Lagos, Nigeria – Greater than two months after she was attacked whereas protesting in opposition to the now-defunct Particular Anti-Theft Squad (SARS) in Lagos, Clara Igwe*, 23, nonetheless finds it troublesome to sleep.
“4 [police] males cocked their weapons and have been going through me [saying] that I ought to lay down,” she recounts to Al Jazeera. “The subsequent factor, the opposite one used the gun to hit me; one other one was utilizing a keep on with beat me; one was utilizing koboko (a whip product of animal pores and skin); one among them got here down from the van and simply used a bottle to hit my head … The beating was mad.”
That each one occurred on the night time of October 20, at an space often called Seven-Up – a number of kilometres from the protest floor in Alausa, a principal district of the state capital, Ikeja, that additionally homes the Lagos State secretariat and the governor’s workplace. Igwe and various others had fled there after safety forces opened hearth on their protest floor, leaving not less than two individuals useless.
On the time, nationwide consideration was on occasions taking place about 30km (18 miles) away, on the Lekki toll gate, the place the Nigerian military had fired on peaceable protesters, killing not less than 12.
After the police beat her till she was semi-conscious, they dragged Igwe out of their van and left her on the facet of the street, she says. She hid below a automobile till the subsequent morning when somebody helped her. She spent the subsequent two days in hospital, being handled for accidents to her head and physique. She then moved to a secure home arrange by protest organisers, as she feared the police could possibly be in search of her.
“I hardly sleep as a result of I’m too scared,” she says. “I see myself working from individuals with weapons after which I see myself kneeling earlier than individuals with weapons round me they usually’re threatening to shoot me and one among them is thrashing me, one is hitting me. I hear some silly issues like: ‘You this woman, we go kill you end, we go throw your physique, they no go see you.’”
Igwe believes that, compared to the occasions in Lekki, not sufficient consideration has been paid to the acts of brutality that passed off in different elements of the nation, together with Alausa. Like hundreds of Nigerians throughout the nation who actively participated within the protests, she is traumatised.
Years of harassment
Though the daughter of a retired SARS officer, Igwe had additionally skilled harassment from the infamous police unit – which motivated her to affix the protests final October.
SARS, which was formally disbanded on October 11 on account of the demonstrations, was infamous for extortion, arbitrary arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings, with individuals aged 16 to 35 its primary goal. Younger males would usually be profiled as web fraudsters, whereas girls have been accused of being prostitutes. Igwe skilled this when she was stopped by SARS whereas in a Taxify taxi in Lagos final 12 months.
“They stopped the automobile and requested us to come back out,” she recounts. “I used to be dressed up and the (officer mentioned) I used to be trying like a prostitute, that I ought to carry my cellphone (so they may search it)… After I refused, he was like, if I don’t, he’ll slap me.” After harassing her, they shifted their consideration to the motive force who was extorted earlier than the 2 have been allowed to go away.
Igwe considers herself fortunate. In related instances, the result has been bodily abuse and even dying. Earlier than the October protests, Amnesty Worldwide had documented 82 instances of torture, unwell remedy and extrajudicial killing over the previous three years. It reached a tipping level on October 5 after SARS operatives allegedly threw Joshua Ambrose out of a transferring automobile in Ughelli, a city in Delta State. Footage of the scene made it to social media and went viral, which reignited #EndSARS, serving to the motion unfold to cities throughout Nigeria and overseas.
Regardless of her household’s misgivings about her demonstrating in opposition to SARS, Igwe went a step additional: From being a protester to a volunteer. She shared meals and drinks to maintain protesters’ spirits up after which acted as safety element, serving to regulate high-spirited protesters’ actions and restore order when hoodlums infiltrated protests at Alausa.
“My dad didn’t prefer it one bit as a result of he mentioned I used to be protesting in opposition to his [former] job. My mother and all people was simply in opposition to it and he stopped speaking to me,” she says.
Triggers and trauma
The protests didn’t solely take a toll on these on the entrance line. Dennis Eguagie, a radio presenter in Enugu, southeast Nigeria, was in shock as he watched the October 20 assault on peaceable protesters in Lekki on Instagram, whereas on a music break. The 26-year-old was so shaken that he breached broadcasting guidelines by leaving his radio present unattended for over 5 minutes, earlier than abandoning it altogether with two hours nonetheless left on air.
“I keep in mind turning off the mic,” he says. “I mentioned [to myself] I don’t understand how I really feel, I’m going to want some time to course of how I really feel. And I mentioned: ‘That is it for the night time.’”
