Should Nigerian politicians undergo psychiatric test?

I don’t subscribe to the psychiatric test. I don’t see corruption as a mental illness. I see it as a social malady. What is sick about our society is our culture. Let us also admit that our culture is fantastic in terms of brotherhood. But our culture is sick when it comes to leadership. What we have is rulership of the pre-colonial culture. We have always had elites even before the colonial masters came.

For instance, we don’t question our obas. They are revered and treated as deities. How did we come about an oba who can confiscate anybody’s land? How did we come about an oba that can take another person’s wife? The locus of the sickness is not in the leaders, it is in the culture that regulates our behaviour. We have a culture we need to put on the table and interrogate.

What our present politicians do is to leverage on the rulership culture – the culture that sees leaders as deities. And if anybody stands up to question it, people will say the person may die. So, the people are subjugated. For me, we have a rulership cultural software that smart politicians leverage on to loot. As a matter of fact, when they steal and come back home, our obas give them titles. • Dr. Adeoye Oyewole (A consultant psychiatrist)

Whoever is suggesting that politicians should undergo psychiatric test is cracking a joke. It is not practicable. If that is the case, almost all Nigerians should undergo the test. What is practicable is revolution, which will change politicians’ orientation and put them on the correct path.

The revolution should not be violent. It should be a fundamental revolutionary change. What is responsible for the negative state of the nation, including what affects politicians, is the socio-economic and political system of the country as well as the political leadership produced by the system. The system encourages putting personal interest first as opposed to a system that is based on putting public interest first.

We have to change the system and make the state to play the leading role in the economy. Before 1966 when the military took over, the state played the leading role in the economy even though the resources were small. We didn’t have this level of corruption then. Was there any corruption allegation against Sardauna, Awolowo and Azikwe? Nobody could steal public money then and get away with it. The leaders then had preference for public interest. •Balarabe Musa (Former Kaduna State Governor)

It has become pertinent for some politicians to undergo psychiatric test due to certain public dispositions they exhibit. There are behavioural attitudes displayed by politicians that need psychiatric evaluation.

The quest to amass wealth stupendously, in itself, is a psychological problem that requires counselling. If not for anything, public utterances from some governors and representatives, at times, give room for the need to ascertain their psychiatric state.  A general psychiatric test should be carried out on them to know if they are fit to handle public positions or not before giving them the opportunity to handle such offices. The result can be made public as it bothers on health and as it is enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution.

Government hospitals should be the proper place for such a test to be carried out to minimise manipulation. It takes a man with mental stability to coordinate a political system. It is too expensive a joke to allow a person of mental instability to man a political office. The economic and political thrusts would be at the mercy of his mental dictates.

We have seen and heard of political leaders committing domestic violence against their family members and assistants. Some have also displayed childish behaviour publicly. • Osazee Edigin (An activist)

Mrs. Farida Waziri’s recommendation that politicians should undergo psychiatric examination for reason of grand corruption that we see in our public life is a hackneyed recommendation. The first person that made this recommendation over 20 years ago was Prof. Adeoye Lambo, a famous psychiatrist and a former Vice-Chairman of the World Health Organisation, who was astounded by the level of corruption then.

I don’t think that is the solution. That may be begging the issue. I don’t think defence of insanity, which is a defence in criminal law in answer to criminal allegations, avails against allegations of corruption and abuse of office. The reason why people engage in large scale corruption is not because they are insane either technically or factually. It is because they feel confident that if they engage in massive corruption, they will get away with it.

We shouldn’t trivialise this issue (of corruption) by saying perhaps politicians are insane, and we should subject them to psychiatric test. And for the person this recommendation is coming from, the question I want to ask is: are politicians the only ones who are supposed to undergo psychiatric test? The test should include bureaucrats, law enforcers, etc. Are police officers taking bribe on the road mad? So, it is not about psychiatric evaluation.

The antidote, in my opinion, is an unrelenting and thorough enforcement of our anti-corruption laws in such a way that public officers who infract the law, the law should take its course against them no matter how highly placed they are. In other climes, such as Israel, Malaysia, we see presidents and prime ministers go to jail. One is ongoing in Korea. So, if our anti-corruption laws are implacable, those public officers that Nigerians want to assume are stealing because they are mad, will no longer be mad. Once people get punished for the crimes they commit and they are disgorged of the illicit money they have stolen, you won’t see them as being mad as it is now suggested. They will behave with all decorum and decency in public offices. And nobody at that stage will be suggesting that they be subjected to psychiatric examination.   • Jiti Ogunye (A human rights lawyer)

With respect to the kind of attitude our politicians have displayed, they may not be considered to be psychiatrically sound.

There is no gentleman in Nigeria that will want to seek political office because of the kind of the banditry politicians display. The test should be genuine and the persons that will carry it out should be tested too.

It is a good move and should be mandatory. It should be enshrined in the constitution.

This will create sanity in the system and ensure proper management of public offices, including public funds. • Mr. Olasubomi Okeowo (A lawyer)

Yes, they should undergo psychiatric test based on the behaviour they exhibit on assumption of office such as unequalled quest for money and insensitivity. Less than two weeks for the seventh National Assembly to end its proceedings, the legislature went ahead to pass over 30 bills at one sitting. This is not thinkable at all, no matter the type of democracy we operate.

In Edo State, we are talking about how to conserve funds. But the House of Assembly went ahead to set aside the rules of the House by amending the pension bill just to favour the past governor. So, it goes to show that they (politicians) are not even in consonance with what is actually happening to the people. So, if they go for mental check, they will be able to know their level of depression.

Most of them are unable to manage themselves because of the pressure from their respective constituencies. So, if you want to be a governor, there must be a provision in the constitution that you have to undergo a psychiatric test. It does not show that you are insane. It is just for us to know your state of mind, so that when you get into office, we will know how best to regulate you.

 The test should be psycho-social; it should focus on depression, drug level, etc. The test should be conducted in government hospitals so as to reduce the level of manipulation.

But before aspiring, they should be told (about the test) and their consent sought to make the result public. It should be a law. Other conditions can be managed but a psychiatric case demands greater monitoring. •Jude Obasanmi (President, Conference of Non-governmental Organisations, Edo State)

Compiled by Afeez Hanafi and Alexander Okere