Re: Pastor Sam Adeyemi | The mental riddle of the Nigerian thought process

If there ever was a book written to try to capture the Nigerian thought process, it would definitely have not some but all (and some more) of the following as themes:

  • Na God
  • I sabi pass you
  • Racing to conclusions
  • selective amnesia

There are others -“suffering and smiling” and resilience – that should never be left out of a conversation with Nigerians as a subject-matter but for the sake of what happened this morning, let’s talk about how those four work.

These themes had the opportunity to play out all at the same time earlier today. Pastor Sam Adeyemi, the senior pastor at Daystar Christian centre, in a series of tweets delivered a pastor’s insight to the issue of mental health. His take on the matter is not far from what you’d expect from a deeply religious person –that mental illness is as a result of sin (according to many Christians, all the world’s ill comes courtesy of the ‘original sin’ from Adam) – but it has also earned him a lot of backlash. From the non-religious community as well as the ‘well informed community of judges of correct social commentary’.

Na God

It is the undisputable Nigerian way to attribute all to the spiritual realm. It is what Pastor Sam Adeyemi did and many of the posts on stand-by defending him fall in this category. Every problem in this world can be traced back to the sin of Adam and Eve. All. You can even argue otherwise –because God said so – and anyone who tries to say otherwise has already been misled by man’s arch enemy, Satan.

It’s not that there is no place for logic or the physical proof of things that happen within this realm. We just believe that there is nothing that cannot be traced to God. Keep all your data and advancement in medical and other research. if no b 4 God.

I sabi pass you

They haven’t really been wrong. Experts say that there is scientific proof that mental illness is not just caused by some Act of God. And although “the exact cause of most mental illnesses is not known, it is becoming clear through research that many of these conditions are caused by a combination of biological, psychological, and environmental factors.”

Those who know more than Pastor Sam have all the numbers on their side to show that he is wrong. Mental illness is not caused by sin because how can a Pastor of his caliber say that in this same world where so many people are suffering from different kinds of mental illnesses? How can he? Such ignorance! And that’s the problem with Nigeria – always bringing the god-factor into everything.

But that’s the thing isn’t it? There is also scientific proof that all men evolved from being apes yet it doesn’t stop the people of God from believing in the theory of Creation.

Racing to conclusions

We’ve all been in this category on one issue or the other. We’ve read the deliberately sensational-to-the-point-of-being-misleading headlines and concluded that one popular figure or another is an ignoramus. The tabloids played this well this morning. One reads: “The Root Cause of Mental illness Is Sin” – Says Pastor Sam Adeyemi As “64 million Nigerians Suffer From Mental illness”.

There’s a possibility that as many as 64 million people will read that headline alone and move on. Almost as many people will also use that headline as a point of reference in future for how Pastor Sam Adeyemi does not believe in medical treatment.  

Selective Amnesia

Earlier this week we forgot any reason why anyone would take objection to being on the same panel as Bobrisky. Today, we remember that Pastor Sam said that sin is the root cause of mental illness. We also conveniently forget that he said in the same thread that if there is a problem, medical help should be sought.

We easily remembered the role of the context of bigotry and the importance of the minority when some people sought to lave Bobrisky out of a discourse on New media but we forget the role context plays in a thread of less than 20 tweets.

To an outside eye, we’ll be a curious case. But if you’re Nigerian or you have spent enough time among Nigerians, it will be easy to hiss and walk past all the drama. If you’re patient, you’ll pay attention to it for all of an hour of a little more for the laughs and then move on.

 

 

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