Issues
Fighting Mental Health Stigma In Nigeria
Anita Madaki, an undergraduate, has been battling with intense feeling of unworthiness; that feeling has been so strong and overwhelming that she no longer derives pleasure in things that were once pleasurable to her.
She is also finding it difficult to concentrate, and keeps complaining of fatigue, irritability and sleeping disorders.
The once extroverted lady has become withdrawn and a shadow of herself.
There is something even more frightening – she tells everyone that cares to listen to her that she was no more useful and was better off dead. She appears optimistic that she will be happier with the serenity in the grave.
Madaki says she has tried talking to her parents, siblings and friends, but no one appears to have a grasp of what she is going through.
“My parents say I am acting strange. They have cautioned me to be careful what I say. My father has warned that he cannot have a lunatic for a child and has threatened to disown me if I showed further signs of bringing reproach to the family name.
“I have thought to myself and my conclusion is that if no one understands me, then I better end it.
“I keep hearing voices in my head telling me to end it and find peace. At a point, I considered quaffing a poisonous substance, but delayed that a bit when I surfed the Internet and found out that there were many people feeling the same way.
“In the Internet, I discovered that the traits I was exhibiting were the symptoms of depression and decided to seek counsel in a mental health care facility.
“At the facility, I learnt that depression, like any other physical health challenge, could be handled and the victim rescued from the fatal option of suicide.’’
Few weeks after confiding with the mental health medics, Madaki is back to her former self and is gradually returning to her classes. The thoughts of suicide are gone. She still believes that the situation would have degenerated to the worst if she had listened to the fears about what people would think of her if she visited a mental home.
Madaki counts herself lucky that she did not allow the stigma associated with visiting a mental health facility and being branded a “mad’’ person stop her from seeking medical assistance.
Analysts, indeed, agree that Madaki was lucky that she sought medical assistance because many in her shoes had opted for suicide.
Two weeks ago, for instance, the son of a vice chancellor in a federal university committed suicide because he was angry with his parents for scolding him.
He had misused monies given to him and felt neglected when the parents threatened to stop further assistance to him if he did not change.
The student did not see a need to share his anxieties, fears and frustrations with relations, friends or school mates before ending his life.
Similarly, the choir director of a popular Abuja-based church, who appeared a happy and contented person, took his life recently. As expected, everyone was surprised because he was always cheerful.
Analysts say that sharing his inner feelings with others or even seeking help in a mental facility would have saved him from going for the worst option.
There is also this case of a student in Jos that killed himself because he failed to make the cut-off marks in his Joint Admission and Matriculation Board (JAMB) examinations. The student was said to be angry that his friends were leaving him behind after failing the test for the second time.
The fellow was mentally depressed, yes, but he could have had some counselling on the way forward. He did not consider that before killing himself. In his mental derailment, he thought that ending it all was the best solution.
Not long ago, too, a student killed himself because he got a second class upper, when he targeted a first class! This one is surprising because even some people with pass degrees had excelled in the practice of their professions.
The examples are as many as they are intriguing, but Dr Friday Philip, a psychiatrist with Jos University Teaching Hospital (JUTH), says that most of the cases of suicide occur because emotional and mental health issues are often neglected and not accorded similar degree of importance as bodily health.
He regrets that many end their lives without knowing they had depression and even those who knew, didn’t have the courage to seek medical help due to the stigma associated with seeking professional assistance in view of the fear that people will consider them as lunatics that are mentally unfit for usual life.
Philip particularly chided members of the society for regarding every visitor to the psychiatrist as mentally deranged, saying that the stigma was forcing people into delusion, self withdrawal and suicide.
“When a person gets sick, the individual will see a doctor to seek counselling and professional advice. Seeing a psychiatrist should mean the same thing – seeking help and advice.
“Unfortunately, in our society, going to a psychiatrist often suggests to family members that the patient is insane or a lunatic. When they have such feeling, they worsen the problem by avoiding the affected person without encouraging him or her to trudge through,’’ he said.
