Amid economic woes and its attendant implications on the psyche of the average Nigerian, and the existential struggle to float along with the tide, many have devised means of survival while some unlucky ones have been reduced to leeches blurring the aesthetics of the environment with their imbalanced state of mind. In this piece, EBENEZER ADUROKIYA, ALPHONSUS AGBORH, GODWIN OTANG, HENRIX OLIOMOGBE, EBIOWEI LAWAL AND AMAECHI OKONKWO report the increasing number of Niger Delta residents who are coming down with mental illness.
Delta
From popular Enerhen Junction along Warri-Sapele Road, to Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), down to Roundabout in Warri South and Uvwie Local Government Areas of Delta State, these individuals with psychiatric disorder could be sighted at strategic points with unique, but often similar idiosyncrasies. At the fewest, 12 mentally ill young male and female litter the roadsides in filthy rags or outright nudity. Two of the lot caught the attention of our reporter. She’s a lady of about 25 years looking unkempt and soliloquising hysterically while strolling down the popular Ginuwa Junction. From her famished appearance, she cut a new entrant into the lonely world of the mentally-ill.
Yet at the popular Igbudu Market, one of the lot, this time, a male of about 20 years old, was sighted sitting forlorn behind a kiosk, sucking cooked rice meal, obviously gifted or procured from a food vendor, from a nylon bag. He’s dressed in tattered shorts, bushy, dirty dreads, and from the look of things, he seems to have been on the streets for quite some time. Another, half-clad, dashed into the NPA dual carriageway, absent-minded of the danger his action posed, addressing some imaginary, strange fellows!
This is the sight a first-timer will probably behold when making entry into Oghara, Sapele, Effurun, Warri, Ughelli, Abraka, Ozoro, besides other towns and villages in thge oil-rich state.
The simple inference from the above scenarios tells of a society grappling with a soaring population of mentally-ill fellows with no commensurate medical attention to arrest the tide. Many respondents who gave audience to our correspondent would not shy away from pointing fingers at the killing economic hardship, unrequited love adventure, metaphysical activities and top of all – unending indulgence in mind-bending hard drugs of various shades among the horde of youths, whose other pernicious pastime is engagement in Ponzi schemes.
A respondent among the lot, Victoria Dede, 24-year-old lady living in Warri, said: “I’m afraid. Who’ll marry us? Who’ll birth future leaders? Our boys, our girls are neck-deep in marijuana, and other hard drugs. They no longer smoke cigarettes. And see many of them going mentally ill on the streets.”
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), about 50 million Nigerians have one form of mental illness or another. A survey by the Federal Government revealed that over 14.3 million Nigerians abuse illicit drugs. This number represents 15 per cent of the country’s population who are between 15 and 64 years old.
Interestingly, amid the increase in the number of the mentally-retarded persons in Delta State, the state government argues that the tendency of seeing them littering the streets of the state capital, Asaba, is on the decline due to the state government’s promptness at evacuating them to any of the seven rehabilitation centres across the state.
It was gathered that amongst those evacuated included pregnant women, whose families were identified so that the child, once delivered, is safely handed over for post-natal care, an official of the state Ministry of Women Affairs, Community Development disclosed.
“We are always careful to be sure of where they come from in dealing with the situation, but immediately a mentally-ill person is spotted on the street, we take proactive measure to evacuate him or her to any of the centres at government expense. Some of them, after healing, are integrated back into the society through skill acquisition which the government provides. To feed about 300 of these persons at the centres is not easy,” the official further disclosed.
On the causes of mental problems in the state, the director in charge of rehabilitation in the Ministry of Women Affairs and Community Development, Mr. Peter Okocha, listed bad habits such as drug abuse and rituals, while the problem could also be congenital, a situation where mental illness runs through families.
Cross River
Cross River State is no different. A psychiatric nurse, Onuaha Precious, explains that, “the leading causes of mental illnesses in Cross River are substance abuse and addiction, things like cocaine, Mkpuru’mmiri, Marijuana and so on. Another cause is family traits and hereditary; some are inherited from families, that is the DNA from parents to offspring. Also, emotional shock from sudden tragic happenings like deaths, accidents, prolonged unsuccessful business transactions, or academic misadventures, romantic heartbreaks, and disappointments are all leading causes of mental health complications”.
While identifying the patients as mostly young people, Onuoha further proffered ways out of the menace. “The solutions are to tackle the causes squarely: jobs should be created for the teeming youth population, who form a higher percentage of the mentally-ill population, especially here in Calabar; if these young people are occupied meaningfully, there will be lesser or no time and attention for activities that can cause mental issues.”
She debunked the notion that mental health challenges cannot be perfectly cured medically, saying “most people believe that mental complications are spiritual and cannot be cured medically; we need to sensitise our people; letting them know that timely diagnosis facilitates faster treatment and recovery of patients and that mental issues are normal illnesses like malaria, HIV, typhoid and other illnesses not just as spiritual as they are tagged. Care and treatment for mentally ill persons is very expensive. The government has to improve funding towards that section of the health sector.”
II n Edo, substance abuse on the rise
Ubiquitous in downtown Benin City and in major towns, mentally-ill people seem to be everywhere in Edo State while the government and society have apparently abandoned them to their fate. In the Edo State capital, Benin City, their favourite rendezvous is downtown Ring Road by the popular Oba Market. They also abound in Third East Circular Road, Mission Road and New Benin Market, where they hold sway.
A Benin City resident, Mr. Osaro Izevbigie, lamented that it is very vexing to note that men take advantage of these vulnerable people by sleeping with them and impregnating them. Izevbigie, an expert on mental health, remarked sadly that the strange randy men do not take responsibility for the pregnancy, adding that the women are left to fend for themselves in an uncaring world.
