How IPOB’s sit-at-home causes people to run mad – Don

Professor Monday Igwe, Medical Director, Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Enugu State, says the sit-at-home directive of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has constituted major triggers of depression leading to mental illness in the South-East and across Nigeria.

Igwe stated this while speaking with newsmen in Enugu, on Monday. He was speaking on the increasing mental illness cases being recorded in most psychiatric hospitals worldwide, including Nigeria.

The medical director spoke on the sidelines of the commemoration of the 2021 World Mental Health Day under the theme: “Mental health in an unequal world”.

According to the don, more disturbing was the fact that relatively few people in Nigeria have access to quality and affordable mental health services.

“It is estimated that more than 75 per cent of the people with mental, neurological and substance use disorders receive no treatment for their conditions.

“Painfully, most countries, including Nigeria, spend on average only 2 per cent of their health budgets on mental health, such that the World Health Organization, together with partner agencies, is calling for a massive scale-up in quality of mental health services.

“This is the time for the world to come together and begin redressing the historic neglect of mental health.

“Unless we make serious commitments to scale up services in mental health right now, the health, social and economic consequences will be far-reaching,” he said.