Nigerian Mental Health has launched Nigeria’s first public facing Mental Health Policy Commitment Tracker, an accountability platform designed to monitor whether mental health promises are being translated into measurable action.
The platform was publicly unveiled after Mental Health Awareness Month and is intended to allow citizens, practitioners and civil society groups to review commitments, submit local implementation updates and track progress across federal and state levels.
The tracker comes at a time when mental health governance in Nigeria remains under pressure despite the passage of the National Mental Health Act in 2022. Key structures required by the Act, including the Department of Mental Health, have yet to be fully established.
The federal government also missed its December 2025 deadline to fully decriminalise attempted suicide, with a revised target of December 2026 now indicated. Limited movement has also been recorded on the 2023 National Mental Health Policy and the country’s first Suicide Prevention Policy Framework.
NMH founder Chime Asonye said visibility must be matched by measurable execution. He said the tracker was created to ensure that mental health commitments are not merely announced but transparently monitored and converted into legal, institutional and service delivery outcomes.
The platform aggregates government data, legislative updates, budget documents, verified stakeholder submissions and community evidence. It tracks milestones relating to governance structures, financing, state level legal reforms, workforce capacity, treatment access, affordability and rights based protections.
Each commitment is marked by status categories such as Not Started, In Progress, Delayed or Completed, enabling users to follow the pace of reform.
The launch drew participation from government, civil society, media, entertainment and health stakeholders, including Nigeria Health Watch Managing Director Vivianne Ihekweazu, artist and advocate Hadiza Blell Olo, and the National Mental Health Coordinator at the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Tunde Ojo.