The useless air was adopted by the nationwide anthem and an abrupt finish to his present. However he stayed within the broadcasting sales space for some time to consider what he had simply seen, relating the occasions to previous massacres he had examine or adopted. Later, he known as his father to speak about it.
“[My dad] was quiet. Why? As a result of he skilled the civil conflict as a younger boy … It was unhappy for him as a result of the son who he [brought into the world], years after that have, continues to be experiencing a glimpse of how Nigeria can scar her residents,” Eguagie says.
The presenter says he remembers “simply shutting down” after seeing the bloodbath on his social media feed. “I’m not somebody that may cry. The final time I cried was after I misplaced my brother, perhaps greater than 10 years in the past. I struggled since you can not go away a radio present midway. I realise that (the listeners) have been anticipating to listen to an thrilling voice on the radio, however right here’s what I simply watched, I can’t do that!
“One thing in me was at that Lekki toll that very day,” he continues. “It was like a model of me that was represented, received hit. So it was like I used to be alive however I used to be not.”
He discovered himself again in a well-recognized darkish gap. His first expertise with despair was in 2016 whereas his mom battled an sickness earlier than her dying. Now it was again, and his request for a week-long go away from work was granted.
The protests in opposition to police brutality have taken a toll on Nigerians’ psychological well being, says Amanda Iheme, lead psychotherapist and founding father of Ndidi, a non-public psychological well being service in Lagos.
“Everybody has an analogous story, the distinction can be the context of their expertise,” she says. “The way in which they current the impact it had on them: emotions of tension, panic assaults, depressive signs, PTSD (Publish Traumatic Stress Dysfunction), they’re human response to trauma and human response to adverse, emotional and troublesome experiences.”
Feeling helpless and afraid
Nigeria, the seventh-largest nation on the earth, ranks fifteenth on the earth (and seventh in Africa) for the variety of suicides, based on a World Well being Group (WHO) report. With simply eight federal neuropsychiatric services throughout the nation, and 250 psychiatrists (and 200 below coaching) obtainable to a inhabitants of 200 million, having access to psychological healthcare is troublesome and costly.
Initiatives like Mentally Conscious Nigeria Initiative (MANI), a psychological well being advocacy group, have emerged to fill the hole, usually bringing remedy to individuals’s doorsteps by platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter.
“It was fairly exhausting to discover a psychiatrist or therapist in Calabar,” Kathryn Kubiangha, 19, says of her battle to seek out remedy for her nervousness dysfunction within the metropolis the place she lives. “I’ve some underlying psychological well being points and I wanted to see any individual.”
The occasion photographer documented the #EndSARS protests in Akpabuyo, a city in Cross River State, within the south-south area of Nigeria. This triggered and heightened her nervousness. “Mainly at each flip the place we see law enforcement officials, I used to be similar to: ‘Ha, is it the time the place they lastly shoot us?’ or ‘what’s going to occur?’” she recollects.
“Each time I left the protest floor it was a wrestle getting house. I simply saved all people, checking if I’m being adopted. Actually, virtually each single one on the road [while] strolling again house [was a suspect] as a result of other than taking cabs, sooner or later I’ve to stroll to get to my home. So I used to be like ‘am I going to be grabbed?’”
She might solely attend three bodily protests due to this. Helpless, she barely left her home and it worsened after October 20 when she began “listening to gunshots in my head”. She discovered one among MANI’s psychological well being calls on Twitter and despatched a message throughout one among her panic assaults when she “might barely breathe”.
“They helped out,” she says. “Any individual known as from there, he was attempting to get my thoughts off the entire thing. It was a really lengthy name and it labored higher than I anticipated.”
Ifedola Ward, MANI’s government director, says they started to concentrate to psychological breakdowns linked to the #EndSARS protests after she witnessed a girl having a panic assault on the website in Alausa, on October 7. “They didn’t know what was taking place to her and labelled her a [protest] disruptor,” she says.
After calming the lady down, she led MANI efforts to arrange a devoted channel to assist these needing help, and to distribute panic playing cards – a primary assist card with tricks to fight gentle psychological well being issues resembling sleep deprivation, panic assaults and nervousness.
Counsellors and listeners
On October 17, protest organisers began a helpline so the Finish SARS Response Unit – a web based platform created to offer social companies together with meals, safety, and medical assist – might higher meet protesters’ wants. Of the six obtainable channels individuals might name for assist, three extensions have been devoted solely to psychological well being emergencies.
