Titilayo Aderibigbe, a Professor of Mental Health opined that the socio-economic situation in the country has brought about a lot of mental health challenges that the nation does not have enough laws to adequately handle.
The Don made the disclosure while delivering the 46th Inaugural Lecture of Babcock University, Ilishan Remo, Ogun State, titled: ‘Law’s engagement with the human body: Searching through the prism of law to shape the future’.
Elaborating the importance of the mental well-being of individuals to the society at large, she stated that the mental well-being of individuals within a family influences negatively or positively the collective safety of the community.
According to Aderibigbe,“The World Health Organization, WHO, noted that Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. An important implication of this definition is that mental health is more than just the absence of mental disorders or disabilities. It is a deliberate outward manifestation of the inner workings of the mind, which could have been instigated, by the physical, biological, social and economic indices of extant experiences in life.
“In some ways, the ordering of the lives of men could be pre-ordained. This explains why with the tenuous socio-economic hardship faced by many people around the world, most especially Nigeria, there is an increase in mental health issues that extant laws cannot adequately solve.”