He said that keeping mental health challenge to oneself is “highly detrimental”, noting that many lives had been lost because of such attitude.
“People hardly seek help for mental challenges because of the stigma usually associated with such situations. Unfortunately, by the time the challenge is discovered, it is usually too late,” he said.
He emphasised the need to avoid such stigmatisation, saying that it had discouraged many from seeking psychiatric help early enough.
He also advised people with symptoms of depression to promptly seek professional medical help.
Mrs. Ijeoma Laluwoye, a clinical psychologist with University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, equally says that a feeling of overwhelming fatigue, sleeping disorder and internal feeling of loneliness are symptoms of depression.
Other symptoms, she says, include loss of interest in things that one initially derived joy from, inability to concentrate, and the feeling of worthlessness.
“Very often, too, a depressed person appears lost in deep thoughts,” she adds.
She blames the rise in depression on the rapid global changes, adding that 90 per cent of people who commit suicide are depressed individuals that would have had a change of mind if they sought and got some professional help.
According to her, “stress, when poorly managed, can also lead to depression’’.
“The trend is a global cause of various other diseases because it usually affects an individual’s overall health status,’’ she states.
Dr Charles Nwaoga, an expert in psychiatry medicine at Quintessential Healthcare, Jos says that government and wealthy individuals must boost access to mental healthcare by establishing more mental health facilities in Nigeria.
“Establishing such mental facilities is becoming more imperative with the increasing cases of mental illness in the country,’’ he says.
According to him, mental health services are barely accessible outside the state capitals, adding that there is an urgent need to establish mental healthcare facilities at the grassroots.
He also called on the government to subsidise the treatment of mental illness to encourage more people to seek for it.
Like Nwaoga, many analysts say that there is the need for more mental health facilities in the country. They also suggest more enlightenment toward encouraging depressed people to visit the facilities so as to get the right attention and curtail the rising tide of suicides, especially among young Nigerians.
Odega writes for the News Agency of Nigeria.
Blessing Odega
This is an open letter to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Chief Nyesom Wike.
Your Excellency,
Sir, ordinarily, I would not be writing an open letter to you, but like a wise man once said, “Silence would be Treason.” So I prefer to stay alive than face the consequences of silence in the face of crime. With each passing day, and as the socio-political tides continue to turn, it has become more pertinent that more people speak up in a concerted MANNER to prevent the death of our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as we appear to be, in the words of W. B. Yeats, “turning and turning in the widening gyre” heading for an end where the falcon will no longer hear the falconer
It is unfortunate that since losing control of the Federal Government, with the loss of President Goodluck Jonathan at the poll in 2015, our party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has continued on a downward spiral. It is much more painful, that where it is expected that leaders within the party should rise to the challenge and put an end to this decline of our great party, some have instead taken up roles as its undertaker.
It will be hypocritical to claim aloofness to what I believe is your grouse with the PDP and I am not a hypocrite. It will be uncharitable on my part to discountenance the role you have played in strengthening the PDP from 2015 up until the last Presidential primaries of the party. It is my belief that your grouse against certain members of the party who you perceived worked against the party and abandoned it in 2015 and then came around much later to take control of the party, is justified. Also know that your decision to remain in the Party and stifle its progress on the other hand, as a sort of payback, stands condemned. For a man of your pedigree and stature, it is a dishonorable act, highly dishonorable and stands as testimony against all you claim to stand for.
At least, it can be argued that those who you hold this grudge against, abandoned the party completely and did not sit back while actively working to destroy it from within. But what then can be the argument on your own part, seeing that those you are currently working with against your party are the same people who set in motion, and executed surgically, the plans that not only ended our Party’s leadership at the centre, but ended up dislodging the first Niger Deltan to occupy Aso Rock as Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces. Is this not akin to “cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face?” That will be worse than folly. Let us not throw away the baby with the bath water because we do not like the soap used in bathing the baby. It will be a grave mistake.
