On Wednesday, The Nigerian Senate been consider one Bill to establish the National Agency for Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. When they establish the agency, e go dey manage mental health and psychosocial disabilities inside Naija.
Sponsor of the bill, Senator Yahaya Oloriegbe (APC, Kwara Central), talk say the bill among others, go try to criminalize abuse of persons with mental health and psychological disabilities. Say if them pass the bill into law, the bill go decriminalize substance abuse disorder and increase funding for mental health and psycho-social programmes.
Oloriegbe say, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 50 million people dey suffer from some sort of mental illness inside Naija. He come say as the seventh-largest country for the the world, Naija get the highest rate of depression for Africa, and na fifth for the world for frequency of suicide.
If them pass this bill into law, e protect persons with mental and substance abuse disorder from discrimination, victimization and unfair treatment by employers, academic institutions and other agencies.
