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From Joseph Obukata, Warri
German physician, Ernst Josef Franzek, is a visiting professor with the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UNIBENTH), Benin, Edo State. He is a specialist in psychiatry, neurology and psychotherapy.
In this interview, with Daily Sun, he discussed the results of his research in Africa with a particular emphasis on Nigeria and other issues.
Do you notice improvements in Nigeria since your last visit, especially in the area of general healthcare?
I have followed the development of health care in Nigeria very thoroughly since 2017. As a matter of fact, I have not seen any sign of improvement in Nigeria’s health care system since then. Proper healthcare is still only available for the privileged and upper classes. It is obvious that only privileged people in the country have a life expectancy compared to the civilised western countries.
An overwhelming number of people in Nigeria, however, live in poverty or even extreme poverty with less than one dollar per day. Many diseases are caused by scarcity, like lack of healthy food, clean drinking water, or proper sanitation. There are more than 40 million people who do not even have functioning toilets and adequate sanitation.
The population of Nigeria with about 200 million is mostly younger than 40 years. This means life expectancy is far below 60 years. One out of five children, dies before age five. The reason for this is prenatal and postnatal malnutrition, lack of adequate midwifery and of (early) baby care. Another reason being diseases which could have been easily treated by a normal functioning healthcare system. The vast majority of Nigeria’s populace could not afford to pay for a hospital, a doctor, nurse, or medication. Almost nobody has and/or can afford health insurance. Falling ill is, in many cases, like a “death sentence.” The situation in mental health care is even worse.
In the big cities, there are psychiatric hospitals. But you will be shocked that in rural areas, mental health care is almost completely missing. When you count psychiatrists per capita of the whole population, you find 0.1 psychiatrists for about one million people. The consequences of these are high level of depressions, suicides, violence, criminality, insurgencies, child soldiers and addictive behaviours. In particular, violence and addiction are the results of poverty and not the cause of it.
The problems of Nigeria’s common people are poverty, mismanagement of resources, neglect of the youth and exploitation of natural resources with environmental degradation through western countries. It is a known fact that the “civilised world” promotes corruption in Nigeria, based on greed for power, resources and money.
What is Legionnaire for Mankind’s Health (LMH) all about?
The primary starting point of the Legionnaire for Mankind’s Health is Africa, with a special focus on Nigeria. I have been to Nigeria several times since 2017, most recently in January or February of 2021. I saw the unbelievable contrast of extreme richness and extreme poverty. I saw a country that could be a paradise for mankind, but which is kept in custody by corruption, disinformation, lack of normal infrastructure and completely insufficient healthcare and education system.
My overall conclusion was that the underlying problems of millions of Nigeria’s common people are lack of enough and healthy food, clean water and adequate housing. Lack of midwifery and adequate baby care, in adequate sanitation, lack of adequate primary and secondary education and lack of adequate jobs for youths. These issues have to be tackled intensively and as soon as possible. If nothing happens, a great catastrophe is imminent.
LMH is not a charity organisation. The organisation stands for encouraging and putting people in a state where they can peacefully gain access to basic needs of life.
Charity is often used to cover up crimes against humanity and the environment.
Nigeria needs empowerment among its own population. Magic elements of this approach are quality education, free university education for skilled young people, keeping well-educated people in the country (no brain drain), and making natural resources benefit the whole populace. Not the status of parents should determine the life and development of Nigeria’s children and youths, but talents, skills, ambition and personal effort.
What was the inspiration behind your most recent work, “Sources of Human Aggression, Violence, Antisocial and Addictive Behaviours”?
A great body of research points to the fact that preconception, prenatal and early postnatal hunger, starvation and malnutrition have lifelong negative consequences for surviving individuals. Via gene-environment interaction, i.e., so-called epigenetic processes, short-term survival benefits are provided, however, in the long run, these processes predispose affected humans to various severe somatic and mental illnesses in adulthood.
