30 Percent Mad Nigerians: The Facts Behind The Figure
The Oasis Reporters
November 14, 2018
Many Nigerians continue to spank the Government of Nigeria for saying that 20-30 percent of Nigerians suffer from mental illness. It is sad that the president is the scapegoat in these attacks. It was rumoured by some of his ardent critics that he made the mental illness remark at a meeting of leaders in France. It is important that we should spare Mr. president and respect him for once, since this claim was made by the ministry of health, not even through the minister but through the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, who for all intent and purposes, was only doing his professional work.
To be sure, there is no way we can prove the ministry wrong if we do not learn to always check the sources of our news before reacting and bursting in rage. A lot of insanity is being presently demonstrated by very popular individuals and their followers on the social media space, and the need for urgent respite for these people is seen in the fact that their utterances are in total dissonance from the original message of the ministry. This itself is one of the symptoms the ministry mentioned in the report,— a combination of abnormal thoughts. Other symptoms are a combination of abnormal perceptions, emotions, behaviour and relationships with others.
Apart from this physical demonstration of the symptoms by solid figures online, it is sad that this high scale of mental disorders in our nation may be more widespread than we have imagined. 40 million mad people in a population of 200 million is equal to a ratio of 1:5. This means that for every 5 persons, there is one mentally ill person. The results of this arithmetic is far reaching.
1. A large number of these mental patients are parents, bringing up children in the mad way.
2. A large number of these mental patients are teachers in primary and secondary schools, laying the foundation of madness for our children
3. A large number of these mental patients are university professors, teaching mad theories
4. A large number of these patients are imams, preaching intolerance
5. And importantly, a great number of these patients are pastors teaching the doctrines of weed.
If the statistics is hard to believe, anyone can look at the results of all the above institutions. It is getting clearer why our country is what it is.
The above does not include the political class. One cannot underestimate the numerical value of senators with mental illness simply because they do not walk the street with portfolios of rubbish and dreadlocks. This is why one must be fair to the leaders, especially the president who is being severely criticized, because there is no way one can be sure that the president is not part of the 30 percent. He is human and any human being can fall sick.
Moreover, since the goal of education is to train the mind to have respect for fact and figure, educated Nigerians ought to wonder why.
1. Someone would open his mouth and say we feed a detainee with 3.5million naira per month (abnormal combination of thought and abnormal perception, with three years acute falsehood syndrome)
2. Someone would vow to remove a senate president through illegal means, call a press conference and spit all sort of….(abnormal reactions, abnormal behaviour, with 2 month post-appointment-as-party-chairman obsession syndrome.)
3. The same person would resist imposition of governorship candidates by three governors when his godfather is the official kingmaker of the party (abnormal perception, abnormal behaviour, and abnormal relationship with others)
4. Someone in a certain neighborhood adjusted the electricity meter to read the one bulb in the corridor alone, in a building with two floors (un-understandable madness)
5. Someone would run from PDP to ACN, back to PDP, then to APC (old ACN) then to PDP, just because he wants to be taking salute (abnormal behaviour and chronic obsession with position)
6. Someone sees another person’s phone on the table, removes the sim card and gives praise to God (total madness)
7. Women plaster their faces with clay and paint it with various animal poo in order to be what they are not (Schizophrenia).
8. Why people would vote a known dictator to power in 2015 (condition not yet named)
9. And would still say in 2018 they will vote the dictator, despite that he has proven himself to be as good as the lack of a leader (pitiable bisma bisma and first degree pisma pisma)
The list is endless and space cannot contain it. But the short scene of fury recorded by Aremu Afolayan at an airport recently explains everything we want to know about madness in this country. In the video, Aremu Afolayan poured his frustration by the officials of immigration on Buhari and Ambode, calling them both bastards. Nothing except madness can make one call his president a bastard in front of a camera. Most Nigerians are mad in this way. It’s just that we don’t all go to airport.
Written by Deji Adesoye
