Associate professor and founder of the Asido Foundation, Dr Jibril Abdulmalik, has urged university staff and students to prioritise their mental wealth for optimal well-being and results in their work and studies.
Dr Abdulmalik, who is also a consultant psychiatrist at the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, made this charge on Wednesday in Ibadan, while delivering a lecture titled ‘Mental health challenges in the university community’ at the Dominican University.
In the course of the lecture, the don spoke extensively on mental, physical, and social health; mental health in the university community; and how people can look after their emotional wellbeing.
He expressed dissatisfaction with why most workplaces focus exclusively on physical health, while mental and social aspects of health are often neglected with disastrous consequences, including reduced productivity and job performance.
Dr Abdulmalik listed some of the mental health issues of academia to include ─ but not limited to ─ difficulties with career progression, resource constraints and lack of equipment, poor remuneration and motivation, inhabitable working environment, inhumane and hostile denigration by senior colleagues, work overload, environmental challenges, absence of wellness clinics and emotional support in the workplace, and shame and stigma associated with emotional issues.
For students, the don stated that mental health issues include low self-esteem and loneliness, difficulties with interpersonal relationships, peer and academic pressures, temptation to try drugs, bullying, internet addiction, relationship difficulties, parental discord or dysfunctional family homes.
For optimal emotional wellbeing, Dr Abdulmalik recommended good sleep, investment in human relationships, regular exercise, spending quality time with family, compartmentalisation, relaxation and savouring life´s daily pleasures, avoiding drug abuse, and freeing weekends, among others.
Part of the event included the investiture of Barrister James Stephen Ajibola as a friend of the Department of Mass Communication of Dominican University.
Ajibola, while giving his remarks, spoke on the Nigerian education system, academic qualifications for top political office holders, the media profession, and the legal sector.
He expressed happiness that the university has a Department of Mass Communication and was grateful to the department for finding him worthy to be a friend of the department.
“I shall do more by inviting my friends to support me to contribute to the development of the institution,” he said.
Ajibola stated that he will be sponsoring and endowing the Department of Mass Communication of the university with a cash award of N100,000 per session for the next ten academic sessions, which will be subject to review from time to time.
The Head of Department (HOD) of the university, Dr Ifeanyi Onyike, thanked Barrister James Ajibola for accepting to be a friend of the department.
Dr Onyike, while listing the criteria for making someone a friend of the university, described Ajibola as a journalist, a psychologist, a real estate magnate, and a friend of the department, adding, “Those who have lacked friends in the past are in a better position to appreciate the selflessness of true and real friends.”
The HOD, appreciating the guest lecture, stressed that the university takes the well-being and the mental health of its university community seriously, adding, “Mental health is a matter that affects everyone, directly or indirectly. For those of us in the university environment, either as students or staff, the pressure may be worse, considering that we have to cope with academic, financial, and economic pressures.”
The vice chancellor of the university, Rev. Fr. Professor Dokun Oyeshola, thanked Dr Abdulmalik and Barrister Ajibola for honouring the invitation of the department. He appreciated the HOD of Mass Communication for taking his leadership role seriously.
The vice chancellor urged the staff and the students to take what the guest lecturer said seriously to help themselves and others too.
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