Fifteen years ago, I sat inside a rational psychology class presided over by the late philosophy professor, the great Joseph Nyasani. As the only student he was taking at the time, I had the honour to learn from his modest office at the University of Nairobi’s Gandhi Wing office.
As he took me through the list of the many mental disorders, their many variants and symptoms, I flashed a wry smile which he quickly noticed. I sat barely a metre from his office chair.
“I know why you are smiling,” he said. “You have noticed most of these symptoms in people around or close to you. You are surprised that they are actually sick.”
He was correct. The more he described the symptoms, the more I related with them from my own encounters. He summarised my fear with an assertion that, “In our part of the world, people– including policymakers – do not take mental illnesses seriously.”
According to the professor, our society was wired more to respond to diseases of the body. We are still mystified by the diseases of the mind. The traditional perceptions of associating severe cases of mental illnesses with witchcraft still prevailed.
He was exceptionally worried at the time that, despite increased literacy, Kenyan communities – starting with his own – still associated sleepwalking disorder (not a mental disorder) with witchcraft.
Over the years since my lesson with Prof Nyasani, I have observed the great cultural shift on the topic of mental health. It is now a woke concept.
While this is a positive development, there are certain aspects of this wokeness we have elected to suppress. We have not taken a lot of time to study the relationship between mental health and leadership.
According to the World Health Organization, 970 million people out of the 7.7 billion people globally in 2019 were living with a mental disorder of one kind or another. The figures have increased to 1 billion post-Covid times.
The one billion is spread between mild to severe cases, from those receiving medical care to those not aware they are suffering, and from ordinary people to leaders holding positions of great responsibility.
While mental health is important for every human being, it is particularly important for those holding sensitive positions of great responsibility. Politics is undeniably the greatest good in a republic.
Arising from historical happenings, high political officers are ring-fenced against extreme cases of mental illnesses.
Our constitution has provided a good starting point. Articles 99, (2) (e), 137 ((1) (b), 193 (2) (d) and 180 (2) disqualify persons of unsound mind from being elected to the office of member of parliament, member of county assemblies, governor or to the office of the president.
Yet a casual, non-medical glance at the conduct of many of our leaders shows they are teetering on the brink of unsoundness of the mind. Many of them, just like many of us out here, are carrying the debilitating weight of mental illnesses.
It becomes a crisis when you look beyond elected political leadership, and shine the torch on the judiciary and top positions of the executive. We have mentally ill people presiding over delicate affairs of the state.
Their paranoia is palpable, delusions of grandeur are splattered all over and their extreme rage episodes are matters of public record. Narcissistic pathology afflicts practically half of our elected leadership.
The greatest danger is not that a good number of our leaders are mentally ill, since this alone is not proof of unsoundness or incompetence. The greatest danger is the failure to treat them. It is the denial, the secrecy, the lack of awareness that they are unwell.
More importantly, it is the lack of adequate safeguards against late diagnosis. History is replete with tough lessons on why mental health matters in leadership.
As we head to next year’s polls, the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission and political parties must lead the way in entrenching structures for monitoring, promoting and safeguarding the mental health of all those seeking to lead us.
Musau, an advocate of the High Court of Kenya, is a senior project manager with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the position of FNF