Honourable Minister, sir, it is rather unfortunate that of all people, you have also decided to play the role of an undertaker not only for our party, but for our dear Rivers State.
I will like to take you down memory lane a little. Let me remind you of your emergence as Guber candidate of the PDP in Rivers State, against all fairness and justice in 2014. You will remember that despite the reality being that you as an Ikwerre man was poised to replace a fellow Ikwerre man in Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi in our multiethnic state, Rivers people overwhelmingly stood by you and pushed for your emergence as Executive Governor of Rivers State in 2015. I dare say that your popularity in the entire Niger Delta region was at an all-time high at this point.
I want you to understand why you were loved across board leading to your eventual emergence as Governor of Rivers State in 2015; it was because when it looked like all were against the second term ambitions of the first Niger Delta man to emerge as President of Nigeria, you became not just a pillar but a beacon of resistance by standing for Goodluck Jonathan. Rivers people, as grateful and rewarding as they can be, paid you back by ensuring your electoral victory against the incumbent All Progressives Congress (APC) led by your predecessor. On your emergence, where there were second term Governors in the region, you, a first term Governor, was seen by the people as not just the leader of the PDP, but the leader of the entire Niger Delta region. You earned it, and no one could dispute it.
In 2019, when your re-election bid was being challenged ferociously, Rivers people once again stood solidly behind you. Many were killed in the process of defending your votes. Do you remember Dr. Ferry Gberegbe that was shot and killed while trying to protect your votes in Khana Local Government Area? There are many more unnamed and unrecognised sons and daughters of Rivers State who sacrificed their lives so that you could emerge as a second term Governor of Rivers State.
In 2022/23, Honourable Minister, you oversaw a party primary across board that saw some candidates imprisoned and internal party democracy jettisoned for your wishes, leading to the emergence of flag bearers of our party all singlehandedly picked by you. You have on more than one occasion publicly stated that you paid for all their forms. Even those shortchanged in this process licked their wounds and continued to play their roles as party members to ensure the success of the party at all levels. In what will go down as one of the most keenly contested elections in recent Rivers history, with formidable candidates like Senator Magnus Abe of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the vibrant youth driven Labour Party (LP), PDP emerged victorious across board except for Phalga Constituency 1 that was lost to the Labour Party. (Not that you did not loose in some other LGA’s but let’s stick to the official figures declared by INEC).
It begs the question, why then do you want to burn down Rivers State, when everyone who now holds political office emerged through a process designed and endorsed by you? Is it that you do not care about Rivers people and you are all about yourself? If so, I am forced to believe that those around you are not telling you the truth. The truth being that in a state where your words were law; where houses and businesses could be demolished or closed down without any recourse to legalities, where Executive Orders could be deployed to stifle the opposition, that your popularity is now at an all-time low. Probably because they are afraid of you, or of losing the benefits they gain from you, they fail to tell you that what you might perceive as a battle against your successor, has slowly but gradually degenerating into a battle against Rivers State and Rivers people. You know, there is a popular saying that, a man can cook for the community and the community will finish the food, but when a community decides to cook for one man, the reverse is the case.
LEAVE FUBARA ALONE
You have gone on and on about being betrayed by Governor Siminalayi Fubara. You point fingers forgetting that some of those same fingers quick to spot betrayals point straight back at you. It is not Governor Fubara that has betrayed the PDP by working against it in the just concluded General Election, and working with the opposition at the State and Federal level to destabilise the party. It is you, Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that betrayed Rivers people by instigating a political crisis with propensity to escalate ethnic tensions in Rivers State. It is you Honourable Minister. It is not Governor Fubara that has declared himself God over all in Rivers State and has no qualms with burning the state to the ground to prove a point. It is you Honourable Minister. It is you Honourable Minister who told the world that the APC was a cancer and you can never support a cancerous party. It is you Honourable Minister who ended up facilitating the emergence of the same “cancerous” APC that has accelerated the economic decline of this country and further impoverished our people with no remorse. All so you can be a Minister of the Federal Capital Territory? The lack of self awareness is gobsmacking.
