Sam Adeyemi, Dr Ayinde and mental health issue

Yesterday I read an interesting article on the above. The article is an open later to Pastor Sam Adeyemi on Sam Adeyemi’s ‘supposed’ level of ignorance by a professional psychiatrist named Dr Ayinde. It was quite an interesting read and I am always happy when a professional comes in to shed light on issues many who do not have knowledge are making public comments on. Let me begin by saying that I do not work for any of the Sam Adeyemi’s organizations, including his church, but I must admit I attend his meetings/church.

Dr Ayinde raised a couple of issues on the message preached by Adeyemi to his over 30,000 congregation on Sunday 31, 2016. One of the issues  is fact that Adeyemi attributed sources of Mental health to Spiritual forces; meaning witches and wizards. Dr Ayinde also mentioned that Adeyemi’s speech has an undertone of stigmatization and abuse of rights of mental health patients. Dr Ayinde maintained such statement may deter mental health patients from seeking help early.

Dr Ayinde also suggested to  Pastor Sam Adeyemi and his church and many others to use their huge resources to fund issue affecting the society like mental health.

One appreciates Dr Ayinde’s position, a professional who wants to set things in the right order. This is the hallmark of great professionals and one should encourage such from other professionals who know the worth and value of knowledge.  That said, there are issues one will like to clarify from Dr. Ayinde’s position.

One, what is the source of Dr. Ayinde’s information on what he wrote? Was he in any of the services where Pastor Sam Adeyemi preached the message? Or he got his opinion from social media: twitter, Facebook or blog?

One needs to ask Dr Ayinde’s this question before going ahead. Interestingly, Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s messages are always live streamed and an e-version of each message he preaches is always online at www.daystarng.tv just for the record.

A hall mark of a good professional is proper understanding of context and perspectives. Any professional who misses out on these two important factors will always betray his ignorance and lack of depth. In any research work, a good researcher must first establish his/her context or concept upon which he/she will build on.

First, Pastor Sam Adeyemi began his message that Sunday by saying he was not going to be speaking as a professional- psychiatrist or a psychologist or anyone one else. He maintained he would be speaking as one who understands spiritual foundation of how things went wrong for mankind. He also maintained his perspective will be influenced more by what the Bible says about challenges man faces in this world.

With that established one would have thought people like Dr Ayinde would have remained in their own world/context and offer perspectives of professional instead of name calling and judgemental languages.

In addition to this, Dr Ayinde should please point out where Pastor Sam said categorically that witches and wizards are the root cause of mental health. Methinks Pastor Sam, a doctoral research candidate with global knowledge, is too intelligent to go to that extreme.

One also does think it is improper to put words in the mouth of the people just to justify a point. What Pastor Sam Adeyemi said was that African needs to have a change of perspective as we always attribute mental health issues to witches and wizard.

Dr Ayinde needs to go back online and listen to Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s words again to hear the words he used in his sermon peradventure his source of information is  social media: blogs, twitter. As a media person, I also know people who picked information from social media were in hot arguments with Japhet Omojuwa on his twitter that same Sunday.

Pastor Sam Adeyemi said from his knowledge of the Bible and creation story, the fall of Man into sin was the genesis of mankind’s problem. He maintained man would have been living in the perfect state of health and would not have been affected by any form of illness if sin had not crept in.

If Pastor Sam said this from his perspective as a pastor and leader in church I do think he is still in order as there are varied perspectives to an issue in life. Those who look at issue from one perspective and are closed to others will always be demonstrating higher level of ignorance.

But as a well informed person Pastor Sam went on to say stress, hard drugs and other substance abuse may be likely causes. He concluded that anyone suffering from mental health should seek help from professionals (like Dr. Ayinde). And that mental health patients should not be stigmatized. Pastor Sam preached a balanced message. In no way, at least to the best of my knowledge did Pastor Sam Adeyemi stigmatize or abuse mental health patients’ right.

So one is wondering what is the source of Dr Ayinde’s information? Was he in any of the services where the message was preached or has he listened to the online version to verify his claims? If he has not and had relied on Social media, there seems to be a level of inefficiency in his claim as a professional. Context and perspective of any issue should form the foundation of any intellectual discourse instead of just taking issues out of context to cement personal opinion. One thinks that is not hall mark of professionals.

Dr. Ayinde also recommended to Pastor Sam Adeyemi and his church to invest their huge resources in funding issues affecting the society like mental health. One expects that a professional should do his home work. How much of Pastor Sam Adeyemi’s church does he know? Did he know how many millions of naira the church commits to funding related health issues of some members of his church and non members monthly?  Did Dr Ayinde know how much aid the church gives out to humanitarian organizations as support?

For instance, is Dr Ayinde and his likes know how much the church generated and sent to a  United Nations Agency  to help curb Ebola when it was raging last year? Is he also aware of lorry loads of clothing, foodstuff and money sent to the North East few years ago when the Boko Haram issues was raging? Or what about millions of naira committed to underprivileged students’ school fees as well as back to school kits among others?

One will not crucify Dr. Ayinde’s level of ignorance here if he does not know. A common perception common to all Nigerian churches is that  Pastors always sit on billions of naira and enjoy the ‘benefits’ of a successful preaching outfit. But Dr Ayinde as a professional should go further to do his due diligence before his generalization.