By Jonathan Lois
Member representing Ahoada West and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni federal constituency of Rivers State in the House of Representatives, Uchechuku Nnam-Obi, has promised to ensure legislation that would address mental health issues in Nigeria.
He made the promise when the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria visited him in Abuja.
The lawmaker, who described the visit is timely, said the issue of mental health is being taken seriously and would ensure everything humanly possible can be done to ensure the National Mental Health Bill is passed to law.
This, he said, was important as the issue cuts across every facet of the economy in the country.
Earlier, the immediate past President of the Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria, Prof Taiwo Lateef Sheikh, stressed the need for proper legislation to deal with the problem of mental health in the country.
He commended the the passion of the lawmaker in addressing the challenges of mental health in the country.
He said in assessing the mental health system of any community, the first thing to look for is the governance structure for mental health system which include policies and legislation.
“Those two are very key in terms of how serious a society is towards mental health system. So in Nigeria today these two key aspects are the things that would guarantee a sustainable and effective delivery of mental health care service to the people of the country. There are things that would guarantee that mentally ill patients are treated fairly, humanely and their rights upheld as contained in the UN Charter.
“Where are we in terms of policy and legislation because without these, we really cannot move. For policy, our first policy was the 1991 health policy, which was revised in 2013. The policy has been hanging on the shelf and we have not been able to develop a matching strategic and implementation plan that would ensure effective implementation of the policy up til now,” he said.
He said in terms of legislation, Nigeria is still using the 1914 Lunacy Act that was inherited from colonial masters in 1959 as regional lunacy laws.
He said this does does not help in dealing with mental health in the country.
“The Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria have been driving to bring in a more modern mental health legislation that understands the modern language of mental health. In that Lunacy Act, there is nothing called mental health. It is principally a custodian law that says that if you behave in an irrational way, they label you lunatic and remove you from the society and take you to an asylum. It promotes abuse of the rights of the citizen. It makes sickness a crime. That is what the Lunacy Act has done. So sir for 30 years we have been struggling.
“Presently we have before the National Assembly, we have the National Mental Health Bill. The bill is a modification of the bills we have been bringing to the National Assembly that has not been able to see the light. Sometime in 2018, all mental health stakeholders in Nigeria gathered in July in Lagos and looked at the previous bills and worked on it to come up with this particular one. We tried to push it but the last National Assembly expired and we were not able to get it,” Prof Sheikh said.
He added that they still made efforts to get the bill passed in the Senate and called on Hon Nnam-Obi to help determining the bill’s status and pushing it in the House of Representatives.
President of the Association, Prof Taiwo James Obindo, said the burden of mental health in the country is high.
He said it was necessary to come forward to address address the plight of those who have mental health issues in the country.
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