Living in Nigeria will drive you insane — literally

Data suggests that Nigerians are experiencing an epidemic of crippling mental illness. At a forum in Lagos to mark the 2013 World Mental Health Day themed “Mental Health and Older Adults”, the Founder of the Mental Health Foundation, Dr Emmanuel Owoyemi, said that 64 million Nigerians out of an estimated total of 150 million had one form of mental illness or the other.

Severe, disabling mental illness has dramatically increased in Nigeria.“Sixty four million Nigerians today are going through one form of mental illness or the other because everything that would cause mental illness is on the increase in Nigeria.''

“Poverty is on the increase, hopelessness is on the increase, insecurity is on the increase. There is so much panic at heart, anxiety, high level depression.

Earlier this year, the House of Representatives Committee on Youths and Social Development came up with an intimidating statistics that 23million of over 40million unemployed youths are unemployable.

The national unemployment in Nigeria for university graduates is pegged at 23.9%, the unemployed youth population is reported to be at 20.3million and the poverty rate stands at 71.5%. This figure released
by the National Bureau of Statistics cannot be trusted.

Unemployment and poverty rate has increased significantly under the present regime.