Mental health policies in Nigeria

Nigeria's mental health policy was first formulated in 1991. Its components include advocacy, promotion, prevention, treatment and rehabilitation.[4] In 2003, a bill for the establishment of Mental Health Act was introduced by Sen. Ibiabuye Martyns-Yellowe and Sen. Dalhatu Tafida but was later withdrawn in April 2009. Four years later, precisely on March 20, 2013, the bill was re-introduced to the National Assembly by Hon. Samuel Babatunde Adejare and Hon. Solomon Olamilekan Adeola. The Bill protects the rights of persons with mental disorders, ensure equal access to treatment and care, discourage stigma and discrimination and set standards for psychiatric practice in Nigeria. The bill makes provisions for access to mental healthcare and services, Voluntary and involuntary treatment, Accreditation of professional and facilities, Law enforcements and other judicial issues for people with mental illness, Mechanisms to oversee involuntary admission and mechanism to implement the provision of Mental health Legislations.[5] Over 13 years since the bill was introduced to the National Assembly, it is yet to be passed into law. In the absence of this act, traditional and spiritual healers relate most mental illness to spiritual attacks, with no diagnoses. This has created avenues for the dehumanization and extortion of mentally challenged in the country. On 18 February 2016, a neuro psychiatrist Dr. Memumah Yusuf Kadiri appealed to Nigerian lawmakers to expedite action on the mental health bill pointing out that Nigerians still see mental health as a taboo because the country still adheres to the lunatic act of colonial legacy.[6]

The first mental hospitals in Nigeria are the Calabar Lunatic Asylum in southeastern Nigeria, and Yaba Lunatic Asylum in southwestern Nigeria.[7] The latter, renamed Yaba Mental Hospital in 1961, and again given its current name Yaba Psychiatric Center in 1977, admitted its first batch of 14 patients (8 women and 6 men) on 31 October 1907. The Yaba Lunatic Asylum which was situated in the former headquarters of the Nigeria Railways. In 1915, it became overcrowded, and some cells in Lagos prison were turned into Lunatic Asylum. Dr. Crispin Curtis Adeniyi-Jones, a Nigerian Physician and also an official of the Lagos Medical Service became the first Director of the Lagos Lunatic Asylum.[8] Presently, there are only 130 psychiatrists in Nigeria, which has a population of 174 million.[9]