Traumatic Experiences and Trauma Victims in Nigeria

The Northern and Middle belt regions of Nigeria have for several years been experiencing outbreaks of high intensity violent conflicts, resulting in the death of thousands and displacement of millions of people. In recent times these violent conflicts have extended to other parts of the country – the Southwest, the Southeast and the Southsouth. Many of the persons who are direct or indirect victims and/or survivors of the Boko Haram insurgency, the herdsmen banditry, the sporadic inter-ethnic and inter-religious conflicts, and the widespread kidnapping for ransom and sundry criminality across the length and breadth of this country, have lived through extremely traumatic experiences. Children have watched their fathers hacked to death or their mothers savagely raped in their presence. Many survivors have lost everything overnight – including their family members, their sources of livelihood, their homes and properties, and they are suddenly thrown into abject poverty and destitution. Some have lost limbs and are now living with one disability or the other. Others have been raped or have endured untold physical torture and psychological abuse. Indeed, the majority of Nigerians have been living through circumstances that are a moral equivalence of war!

In addition to the escalating violence all over the country in the last few years, is the phenomenon of widespread substance abuse, especially among our youths all over the country, including students of secondary schools and tertiary institutions. Many young people are becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol, which are in turn increasing the level of criminality in the society. We are also witnessing an increasing level of family dysfunction, domestic violence, marital breakdown and divorce, which often leave the offspring of the marriages – the children, in great distress. This is apart from the fact that the majority of those whose marriages collapse irretrievably, do sustain deep emotional wounds, that require psychological support towards healing and wellbeing. To compound all the already bad situation outlined above, we may add the very high rate of unemployment, including graduate unemployment, and the resultant extreme poverty and destitution that many Nigerian individuals and families are facing today.

Unfortunately, we live in a country where mental health awareness, even among the educated segment of the population is very low indeed. Generally, across the country, the Nigerian people and our governments are yet to gain sufficient awareness that mental health care needs to be provided for in the same way as we provide for physical health care.  Thus, until a disturbed person degenerates into a full-blown psychiatric case, requiring to be detained in a psychiatric hospital, we often do not recognize that there is a health challenge that needs urgent attention. Sadly, until people strip and parade the streets naked, we often do not give their mental health issues any serious attention. We often tell ourselves that we do not have mental illness in our families, so even when we notice that a relation is disturbed, we sometimes blame it on demons, and go from one “man of God” to the other or from one herbalist to the other, seeking for deliverance and healing of the sick family member, but further traumatizing the sick person with physical abuse and cruel torture, whereas in many cases what the suffering person requires is psychological care and support, such as trauma counselling for persons that have experienced or witnessed tragic events which have rendered them helpless or overwhelmed their coping skills.  Though we have thousands of graduates of psychology from our universities, the majority of these are not engaged in the counselling enterprise. Well trained and practicing specialist trauma counsellors are very few in Nigeria, whereas tens of millions of our countrymen and women as well as children are daily experiencing tragic events that overwhelm their capacity to cope, and therefore leaving them traumatized.  These survivors of the many tragic events that have become a daily occurrence in our society, have often been abandoned to their own resources.