Based on scientific research, there is little doubt that these epigenetic processes play a major role in predisposing to excessive aggression and violence and finally contributing to the development of antisocial and addictive behaviours. As long as people are born, they have to grow up and live in life threatening conditions and adverse environments with a lack of proper food, a lack of education, and insufficient health care. High liabilities to aggression, violence, anti-social and addictive behaviours will persist as important character traits of humans.
Access to and affordability of quality nutrition and education, as well as access to and affordability of adequate health care for every
human on this planet from the very first days of life, are claimed to be unconditional premises to transform humanity into a peaceful and eventually sustainable species.
What is responsible for the rise in these behaviours? How can this situation be dealt with?
Privileged and upper-class people in African countries are a little minority but they often possess all resources, money and power. The civilised western world supports this situation by encouraging corrupt behaviours to get cheap access to Africa’s rich resources and cheap labour. The common people suffer from modern slavery, exploitation and terrible life conditions. People are dying from normally treatable diseases. Millions of children are dying before the age of five years.
Pregnant African women have a 300-fold higher risk of dying during pregnancy and giving birth compared to women in Europe and the United States. Under nutrition results in reduced ability to recover after crisis, impairs mental, somatic health and cognitive functions of a population. As an overall consequence, it causes the dependence of
whole populations and nations on on-going support. The situation will not improve through charity, in fact, charity stabilises it. The people have to get empowered.
Governments have to work hard for
adequate infrastructure, industrialisation, agriculture, science, education and healthcare systems. Wars and armed conflicts need to be banned, multicultural communities should be supported, tribalism and religious fanaticism must be stopped and peaceful coexistence must become the norm.
What benefits will Africans derive from the LMH conference in Munich, Germany in 2023?
The conference of LMH in Munich on February 5, 2023, will highlight what mankind really needs to deal with the future challenges and dangers of life on planet earth. The world needs Africa as an equal partner. The world is interconnected. What happens in one part of the planet influences the whole planet, positively as well as negatively.
The title of the conference is “Empowering Mankind’s Potential.” Experts drawn from Germany, the Netherlands, UAE, Nigeria and
Argentina will address a broad range of sustainable approaches to transform Africa’s future development. The major goal of our organisation is to spread awareness of Africa’s healthcare challenges to the world.
Therefore, our conference locations are usually strategically chosen. We intend to produce a policy document from the conference due to the knowledge and professionalism of our speakers.
What exactly do you have to offer UNIBENTH?
During my visits, I have delivered several lectures at the Teaching Hospital and the Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital in Benin. I met competent colleagues and enthusiastic young students. My main focus is not only to provide international knowledge to the young students. A great proportion of doctors who have finished their medical studies leave the country and start working abroad because of much better payment and working conditions.
The money doctors are getting for their hard work in Nigeria is not attractive for them. Working in the mental health care sector at all
is not attractive, because mental health care has a very low political status in Nigeria. This is why mental health care is completely lacking outside of big cities. Traditional healers and the church are trying to help in the treatment of severely mentally ill people.
As a visiting professor, I would like to encourage young medical students not to put money and wealth at the top of their list of future prospects. But passion, love for disadvantaged people and an understanding of how the behaviour of psychiatrically ill people can be derived from (partially and often temporarily) disabled brain functions.
Isolation and punishment are inhuman and cause long-lasting traumas, even after someone has fully recovered from the psychiatric episode. Knowledge and carefully recognising the healthy parts of severely disturbed patients help substantially improve their life conditions and even improve disease symptoms. Love what you are doing and put money and status in second/third place.
Become an advocate for your patients. Treat them always with compassion and human dignity. Never see them as second/third class people, or as mad people suffering from punishment from God. As a visiting professor, I want to contribute to building up a social primary healthcare system with and for local people. The health care system has to be independent from outside the country, independent from NGOs located in other countries and independent from religious institutions and charity organisations. The youths of Nigeria have a lot of intellectual power. The youths have to be brought into the condition of using their intellectual power properly to develop their own country, based on local tradition and modern scientific knowledge.
