Pure Cruise Natural Oil. He ordered six bottles for his aged mother to trial – and returned a positive review on the oil’s efficacy for her!
The hunt for Baba Cruise suddenly became a matter of urgency. I got Anosike via his phone number on his flyer and took delivering of 10 units.
“Now that you know Pure Cruise Natural Oil works for you and others, at least for dry eye and body aches. Shouldn’t you help poor Baba Flusher as a journalist? If his oil were some Western medicine invention, won’t you publish the “breakthrough” in your newspaper I swear by it everywhere? You educated Africans are the problem of Africa. You have been thoroughly mis-educated to hate your heritage! Phew!”, Inner Being launched a blistering attack.
“Cut it off! I’ll do it!” I shot back.
Some days later, I sat with Mr. Anosike under the busy Dei-Dei Bridge at 9 in the morning, lying in wait for an AUMTC bus both of us could jump on so that he could pitch Pure Cruise Natural Oil while I take his photograph in action. We waited for about two hours before one came along. Another mobile marketer was already onboard and the rule of the game says he must have the first shot at selling. The camaraderie among these itinerants is also that the first should not drag his or her pitch all the way to town, and Mr. Anosike was able to do his thing on my chase too.
Before he could even do two minute, the bus conductor interrupted him: “Baba Flusher, my mother said your oil worked for her o. It has finished now but I don’t have the money to buy now. I will buy another one for later today”. May be I also swore to it to the two gentlemen beside me. You can guess the immediate result in demand in the bus…
But how did Mr. Anosike came about Pure Cruise Natural Oil? “I inherited it from my father who used to sell it at Orieumuahia in Umuahia, Abia State. I used to help him prepare it. But I did not know the ingredients then. My father died in 1991 and I forgot about the oil.”
However, providence would force Mr. Anosike back to Pure Cruise Natural Oil. Leaving home, he settled down in Jos, Plateau State where he ran a successful Chemist business for years. But then tragedy struck through the Jos crisis and his Chemist business was burned to the ground.
With no capital to start another business even in another town, Mr. Anosike then he remembered his late father’s oil. Homewards he went to an old friend of his father (now deceased too) who knew what Mr. Anosike’s father compounded to produce Pure Cruise Oil. And that was how Mr. Anosike started preparing and selling the oil on his own.
Anosike assures that Pure Cruise Natural Oil provides great relief for many ailments. His advertising flier proclaims that the oil can cure “headache, body pain, back pain, rheumatic, waist pain, toothache, ulcer and eye problems”, to list just a few ailments, and all you need do is rub it on the affected part. It has no expiry date.
Certainly, Anosike has something worth looking at by NAFDAC. However, Mr. Anosike, who is a member of the Herbal Producers Association of Nigeria (HEPSAN), Abuja Branch, does not have the funds to secure any NAFDAC certification, though willing to submit his oil for testing. Therefore, he seeks government’s help to scale up his production of Pure Cruise Natural Oil.
Anosike’s Pure Cruise Natural Oil’s future is uncertain as none of his four children are interested in it, preferring education and white collar jobs after graduating from the university. That will be most unfortunate.
To purchase Pure Cruise Natural Oil from any part of Nigeria, call Mr. Anosike on 08060516381 and 09055570888 (Shipping cost applies)
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