He queried: “The government does not care. The society too does not give a damn whether the children are educated or not. What kind of children are we bringing up? Has anybody stopped to think of what these children will become”?
He continued: “These are people, who hardly take care of themselves. People take advantage of them and rape them, impregnating them in the process. These are people, who cannot take care of themselves, not to talk of catering for their children. How do the rapists expect them to take care of the children”?
Determined efforts to speak with the Chief Medical Director of Uselu Psychiatric Hospital, Benin, Dr. Imafidon Osama Agbonile, proved futile, but social commentator, Mr. Uyi Agbonifo, said the rising cases of psycho patients could be due to high incidence of illegal drug abuse.
Agbonifo wailed that in most neighbourhoods of the Edo State capital, most young people now freely smoke marijuana: “There should be a renewed crackdown on intake of substance abuse. People now freely smoke marijuana unlike in the past. In some areas, the smell of marijuana is very pervasive. There is also a high increase in the number of young people taking cocaine, heroin and other dangerous drugs. Little wonder that cases of mentally challenged people is presently very high. The government must enforce the law.”
How Bayelsa is tackling the menace
The sight of mentally-ill persons on the streets of Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, has remained a disturbing phenomenon for residents. Public concern of their presence all over the streets of Yenagoa grew even stronger when a jealous lover, who is mentally-ill, attacked a fellow mentally-ill man with machete, inflicting severe injuries on him because he suspected that the latter had snatched his girlfriend, who is also mentally-ill.
Also worthy of note is the case of a middle-aged woman, said to be mentally-ill, who stabbed a 14-year-old boy to death. The victim, identified as Joseph Thomas, was stabbed along Genesis Street, off Okaka Road in the city.
The incident reportedly threw the neighbours into shock which later degenerated into mob action against the suspected mentally-ill woman. It was gathered that it was the quick arrival of the patrol team of the Bayelsa State Police Command that rescued the woman from the angry mob who wanted to avenge the boy’s death.
Besides these gruesome cases, they also contribute to defacing the town, while their activities impact negatively on the sanitation of the state capital. Most times, some of them, who are wild, constitute danger to residents as they attack people going about their daily businesses.
Disturbed by the situation, the governor of the state, Senator Douye Diri, sometime in September 2021, constituted a committee to evacuate people living with mental illness in the streets of the state, especially Yenagoa.
The committee, which was headed by the deputy governor, Senator Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo, said that the action was to create a decent environment for business to thrive.
The committee, which had the commissioners for Women Affairs and that of Environment as members, as well as some medical personnel, swung into action and evacuated all the people living with mental health disorders from the streets of Yenagoa and other locations across the state to psychiatric wards in the hospitals for proper medical examination and treatment.
The Commissioner for Women, Children Affairs, Empowerment and Social Development in the state, Mrs Faith Opene, who led a team to carry out the government’s directive, said there was the need to keep the streets of the state capital safe.
She said, “We embarked on the evacuation of people living with mental illness on the roads and streets of our state to psychiatric wards for proper psychiatric treatment. Today, we have been able to evacuate 10 persons off the streets of Yenagoa; and they are receiving medical attention.
“When they are stable, we will be able to get information from them and know where they came from. And if they are Bayelsans, we will reunite them with their families. Those that are not Bayelsans will be sent back to their states”.
Also, the Commissioner for Environment, Iselema Gbaranbiri, who is also a member of the committee, said, “We have put modalities in place to evacuate people living with mental health disorders to sanitise the state capital and its environs.”
Speaking to Nigerian Tribune, a tricycle operator, Wilson Andaebi, stated that: “There is nothing we don’t see on the road as we ride our tricycles around Yenagoa. I have seen cases where people carry mad persons in their cars and dump them in Yenagoa, especially at the popular Tombia-Etegwe Roundabout.”
Rivers has its fair share
Rivers State has its fair share of mentally-ill people on her streets and no particular area of the state is spared. As one moves around, one will notice them patrolling at the corners of different parts of the state while some others would be either sitting or lying down as the case may be. Some others, you would see are begging for alms.
The predominant age bracket of those seen around the streets of Port Harcourt is the youth and productive age of between 18 and 40 years old with over 90 per cent being male.
The character and manner of the lunatics show preponderance of likely abuse of mind-bending substances and depression arising from the harsh economic conditions of the country and especially in Rivers State.
These constitute the larger percentage of the causes of the many deranged youths on the streets of Rivers State according to a social worker with Rivers State Ministry of Social Welfare, who refused to be named and who added that only few of the cases are caused by what could be considered as natural.
“The government, at all levels, needs to seriously look into the challenge of youth unemployment in order to increase self-fulfillment for the youths and take away depression from among them. Also, the country requires a social re-orientation and yank off placing high value on the get-rich-quick syndrome that is unduly putting too much pressure on the youth, leading to all manner of anti-social behaviours including cultism”.
Meanwhile, speaking recently in Awka, Anambra State, Chairman of the Nigeria Red Cross Society, Professor Peter Kathy, warned that the use and reliance on illicit drugs among the youth are becoming harmful to the socio-economic life of the society as well as threatening the future of the country.
He said the use of illicit drugs among young people has lasting adverse effects on their mental and physical development, adding that “drug abuse has the ability to impact the brain’s functionality in the short term as well as prevent proper growth development later in life”. These, he averred, “create various challenges for families, communities and the entire society such as indecent dressing, display of psychiatric tendencies, youth restiveness, inordinate quest for riches and other anti-social activities”.
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