Aspilia pluriseta
is associated with various bioactivities, although with limited scientific justification. In this study, we evaluated the antimicrobial activity, and characterized the phytochemicals of root extracts of
A. pluriseta
aimed at validating its therapeutic potential. We used BACTEC MGIT™ 960 system to test for antitubercular activity, disc-diffusion together with the microdilution method to evaluate antimicrobial activities and qualitative phytochemical tests together with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis to determine the phytochemicals that associated with
A. pluriseta
extracts activity. We show that methanolic crude extract (at 1 g/mL) had high
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
(MTB) inhibitory activity (0 growth unit) and considerable potency against
Escherichia coli
(11.7 mm),
Staphylococcus aureus
(9.0 mm), and
Candida albicans
(7.7 mm). All the extract fractions exerted remarkable antimycobacterial activities with minimum inhibitory activity of between 6.26 – 25 μg/mL. The highest antimicrobial activity of petroleum ether and dichloromethane fraction was against
E. coli
at inhibition zone diameters of 8.3 mm, and 8.0 mm, respectively, while ethyl acetate fraction was against
S. aureus
with an inhibition zone of 8.7 mm. Methanolic fraction exhibited broad-spectrum activity against 87.5% of the tested microbes (inhibition zones 6.3–8.3 mm). Furthermore, we qualitatively detected terpenoids, alkaloids, and phenolics such as flavonoids, and anthraquinones in extract fractions. GC-MS analysis detected an abundance of fatty acid esters, 2-hydroxy-1-(hydroxymethyl) ethyl ester-hexadecanoic acid, and 2,3-dihydroxy propyl ester-octadecanoic acid and four alkanes. Taken together, we show that
A. pluriseta
extract fractions (especially ethyl acetate and methanolic fractions) have strong selective antitubercular activity, and thus, we scientifically validate the use of
A. pluriseta
as a potential source for the discovery of novel antitubercular agents.