Eby Akhigbe, a buyer care skilled credited with establishing the helplines, led a bunch of volunteers who answered the calls. MANI and Stand To Finish Rape Initiative (STER), a sexual violence advocacy group, have been on the fore. Misery calls landed on both desks or with Akhigbe’s group. All of them present Psychological First Support (PFA), utilizing task-sharing – a system utilized by MANI to fill the void within the Nigerian psychological well being sector.
With task-sharing, instances are dealt with in a triage method, relying on severity: Delicate instances like nervousness, trauma and lack of sleep get forwarded to educated psychological well being counsellors who interact in speak remedy, whereas extra severe instances like despair and suicidal ideation are referred to psychotherapists and psychiatrists, who can run a prognosis or administer medication if wanted.
“That’s as a result of we’ve got a large hole we have to bridge. If we’ve got to depend on people who studied psychotherapy or psychology, then it could imply that we’ll have lots of people with psychological well being points that may by no means get consideration,” says Ward.
Regardless, the calls poured in. Regardless of further efforts from different outfits, the requests for assist outweighed their manpower, thus highlighting the dearth of capability to take care of psychological well being points within the nation on the whole.
“I and among the members of my group took requires psychological well being, particularly at odd hours of the night time and early hours of the day,” says Akhigbe. “We had these sorts of calls; people who couldn’t sleep in any respect or they have been having panic assaults and what-have-you. Then we’ll simply speak them by the method of stress-free and stuff. We simply take heed to them. It was majorly about listening, not majorly about what we have been going to inform them.
“We even had one case the place one man wished to commit suicide,” she continues. “Actually, he even drank one thing after which we needed to ship an ambulance to go and [take] him to the hospital. There have been totally different instances like that however the majority of the instances, after they name to say, ‘I can’t sleep, my coronary heart is aching’, we simply calm them down.
“We’re not psychological well being professionals and there was numerous helplessness throughout that interval, however first we simply calm individuals down and say: ‘See, we all know what you’re going by. We perceive.’
“We’re getting these sorts of calls. Persons are dying and all. Simply take a deep breath. Be calm. Shut down your social media, shut down your cellphone. Hearken to calming music to take your thoughts off the entire scenario. I had an ‘Finish Sars’ playlist. I used to be even sharing it on Twitter.”
In line with Akhigbe, the night time of October 20 and the next morning noticed this attain a crescendo, after the killings on the Lekki toll gate. Members of the group, together with herself, broke down. “All people too had a share of coping with their psychological well being.”
Training hole
One constructive end result of #EndSARS has been furthering psychological well being consciousness in a rustic the place psychological illnesses are sometimes not handled critically. The amount of requests for help through the protests – though overwhelming for counsellors – was an excellent signal that persons are looking for assist, however the training hole stays vast, says Angel Yinkore, STER’s psychological well being unit lead.
Psychological healthcare is stigmatised. Usually, quite than looking for medical assist, points are both ignored or seen as religious assaults that may be handled by turning to faith. “That is one thing that wants dialogue,” she says.
In Calabar, photographer Kubiangha was confronted with stigma and advised by a health care provider to “attempt Jesus Christ” throughout one among her visits to the hospital.
“After I advised my mom I wanted to go to a psychiatric hospital, she simply screamed, like I advised her I need to do medication. She was like ‘God forbid.’ Hers was out of concern for what individuals would say, however different peoples’ [reaction] was worse,” Kubiangha says.
That was earlier than she discovered MANI on Twitter. However people who find themselves not on social media may not have entry to the training and remedy they want.
“Clearly you need to be of a sure literacy degree and social class degree to have the ability to entry initiatives like MANI and STER. Those that don’t have entry to that, how do they learn about them?” asks Yinkore, who campaigns for presidency intervention on the grassroots degree.
However societal perceptions round psychological well being, and the general public’s degree of training on the subject, is enabled by the regulation – or the dearth thereof.
In 1916, the Lunacy Ordinance, Nigeria’s first psychological well being laws, was enacted. The legal guidelines have been then amended in 1958, whereas the nation was below British management, conferring energy upon medical practitioners and magistrates to detain sufferers with psychological diseases.
In 2003, the Nationwide Meeting acquired a Psychological Well being Invoice, which outlined ideas for the supply of care to individuals with neurological and psychological situations. However failure to behave on it noticed it withdrawn in 2009 whereas a reintroduction in 2013 was met with the identical languid vitality.
“In main healthcare centres, what the federal government must be doing is introducing psychological well being programmes. In order that within the grassroots, individuals have entry to it as a result of it’s not simply individuals within the center class which might be being affected by police brutality,” says Yinkore.
