Nigerian Psychiatrists Demand 2.5% Research Funding, Cite 0.1% Gap

Nigerian psychiatrists have asked the Federal Government to raise mental health's share of the health research budget to 2.5 per cent, up from a current allocation of 0.1 per cent of GDP that reaches the field. Professor Taiwo Sheikh of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, issued the demand at the 9th International Yaba Research Conference 2026, themed "Mental Health Research at the Crossroads – Challenges, Policies and Reforms in Africa."

Sheikh, President-Elect of the African Association of Psychiatrists and President of the Biological Psychiatry Society of Nigeria, put the disparity in stark terms. "Nigeria allocates 0.1 per cent of our GDP for research, and that is what is coming for mental health. Not even 1 per cent. In other countries in the West, 2.5 per cent of their GDP goes to research for mental health," he said. "My recommendation is 2.5 per cent."

Who funds African mental health research?

The funding structure raises governance questions for R&D managers on the continent. According to Sheikh, roughly 87 per cent of mental health research in Africa is funded by the National Institute of Mental Health, the World Bank or the European Union, leaving national governments with limited control over research priorities. "Funding goes to what NIMH, NIMH, DFID. It goes to what they want. Not what Nigeria needs," he said.

The output gap compounds the funding gap. Africa accounts for 17 per cent of the world's population yet contributes only 1.8 per cent of global mental health research output and receives 0.3 per cent of global research funding. Clinical trials conducted on the continent represent about one per cent of the global total, according to figures presented at the conference.

Sheikh warned that externally funded work often ends in journals inaccessible to the officials who might apply it. "We publish in journals nobody in the ministry ever read. So it cannot be translated. It cannot be useful to our people," he said. He proposed that the African Union establish an Africa Mental Health Research Fund, potentially financed through vehicle, alcohol and tobacco tax revenue, and urged international funders to ensure African researchers lead studies conducted on the continent.

What happened to the 2022 Mental Health Act?

Legislation already on the books remains unexecuted. Sheikh noted that Nigeria's Mental Health Act, signed by the President on December 28, 2022, and gazetted on December 30, 2022, provides for research funding, data collection, surveillance and protection of rights, alongside a Department of Mental Health within the Federal Ministry of Health. That department has not been established. "That act is sitting on the shelf," he said. "There is no action for mental health service delivery in Nigeria today."

How large is the treatment gap?

Dr Olugbenga Owoeye, Medical Director of the Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital, Yaba, cited conference statistics indicating that more than 150 million Africans live with mental health conditions. "Up to about 25 per cent of the population have one mental condition or the other. Only about 25 per cent of those who have it will have access to treatment," he said, adding that those excluded often turn to traditional and religious healers. He also noted that patients with chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes can develop depression from long-term medication burdens.

Lagos State offered a partial counterexample. Dr Tolu Ajomale, representing Commissioner Prof Akin Abayomi, said the state ministry had created research coordination desks, a Health Research Ethics Committee and, recently, an intellectual property desk to translate data into policy. Conference Chairperson Prof Mashudat Bello-Mojeed noted the event had grown from fewer than 10 published papers annually at its inception to more than 40 research publications presented in a single day. Whether federal authorities convert these arguments into a budget line remains the decisive test for the 2.5 per cent target.