Some days back I came across a video where you talked about death and how you do not cry when you hear about the death of some people because you have no idea what might have caused it considering many a politician swear “over dead bodies” and still go back on their words. Those words made me think, and I could see the reason behind them. You see, in chosing to be God in the affairs of Rivers people, you have closed your eyes and ears to reason; you see nothing and hear nothing that can cause you to rethink on the path you have chosen. In your quest to “show Fubara” you have unwittingly united a vast majority of Rivers people behind him, so much that even those who despised him because of you, now like or love him, because of you too. In your scheming, I will advise you not to forget that “the voice of the people is the voice of God”.
Note that the war which you have or are waging against Governor Fubara, has gone beyond being merely political as you might see in your minds eye. It is now one that, fortunately for some and unfortunately for others, has evolved into a war against Rivers people. It is good to point out that no one has taken a stand against Rivers people and won. No one has gone against God and won. In your defiant characteristic manner, it will be unfortunate if you believe your own hubris and that of those around you on the possibility of you being the first to successfully go against Rivers people. It will be a needless gamble; one where if you win you create more enemies for yourself than you can withstand on your political journey, and if you lose, your legacy becomes an inglorious and irredeemable one in Rivers State, the Niger Delta, and Nigeria at large. For your sake as regards posterity, it is my greatest wish that you have a moment of sobriety and a deep reflection and introspection on this path you have chosen.
Honourable Minister, sir, what is left of your legacy is on the brink of being completely desecrated and relegated to the dustbin of our political history, and it will be a sad end to what I will say has been a wonderful political career that many can only dream of. The ball is in your court, and may God Almighty have mercy on us all and forgive us for our shortcomings.
Gabriel Baritulem Pidomson
Dr Pidomson is former Chief of Staff, Government House, Port Harcourt and former member, Rivers State House of Assembly.
In 2015, I made a conscious decision to invest my financial resources, my time, and energy into supporting Nyesom Wike’s gubernatorial campaign. I poured my heart and soul into ensuring Nyesom Wike emerged victorious even at the risk of my personal safety.
Again in 2019, I doubled down on my commitment. I invested a significant amount of money to procure campaign outfits for all twenty-three Local Governments Areas of Rivers State. I spared no expense in supplementing Wike’s election efforts in my own local government, and once again putting myself at great risk to safeguard the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
However, despite my unwavering loyalty and sacrifices, I found myself abandoned and forgotten by Wike. Throughout his eight-year tenure, he failed to acknowledge my contributions or fulfill his promises and agreements. Even as a former Deputy Governor, Wike denied me my severance benefit.
My investment in Wike’s governorship was not just financial – it was a commitment of passion, dedication, and belief in a better future for Rivers State. Yet, his leadership style of dishonesty, greed, drunkenness and rash abuse of senior citizens brought me nothing but disappointment, misery and losses.
By the grace of God, today I speak not as a victim, but as a hero. I have accepted my losses, and I have moved on. And as I reflect on my experience, I cannot help but urge Wike to do the same and allow peace and development to reign in Rivers State.
Nyesom Wike, when you speak of investing in Governor Sim Fubara’s election, remember those like me who also invested in you. Remember the sacrifices I made, the risks I took, and the promises and agreements you left unfulfilled.
It is time for you, Wike, to let go of the past and allow Governor Sim Fubara the breathing space he needs to lead Rivers State forward. Allow him to focus on the challenges of good governance and the aspirations of the people. Spare him these unwarranted and ill-conceived political manoeuvrings founded on personal agenda and not for general good of Rivers State and her people.
I may have lost my investment on Wike, but I have not lost hope in the future of Rivers State. And together, we will continue to strive for a brighter tomorrow.
Long Live the Governor to Rivers State, Sir Siminialayi Fubara!
Long Live the Good People of Rivers State!!
Long Live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Engr Ikuru is former Deputy Governor of Rivers State.
Tele Ikuru