“Whereas our companies are open to everybody, not all people nonetheless is aware of in regards to the existence of such companies.”
Filling the void
NGOs proceed to attempt to fill the hole. A number of initiatives have sprung up throughout and after the protests to assist fight psychological well being issues. For queer Nigerians – who face further trauma due to the nation’s homophobic legal guidelines – the Protected Home undertaking supplied tailor-made psychological well being steerage over the cellphone.
On November 8 in Lagos, Tiwa, a group of Nigerian feminine photographers, held a care occasion that they opened to photographers of any gender who coated the protests. Umar Faruq Akinwunmi, who documented the protests, attended. He advised Al Jazeera he was on edge through the protests and skilled “a light set off [every time] I noticed the police”.
“On the third mainland bridge, earlier than the Adeniji diversion, my automobile stopped and the police have been there. I received actually agitated, I used to be nervous that they may simply do one thing,” he recollects. On November 7, a day earlier than the care occasion, he had one other encounter when he was pulled over by policemen on his approach again from a date along with his girlfriend.
Out there on the care occasion have been therapeutic massage classes, portray and a psychotherapy session led by Iheme, the psychotherapist from Ndidi.
“The spa session was good for his or her physique. It was a solution to relieve bodily pressure and simply loosen up, and the psychotherapy – getting individuals to speak,” says Aisha Ife, the group occasion convener. “Most instances, individuals don’t need to speak. That day, it was a very nice factor for individuals to only have the ability to communicate freely about their experiences, how they’ve been coping thus far and likewise how they’ll cope higher with their trauma.”
Iheme noticed an analogous sample rising, she says. “Lots of people who spoke and shared their emotions had their challenges starting from enhancing pictures, fears about going exterior, panic assaults every time they noticed a police truck or police vehicles. They’re very related, it wasn’t totally different from the opposite individual.”
She urges each Nigerian to go and see a psychological well being skilled, because of the peculiarity of traumatic experiences within the nation – together with financial hardship, authorities oppression, violence and heavy-handed policing. However on common a remedy session prices 10,000 naira ($26) – a big quantity contemplating the nation’s minimal wage is 30,000 naira ($79) a month.
The price of care
Psychological healthcare is a luxurious in Nigeria. Nevertheless, “one can keep on with NGOs like Mentally Conscious, Anti Suicide and Despair”, Iheme says. “I work with an NGO known as Listening Ear Africa, they pay for individuals’s remedy classes.”
Obodo, a subsidiary of Ndidi, gives free help group classes for individuals needing psychological healthcare in Lagos. Their final session noticed the best turnout for teams in help of tension, despair and grief. Digital instruments like Google, wikiHow, Quora and YouTube movies on psychological well being additionally turn out to be useful, providing free and extra accessible streams of recommendation, she says.
She advises: “Deep respiration workouts for panic assaults, grounding methods for panic assaults, workouts for while you’re coping with despair and nervousness; and [the] significance of permitting their feelings to circulation quite than holding them again.”
At Ndidi, she provides a bundle tailor-made for artists, together with writers and sculptors, the place they’ll both get a reduced session or apply for monetary assist to get free classes.
“Whilst a non-public observe, the purpose is to make it inexpensive, though we try to be worthwhile. The purpose is to create assets the place individuals that may’t afford to pay a single dime can simply present up and get assist.”
With assist from different organisations, MANI has continued its advocacy for a mentally wholesome nation. Along with STER – which sponsors 10 medical psychologists – they facilitate non-public remedy classes for victims of police brutality. World Shaper sponsors weekly group classes known as Therapeutic Collectively, for individuals but to recuperate from the windfall of the #EndSARS protests – a six-month undertaking aiming to achieve 5,000 Nigerian youths. And She Writes Lady, an advocacy group giving “psychological well being a voice”, launched its toll-free psychological well being helpline.
The significance of seeing a psychological well being skilled can’t be overemphasised, says Iheme, urging individuals to reap the benefits of the present upheaval and curiosity, and guide a session.
Throughout radio host Eguagie’s week-long break from work after the Lekki taking pictures, he was capable of stabilise his feelings with the assistance of a psychological well being restoration coach, whereas within the aftermath of her traumatic encounter at Alausa, younger protester Igwe has thought of reaching out to MANI for skilled assist.
Regardless of the federal government’s lackadaisical method, advocates, practitioners and volunteers proceed to champion the trigger for a mentally steady nation, hoping each Nigerian no matter their social class – particularly in gentle of the widespread #EndSARS protests – will get assist.
*Identify has been modified to guard the individual’s id.