The mental disorder that makes Nigerian leaders loot, — Prof. Franzek, researcher, reveals
Who is Professor Franzek?
I am a psychiatric doctor. I have worked in the Netherlands for more than 40 years. I was born in Germany and educated in a German university. I was a lecturer at the university but, when I turned 50, I decided to do new things. In the summer, I go into research and now I am into another research and treatment of people who have psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and people who also have problem with drugs: Psychiatric disorder and addiction. At the moment, I am the Project Director of the Organization of Mental Health Brabant, the Netherlands.
The problem
with mental health in Nigeria
The problem is that mental health is almost completely neglected
in Nigeria. One reason is that the population has no possibility to search for
mental health care due to poverty. There are only nine psychiatric hospitals
for about 200 million people in the country. And mental health care in Nigeria
is mostly done through religious and traditional healers without medical
background. This may help those whose cases are not severe. But in severe
cases, mental disorders worsen. And stigmatization causes a lot of problems.
The situation is that most people in Nigeria don’t have good mental and general
health care and that is catastrophic for a nation like that. Mental disorders
are twice as common in Nigeria as in other parts of the world. And it is sad
that nobody cares about this. And this has to get into the consciousness of the
people because those who suffer most are the poor people who don’t have jobs,
who are starved of the basic needs of life such as food, water, no adequate
houses. At the moment in Nigeria, the
ratio is one psychiatric to one million people. In Holland, for example, the
ratio is 40 psychiatric doctors to one hundred thousand people. You can imagine
how big the treatment gap in Nigeria is, and the situation is getting worse
because life circumstances don’t get better. Being poor, not having enough to
eat, no education, this is one source of having mental illness later in life.
To redress the situation, I intend to visit Nigeria through the Sunny Ofehe
Foundation, together with the experts in the field of mental health care, in
collaboration with the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, the World Health
Organization and some pharmaceutical companies. We are going to focus on the
need to treat mental health in Nigeria as an emergency.
There are
several anti-social behaviours in Nigeria including bad leadership at the top.
Could this be attributed to mental problem?
There is a whole body of research that when people grow up in an
environment where people are poor, no healthy food, no job, once the mother and
father live there, the offspring will have anti-social effects from the very beginning.
Research showed that if the mother and the father suffered hunger at the time
they made the baby such that, during pregnancy, they did not have enough food
for the foetus, this can predispose the offspring to this personality trait.
The conclusion can be that anti-social characteristics may be understood as a
form of environmental adaptation so that exposure to malnutrition, to hunger
during the formation of the baby can have impact on sex determination. This
means that, in this situation, more boys are born than girls because the brain
development predisposes these people to the so called-anti-social behaviours
like, to have food, you have to kill or steal. Even terrorists around the world
tend to come from poor countries just fight for their people. So, if you want
to build a peaceful society, the atmosphere must be conducive. The real
criminal or psychopath is not the terrorist; the real criminal is the guy who
presides over a people and eats their common wealth without thinking about
their welfare. And we have many criminals leading the people in many parts of
the world today. They don’t care about the people. But these guys you call bad
guys just want to improve their lives and those of their families. So, to build
a peaceful society, basic human rights must be respected and government must
give the people the basic needs of life. At the moment, there is a huge gap
between the poor and the rich in Nigeria and, because of this, the poor always
become poorer. What we need is the middle class where everybody has the
possibility due to his own capabilities to walk up. My father was poor, we had
nothing but I had the possibility to go to school and then to do it my own way.
This is basic for a peaceful society. Everybody has to pursue his life.
Let me tell you also, mental illness does not come from God and
this is a problem in Nigeria. In Nigeria, those who have mental illness go to
church for remedy because they think they have offended God, but that is not
true. It is a problem of the society. And government plays a role. When you
bring people with mental illness to the church, you don’t really help them; you
make their situation even worse. We have good medication to treat acute forms
of psychosis. The acute forms are in countries like Nigeria more often than in
Europe. Religion and psychosis or mental illness do not go together. Religion
cannot bring solution to mental health; it can only help the family, giving
them encouragement but not healing the patient. Religion is like people coming
together, praying together, eating together, this should remain; but it should not be used to cure sick
people because it does not work. If you look at the civilized world, they care
for patients with mental illness because it is not a punishment and, if you give
them the basic things they need, they feel happy despite their illness. But
when you see them punished, when their families feel ashamed of them, it is
cruel and it is not good for them. Nobody is punished if he has cancer; so why
are they punishing people with mental illness in Nigeria? They chain them and
flog the hell out of them.
Why Nigeria
leaders loot
The problem in Nigeria is that the rich people make money and
they have no brains any more. The poor people have no voice; so there is no
competition. This also has to do with growing up. If the leaders were given the
best while growing up, their brains would have formed better and they will not
have to steal. And for this to change, I think, before Nigerians elect their
leaders, there should be public competitions among aspirants in which the
people will participate and see the mental state of the aspiring leaders.
During such competitions, there should be no written paper, so that when they
talk, you will know whether they speak from their hearts or not. Nigeria is
supposed to be practicing democracy, but it is not really a democratic nation
because the rich use their wealth to acquire things and run for political
positions and the common people have no choice. In fact, that is also where you
can ascertain whether the person aspiring to be or President is fit to lead the
nation or not because, when you don’t have a healthy President, it causes
dislocation in the system. And that is the problem you people have in Nigeria.
I want Nigeria to be united because that will make them greater tomorrow.
Agitations come because you have no middle class, the rich are getting richer
and the poor are fighting.
Mortality rate
Mortality rate in Nigeria is quite high, especially among
children. Government must improve on women’s care during pregnancy because if
the pregnancy is not good, child birth will be complicated. The food that the
woman eats is also important. Nigeria is the fourth country with the highest
mortality rate among 200 countries in the world. Nigeria is also in the leading
position in death per hundred thousand people through fire and car accidents.
Again it is not healthy for a woman to have more than three children but you
find that, after war times, the number of children grows just to compensate for
those who died. Now, Nigeria has about 200million people and, in about 30
years, even with the high mortality rate, it may end up with 500million to one
billion people. It will now become one of the most populous countries in the
world. It is not a problem but the basic needs of life must be put in place,
otherwise it will be a catastrophe because the country will not be safe
anymore. And Nigeria is a beautiful country; my future wife is from there and I
want to come and live there; so I want the best for the country.
The future of
Nigeria and psychiatry
Nigeria has a positive future; all you need is a highly
motivated, educated people; people who will work for the people and not for
money. The situation now in Nigeria is that highly skilled people like doctors,
psychiatrics receive education there and then move to Europe or North America
because they want to earn a lot of money. Government must make Nigeria
attractive for these people to stay there so that they can develop community
treatment. It does not help Nigeria if you build very expensive hospitals and
no manpower. First of all, you have to develop a treatment centre that is close
to the people and everybody can afford. This is the first step. Then in the
area of mental care, you have to involve traditional doctors, those into
voodoo; we look at them and take what is good from them. You must not go there
to say ‘what you are doing is wrong’. We should avoid confrontations because
this is a tradition that people are accustomed to and you don’t wish it away.
Tradition keeps people together and the common interest should be to improve
mental health care, good health. You have to communicate with these people and
get the best out of them.
Vanguard
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