Why mad people populate Maiduguri

At the height of the insurgency a psychiatric hospital in Maiduguri was quickly shut and its feeble patients expelled onto the streets The large presence of mad men and women on the streets of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital ,is attributed to  many reasons.Most disturbing, is the allegation that when the Boko Haram insurgency was […]

At the height of the insurgency a psychiatric hospital in Maiduguri was quickly shut and its feeble patients expelled onto the streets

The large presence of mad men and women on the streets of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital ,is attributed to  many reasons.Most disturbing, is the allegation that when the Boko Haram insurgency was at its peak, the state psychiatric hospital located at Gamboru ward, was thrown open and all the patients in it were forced to leave.
Worried by the fact that the hospital was not safe as gunshots, bomb explosions and the slaughtering of innocent people was taking place around the hospital, officials of the hospital set all the mad men and women on admission free, shut  the gates of the hospital and left.
Most people that spoke to Daily Trust who said they witnessed when the inmates in the hospital were sacked and the hospital shutdown, said most of the inmates were chronic mental cases and were seen wandering on the streets before they were attacked and killed by either soldiers or insurgents, who could not immediately identify them as mad.
Alhaji Bukar Gamboru, a kola nuts dealer said for almost three days after they were driven  away from the hospital, several mad people were seen hanging around the hospital fence as they did  not know where to run to, while about five corpses of people believed to be mad people from the hospital, were seen around the area with gunshot wounds.
“Some of them that sensed what was going on were seen in clear distress as they did not know where to run to. I have no doubt that the  single act of closing the state psychiatric hospital was responsible for the mass proliferation of mad people in the town. They are the ones you are seeing all over the place,” he said. 
However, Dr Ibrahim Abdullahi Wakawa, Consultant Psychiatrist, Head of Clinical Services of the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Hospital, Maiduguri said, “I think it is not right for us to use the word proliferation. From the onset we have been having cases of people with mental illnesses on the streets. I think the major problem is the breakdown of communal inter-relatedness that used  to exist in Africa. In northern Nigeria particularly, we are known for rallying round our ill relations, until that problem is overcome.
“But this social closeness is broken and people with mental illnesses are left to their fate, and people who are insane will definitely roam the streets if they do not have the necessary support. Another basic problem I have observed, apart from failure of the social relationship aspect, which is predominantly from the family, is the apparent lack of social welfare institutions. I mean centers where you rehabilitate people with handicaps. For example, in Maiduguri  the only one we had was the Orphanage that takes care of the children.
“The state psychiatric hospital that used  to serve as sanctuary for people with mental illnesses is no longer functional ,because the area where it is located at one time became a battle ground with insurgents, and so the hospital was closed down. So, people with chronic illnesses that were there were discharged and they are  now roaming the streets. So, based on those people that have now flooded the streets, people have the impression that there is proliferation of people with madness on the streets, but it may not necessarily be so,” he said.

Dr Wakawa also said the cost of seeking for treatment for mental illnesses is a bit high as most of the people cannot afford it, saying, “The impression I would like to create is not like if one has mental illness he could not be treated. We have a lot of people that have mental illnesses that have been treated, but if they could only afford the treatment.
“The policy is that  treatment  of mental illnesses are free; yes, treatments of mental illnesses are supposed to be free. What do you do when there is no budgetary provision for that? The institutions are actually left to their fate  to determine the fees to be paid by mentally ill people. People find it very difficult to afford the treatment. So, these three reasons are responsible for the increase in the number of people with mental illnesses on the streets.
“The fourth and the most important one is the closure of the state psychiatric hospital that used to serve as a safe haven for people with chronic mental illnesses, who are now left to roam the streets,” he said.

Speaking on the clinical causes of madness in the state, Dr Wakawa said the major cause is drug abuse, saying, Let me support  what I am going to tell you with statistics. This hospital does not just receive patients from Borno state; it was established with the sole mandate of serving as a referral center for mental and neurological diseases in the North East geo-political zone, which include the states of Borno, Yobe, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa and Taraba.
“But because of the strategic location of this institution, before the insurgency we used to receive patients from Niger Republic, Chad, Cameroun, Central Africa and part of Southern Sudan. We have received a lot of patients from those countries I mentioned. From 2006 to 2015, we have received over 39,091 patients. Out of that number of patients we received, 18,451 which constitute 47.2 percent were people having drug related problems which range from cannabis, tramdon and other substances that have gained entry into this part of the country from Cameroun and Chad, which were previously alien to our society.
“There is one commonly called Jankee which is an impure form of heroin that is commonly abused. The second major cause of mental illnesses here after drug abuse is depression caused by the social economic deprivation, family losses, destruction of properties, violent scenes, displacements which placed many people under psychological distress which predispose them to depression. We had 9,137 people with cases of depression representing 23.4 percent of the cases registered in this hospital within the period I mentioned. 
“The next most common cause of mental illness is schizophrenia which makes a person to lose his ability to think rationally and to behave well. These are the type of people you see on the street that we refer to as mad people. 2,456 of them representing 6.3 percent of the total patients received in this hospital with cases of mental disorder.
“Then we have people with Mania which constitute 4.9 percent of people with cases of mental ailments. We also have diseases that are peculiar with people that are old. Things like Dementia which has to do with severe forgetfulness in which the person cannot even remember his close family members. And that one accounts  for 0.5 percent of reported cases of mental disorder to us,” he said.

A food vendor, Yajimma Falmata said her husband was killed by insurgents in Maiduguri in 2011 that led to his younger brother, Bana developing  a case of mental disorder, and his admission at the state psychiatric hospital, adding, “One day his uncle that went to visit him in the hospital came to tell us that he could not find him as the hospital has been deserted.
“Till date, nobody could tell us the whereabouts of Bana who was taken there in chains. We regretted taking him to that hospital. All we heard much later was that all the inmates were discharged and the hospital shutdown due to the activities of insurgents. I thought government could have transferred them to the Federal Psychiatric  hospital, since those ones worked throughout,” she said.

When this reporter visited the state psychiatric hospital thrice, only auxiliary staff and three lunatics were seen within the premises. An official letter requesting for an interview with the Chief Medical Director was not replied to as at the time of writing this report.
“Alanguburo (big man), nothing is happening here. These mad people you see here, they have nowhere to go that is why they are still staying here. Nobody is feeding them and no one is giving them drugs. We have been warned not to admit anyone here,” one of the staff said.