DEMOCRACY, CULTURE AND MENTAL HEALTH

At times I sit down and stretch my imagination to pre-colonial Africa before Nigeria came into being through the process of amalgamation.  Africa at a time was a force to be reckoned with   in terms of civilization. Education, arts and science were well developed in Africa before the colonial masters came. We had our social welfare system and a form of government. Africa had   a demonstrated a form of primitive   democracy with inbuilt checks and balances long before colonization. The colonial masters amalgamated different nations in a geographical entity called Nigeria. They formulated different versions of constitutional apparatus   to administer the geographical entity they created. The amalgamation of several nations had its profound psychological consequences which became profound at independence. Prior to independence; the conflict embedded in the amalgamation project was latent until we achieved self-governance. At independence, our social welfare institutions   were poorly developed because the colonial masters had displaced our poorly growing but native social welfare institutions. Schools were organized for minimal literacy for the natives   to run errands for the colonial masters and the prisons were glorified lunatic asylum reserved   for those who revolted against the colonial process. It is noteworthy that a number of our earliest psychiatric institutions grew out of these lunatic asylum reserved for political offenders.  The colonial masters with their psychiatrists banished natives into asylum after some spurious non-empirical diagnosis of some mental illness. They had a theory of an African mind that could not cope with colonialism hence developing mental illness and banished to the asylum not for treatment but social immobilization. 
The inability of our post independent elite group to forge a common ground in the leadership  of the nation  possibly as a  consequence of  contending social forces  led to several political upheavals which snowballed into the  disruption of development of  social welfare institutions  with profound negative impact on the mental wellbeing  of  the citizens. Governance became dislocated by nepotism and self-aggrandizement to the neglect of institutions that should facilitate social welfare. Prior to the first military intervention; our social welfare instructions never acquired a culture of their own as they were scanty, inadequate and poorly funded because they were not the immediate priorities of the political elite class. The military governed by decrees   that never took into consideration the feedbacks from the people and gave very modest attention to the development of social welfare institutions. The military years were marked with grave socio-economic   difficulties  that dislocated families resulting in increased rates of abuse of illicit drugs among our youths, teenage pregnancies and school  dropouts to mention a few. Apart from poor physical infrastructures; our social welfare institutions were being run by discordant cultural software that could not make a tangible difference in the lives of the ordinary citizens. As a nation we have been floundering without a sense of history and destination that has impacted negatively on our mental health. Our universities and polytechnics   are turning out graduates that are unemployable.  The hospitals, schools, prisons and other social institutions have deteriorated without creative leadership. The pre-colonial rulership model   frustrated the potentials of the ordinary citizens that could have been beneficial in nation building. This culture was also reinforced by long years of military rule where only a few privileged   elites determined the fate of others without any mechanisms to channel inputs from the ordinary citizens. It has always been a culture of the leader as bigger as and larger than our societal institutions. This is where I find democratic system of government as a crucial process of civilization where the government is put in place to coordinate and administer the resources that the constituent parts bring to the table through different organs of government. . This definitely will redefine our cultural and military styles of governance from a rulership model to the servant- leadership model. Our society starting from the home can be administered fairly by eliciting the resources that every member can bring to the table thereby reducing the incidence of mental health challenges that arise from autocratic, insensitive leadership.   Our societal institutions   require servant-leadership   that can deliver their sacred mandates   for the ultimate welfare of the masses. This style of governance banishes the megalomaniac elite system and entrenches participatory democracy where individuals have a sense of connection to the government rather than the coercive style of the rulership model perpetrated over the years by the selfish elite class. The indices of sound mental health definitely appreciate in a democracy more than any other government, where the institutions are well governed and individuals have a sense of contribution and connection. Let us strengthen our democracy as we obtain our permanent voters cards and cast our votes for candidates  that can guarantee  collective  participation in the governance of our country for the common good.




Dr Adeoye Oyewole
adeoyewole2000@yahoo.com
+2348034905808(Whatsapp only)

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