The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Umaru Sule Garkida whose local herbs have been helping people living with the Human Immuno-defficiency Virus/Acquired Immune-deficiency Syndrome(HIV/AIDS), has received an award for exemplary leadership.

Alhaji Umaru received a Golden Star certificate and plague given by Abuja-based Beema Communications Limited at a celebration over the weekend.

A letter to the recipient of the award signed by Chairman of the award planning committee of the organisation, Ahmed Y. Ibrahim, said "the award is in recognition of your immense contribution to the discovery and invention of HIV/AIDS drugs that has wonderfully elongated the lives of people living with AIDS in Nigeria and Africa as a whole."

According to the statement, the committee is pleased with the AIDS doctor's "vaulting achievements", saying "your gradients on the assessment scale adequately qualify you as a recipient of the third edition of the prestigious MSAEL 2008 Award."

The statement told Alhaji Umaru that in giving him this award, it would ginger him the more to continue to contribute to the development of Nigeria.

Responding, the award recipient who thanked the committee for recognising his effort against HIV/AIDS, said "throughout the history of mankind, no sickness or disease ever held mankind to ransom like the scourge of AIDS."

He said the disease has defied all known human effort both orthodox and traditional in its mass destruction of human race, adding that "it was against this background that I sacrifice against my own good health to confront the virus head on."

Alhaji Umaru, who is the Vice President of the National Association of Traditional medicine Practitioners of Nigeria, had in 1998 signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Abuja-based National Institute for Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD) to develop the herbs into orthodox drugs.

It was, however, learnt that the process was abandoned when both parties could not agre on the disclosure of the raw materials and the preparation method of the herbal medicine by Alhaji Umaru.

However, some university teaching hospitals are currently undertaking clinical trials of the officer's herbal drugs on AIDS patients under strict and close supervision of some professors and medical experts.