National president of the Nigerian Association of Clinical Psychologists (NACP) Professor Gboyega Abikoye has urged the federal government to pay more attention to the mental health issues in the country to curtail the rising cases of addictive behaviour due to abuse of substances among Nigerians.
Aboloue who spoke during the 2023 national conference and annual general meeting of the body hosted by the Ekiti State University, (EKSU), Ado-Ekiti, Ekiti State, with the theme: “The practice of clinical psychology: confronting the emerging threat of addictive behaviour and mental problem,” called for improved budgetary allocation to the health and mental health sub-sector.
The professor of clinical psychology who explained that treatment of mental problems is very expensive in the country counselled Nigerians to avoid use of illegal drugs and substances.
He said, “In Nigeria, the health sector has been receiving a disproportionately low budgetary allocation relative to other ministries and within the health sector itself, the mental health sub- sector has been receiving less than 6 percent of the total budget allocated to the ministry of health and that is rather poor. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) the allocation should not be less than 20 per cent, but consistently over the years it has been less than 6 percent.
“What the federal government should do is to increase the allocation to the health sector and to the mental health sub-sector in particular and make treatment of patients more affordable.”
The NACP president who declared that the theme of conference was apt, said “We have observed in recent times that the menace of substance abuse, especially about addictive behaviour, covers so many areas like pathological gambling, drug use and several others. We noticed that this is on the rise in Nigeria and globally too and it appears to be defying all solutions.
