A report by the World Health Organisation says 20 million Nigerians, representing 20 per cent of the country’s population, live with mental health conditions.

Dr Azubike Aliche, the Secretary, Board of Trustees of the Nigeria-American Institute for Mental Health (NAIMH), disclosed this at a mental health GAP Action training programme organised by the institute, in Owerri, on Tuesday, May 27.

Aliche said that the training would equip non-psychiatrists to be able to conduct screens to identify mental health symptoms and work with people to manage those symptoms.

He described as “alarming” the caseload of depression in Nigeria, which he said was reportedly the highest in the world and called for deliberate efforts to change the narrative.

He said: “Available reports indicate that only 10 per cent of people living with mental illness have access to care in Nigeria and this has to change.”

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Chioma Egu, described the mental health crisis as a “global challenge” and called on the institute to leverage government’s mental health policies.

One of the training facilitators, Mr Justice Ulunta, of the Federal University of Allied Health Sciences, Enugu, called for the allocation of adequate resources by the government for the training of mental health experts and equipping of facilities.