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Background
Mental health conditions (MHCs) such as anxiety, depression or psychosis are increasingly becoming the leading cause of disease burden and disability globally (Weye et al., 2020). The World Health Organization (WHO) special initiative for universal mental health coverage suggests that MHCs cause early lived mortality of 10–20 years (WHO, 2019a, 2019b). For instance, there are global records of over 800,000 deaths annually due to suicide mortality alone with economic losses of over US$1tn per year, with a disproportionate impact in low- and middle-income countries (WHO, 2019a, 2019b).
In Africa, MHCs are exacerbated due to widespread misconceptions, a low policy priority for mental health, inadequate human resources and facilities for mental health provision, human rights abuses and stigmatisation (Oshodi et al., 2014), the already weakened mental health services on the continent (Sankoh et al., 2018). It is projected that by 2050, West African countries would experience a 129% increase in MHCs (Charlson et al., 2014). In the quest to reduce the increasing mental health disease burden in the region, Gureje et al. (2019) explored the potentials of partnership for mental health development in Sub-Saharan Africa (PaM-D). They proposed that the research component of PaM-D should focus on collaborative shared care treatment between traditional and faith healers, in conjunction with the biomedical providers, to treat MHCs; whereas mental health has different cultural contexts in Africa, the focus of this paper is Nigeria.
Nigeria has one of the most deprived mental health-care systems globally (Abdulmalik et al., 2016; Gureje et al., 2015; Jidong and Sanger, 2018). With a population of over 209 million (Worldometers, 2020), it is estimated that 20%–30% of the population suffers from MHCs (Onyemelukwe, 2016; Suleiman, 2016). However, there are minimal human resources and facilities for mental health-care provision in Nigeria (Anyebe et al., 2019). Only one out of every five people with an MHC can access any care (Abdulmalik et al., 2019). Gureje et al (2006) report that over a 12-month period, only 10% of those with MHCs had received any form of treatment in Nigeria. Similar to other low- or middle-income countries, the Nigerian Government health budget allocates less than 2% to the prevention and treatment of MHCs (World Health Organization [WHO], 2019b). Furthermore,...