Weekend Arena - Over 25% Of Nigerians Have Mental Issues;Look Well Before You Fall In Love

The media space has been inundated with some of the ugliest stories, revolving around violence against the female gender in the past couple of weeks. Some of these stories are so ugly that they make the stomach walls convulse in bewilderment. 

They read like scenes in a classic action movie directed by a John Woo and remind one of murder schemes designed by a Mario Puzo. Some are so strange and unbelievable, that the typical Nigerian Christian would be quick to remind one of the Last Days, as predicted in the Bible. 

From Edo, to Oyo and Lekki in Lagos, it has been tales of extreme violence, mostly directed at the girl child. While Nigerians were mourning the death, inside a church, of Uwaila Omozuwa, a microbiology undergraduate at the University of Benin, after she was reportedly sexually violated, similar incidents happened in Oyo state, leading to the deaths of two young ladies, who were equally violated sexually.



But the story of the couple (Chris Ndukwe and Olamide Alli) at an estate in Lekki, Lagos, perhaps, took it to a higher pedestal, following the gory narratives that are emanating from the murder. Although, the story has had several dilutions, typical of passive accounts when the main characters are not alive to offer explanations, the take away remains that the 39 year old man tied his spouse’s legs and hands with tapes, pulled out her braids with pliers, stabbed her about eleven times, including on her eyes before consuming a poisonous substance, which killed him. The deaths according to available reports have instantly made their two kids orphans.



So many reasons have been attributed to the ugly incident, but the truth remains that no offence, contrived or real, save from an attempt at life, is enough to be meted with such brutality, especially to a woman one has shared so much with in the past! To imagine someone driving a kitchen knife into a spouse eleven times, when a whole lot of us find it grim to slaughter a harmless fowl, bred by an unknown farmer and bought with our hard-earned money, leaves one with one conclusion: so many people are mentally deranged.



One can only appreciate the prevalence of mental illness in Nigeria, by studying a 2016 research written in a journal, ‘Annals of Nigerian Medicine’ by Dauda Suleiman of the Department of Pathology, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital, Zaria, which posited that mental illness in the country runs in 20% to 30% of the population! The enormity of this can be deduced when one computes this against a total population of 200 million people.

 That is over 50 million! Some are wont to limit their imagination of mental illness to only those who are dirty and naked, trekking from one market to another bus stop. Beyond the markets or bus stops or even the psychiatric homes, there are many responsible-looking husbands, boyfriends, bosses in the offices, lecturers, pastors and also politicians (of both sexes, I must stress) who have such illnesses and have the propensity to unleash terror, may be not in the gruesome manner as exhibited by Chris Ndukwe.



The similar accounts of a father of 43, defiling his 5 year old daughter in Anambra or a man of 20 raping a 70 year old woman in Osun, all point to one trait-mental imbalance, to put it mildly. This could be responsible for that boss in the office, who dispenses sadistic approach to everything he does. Once, a certain boss in a particular company in Lagos had one of his hardworking staffers confined in the office’s toilet for hours. The story is simple: the lock on the toilet was malfunctioning and suddenly refused to open when the staffer finished using the facility. All entreaties to break the door, so this staffer could come out, were met with stiff opposition by the boss. According to him, breaking the door would be noisy. 

He insisted everyone must wait for the company’s carpenter, who was away on another assignment in another end of the town returns to do it expertly and noiselessly. That kept the guy inside the toilet for almost 5 hours! How would someone define this?

If not for mental illness, why would a politician steal public funds in a manner that depicts foolishness? Some politicians in Nigeria own homes they have not stepped foot on or made any money from in ten years, yet they are busy diverting funds for simple road repairs to their personal accounts, because they have the opportunity. When a hunter has killed an elephant as a game, and still turns to run after a cricket, then the person needs to be examined.

It is high time Nigeria started paying attention to the mental wellbeing of her citizens. While urging couples to undergo a genotype compatibility test before marriage, similar efforts should also be directed towards mental health. As he or she smiles to you, as in wooing you, with his genotype and HIV status, kindly ask for the accompanying mental analysis certificate. 

When he hits you in the morning and comes in the evening to apologise that he did not know what came over him, believe him, but act accordingly. He actually does not know! For our government, isolation centres should equally be directed to people who fail mental fitness tests, not only COVID-19 tests.

*Lovely writeup...Please follow Ngozi on his Instagram handle cos Weekend arena will move there soon...