A national discourse around mental health challenges is long overdue in Nigeria. It is heartbreaking and infuriating to see how mental health issues are ignored in our nation.
People who wake up every day with these issues ever so present in their lives are dismissed because they do not have the physical evidence that accompanies other forms of diseases. In those cases where their issues are more blatantly manifested, they are labelled as “mad” and remanded to substandard clinics that focus on eradicating symptoms rather than treating the root causes of the problem. In the end, they fail at both.
Depression, bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, and many other mental illnesses are often described as “white people problems,” even by Nigerian medical professionals meant to deliver care to those battling these illnesses. This mentality surrounding the issue of mental health challenges makes it hard for people struggling with these diseases to come out and ensures that they are not taken seriously when they do.
Recently, Onyeka Nwelue, a Nigerian filmmaker, author, and founder of the James Curry Society at the African Studies Centre in the University of Oxford, took to his Twitter account to describe his ordeal with an NDLEA official at the Muritala Mohammed Airpot in Lagos, Nigeria.
According to him, after seeing his psychiatric medications, the officer told him that he wouldn’t be mad if he accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour.
This officer’s response to Nwelue’s mental health challenges gives us insight into how the average Nigerian views mental illness. He sees it as the fault of the victim, a non-issue, for which treatment is unnecessary.
The above perspective is why many Nigerian parents with children suffering from mental health challenges often find it hard to accept that their children or child has a real problem. Those parents who eventually see that their child isn’t just “faking” his inability to concentrate or lack of social skills, immediately begin to look for different ways to “cure” such a child that does not involve hospitals and proper medication.
One cannot deny the difficulty that can sometimes come with raising a child with special needs but this still doesn’t invalidate the fact that such children require professional help and that anything short of that might be harmful for the child in the long run.
Perhaps most of the blame should be laid on the sub-par mental health facilities in Nigeria, where people are reportedly put in chains, treated worse than animals, and denied the right to exercise their free will.
The fact that being open about these challenges will bring little or no help keeps sufferers away and increases the stigma surrounding mental health issues.
In a country like Nigeria, where the ground beneath your feet can seize to be solid at any moment, it is vital that mental health, its manifestations, treatment, and the disabilities that accompany it, take centre stage and stop being constantly pushed to the background.