PERSPECTIVE: Reforming Hostile Legislation And Emphasising Rehabilitation For The Mentally Disabled

 

BY OLALERE FAGBOLA

As the world through the United nations marked Mental Health day on October 10, for all as priority for global community, it is harrowing to observe the rude fact that mental illness has become rampant, judging by alarming number of Nigerians, particularly youths being admitted at psychiatric hospitals for treatment. 

For instance, in the month of June 2022, spaces available at relevant wards in Federal and State Government owned hospitals in the south western part of the country were so overcrowded beyond capacity, even to the extent that those who were rushed there could not be admitted, forcing their families had to patronise private hospitals with their huge bills. 

Even though mental health problems affect quite a large number of people, especially youths, the issue of mental insanity is hardly discussed in public for obvious reasons, amid its attendant unhealthy implications of worsening Nigeria’s legislation and attitudinals against the mentally disabled people. 

Believing that realism is a product of positive thought; even being the very opposite of ignorance and prejudice, I am here assigning value to my personal experience on mental health issues and which is what informs why I have written a new book tentatively titled: “DADA DODONDAWA”

Dada Dodondawa, being a creative nonfiction, is detailing the diary of agonizing experience of a father whose boy (Dada Dodondawa), along with other media generation of youths, got drowned in the media bathroom of mental insanity. 

A victim of a new form of bullying, Dada dodondawa, is a Nazirite who at a tender age, was exposed to narcotics as a choreographer while he ended up in five different psychiatric homes within the spate of three years. 

Having experienced same agonizing encounters peculiar to relations of mentally ill patients, amid my access to volumes of literature on mental health, it becomes pertinent for me (towards assigning value to this collective experience) to stress the need for society to make fundamental change in our attitude to and legislation on mental matters. 

Going by an anonymous conclusion contained in a paper presented at a workshop on legislation and the mentally disabled people, (which available shred does not contain the name of its writer) the author of the paper (a legal luminary) argued that such radical change could only be attained through a revolution in Nigeria’s legislation.

 According to him, existing laws governing mental illness both under the Northern Penal Code and the Criminal Code in the Southern Nigeria are out of tune and deficient on the criminal responsibilities facing the mentally disabled people. 

The writer contended that neither the mentally ill kept in the custody of their relation, nor those confined to asylum by the court is beneficial to the society, adding that their confinements are capable of aggravating their illnesses. 

He stressed further that there is a need to accept the mentally disabled as part and parcel of the society while Nigeria, more importantly, requires new legislation that emphasises rehabilitation, especially for patients that have suffered long-term mental illness. 

The paper which frowned at the way people often jeered at mentally disabled people, described the attitude as irresponsible, arguing that existing legislation in the country is further compounding this irresponsibility.

“It is my considered view that our existing laws in respect of the mentally ill are deficient in that they do not satisfy the aspirations expected of them. 

“Chapter 26, comprising Sections 320 to 331 of the CPC (Criminal Procedure Code) and Chapter 25 comprising Sections 222 to 235 of the CPA (Criminal Procedure Act) which provides for persons of unsound mind as it relates to their criminal responsibilities are completely out of tune with the role expected of the law.

It added that: “Releasing a mentally ill to a relation or a friend does not benefit the mentally ill because our society’s attitudes towards such people are hostile. 

“They will simply not come up. To keep them in custody to avoid danger to the public often aggravated the illness. What we need about mentally ill are laws that emphasise on rehabilitation. The attitude of the society could be changed by a dynamic legislation to accept the mentally ill as part and parcel of the society. And by such legislation, such persons are assured of opportunities to contribute to society. 

The paper then submitted: “Our present society still boos and jeers at the mentally ill and law can be made to change the society in this respect. The society is absolutely irresponsible as far as this is concerned and our existing legislations tend to compound this irresponsibility.”

Without a dynamic rehabilitation of existing legislation and attitudes of people, a mentally ill person, particularly at teaching hospitals may soon end up as objects of sterile experiment in the hands of western-oriented psychiatrists who do not believe that there are spiritual dimensions to healing mentally disabled people. 

For fear of offending existing legislation and tampering with the fundamental rights of patients to choose whether or not to embrace rehabilitation, psychiatrists (tails between their legs) are always quick to discharge patients from their wards to go to their relation. 

But barely few weeks after being discharged into the society which does not welcome him as normal human being, the mentally ill soon relapsed into more grievous symptoms which increase the risk of discord and ineffective behaviour in him or her. 

As if the treatment of the mentally disabled people depends only on western drugs, psychiatrists often play the proverbial ostrich by dismissing unorthodox mental health systems as impotent and inconsequential while forgetting that in the restoration of deranged mind, holistic approach encompassing therapy in its gamut to healing is essential to the restoration of the mind.

For instance, it took the divine intervening musical therapy of the Psalmist David to heal the Biblical King Saul who was struck with the spirit of lunacy orchestrated against him for disobeying the commandments of God.

This has been the experience of Dada Dodondawa and other mentally disabled patients who, barely after their discharge from hospital, soon returned there with greater relapsement of their mental illness. 

Dada Dodondawa has gone through five different hospitals between 2019 and 2022 for treatment, but no sooner his discharge was perfected than his mental illness relapsed.

The idea of rehabilitation is to move the function of psychiatric hospitals to go beyond the mere treatment of patients for survival and existence in confinement while giving him holistic healing, peer support, respect, self-direction and empowerment.

This is why a school of thought remarked that: “It is pertinent that psychiatrists who find themselves saddled with reporting on accused persons should go behind such labels as mental disease, psychosis, sociopath and endeavour to describe in detail the mental state in terms of every day decisions and conduct.

While the interminable shuttles to hospitals by the mentally ill people may be a pleasant development to research for medical professionals and medical students who often subject Dada Dodondawa and his fellow inmates to different rounds of interviews and prescriptions of drugs, it is not a development that is pleasant to their parents who are paying through their noses to buy food and drugs.

From different authorities sampled online, it is clear that the idea of rehabilitation is to help develop in the mentally disabled patients, the emotional, social and intellectual skills needed to live, learn and work in the community with the least amount of professional support. 

In fact, the ultimate goal of rehabilitation is to give the patient hope, motivation, respect for oneself and skills that can efficiently and effectively reintegrate him or her back to the society. 

Although it is mostly targeted at patients with long-term mental disorders, if they are supported by continuous learning, they could experience personal growth even in the face of likelihood of stigmatisation which is already waiting for them in the society.

The official presentation of DADA DODONDAWA, being a nonfiction which writing is approached creatively, is intended to reorientate  people, particularly religious houses concerning the ordeals of mentally disabled people while raising an endowment for the full rehabilitation of Dada Dodondawa and other selected ones while integrating them fully into the society.