Health Rights
Mental Health Patient Detained in Prayer House or 'Healing Centre' Against Their Will
When religious authority and family consent are used to justify the unlawful deprivation of a person's liberty
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10 minutes
The Situation
What They Said
“He needs deliverance, not medication. His family brought him here and they have authority over him. The spirit will be broken soon.”
A person experiencing a mental health crisis — psychosis, severe depression, or a condition that causes unusual behaviour — has been brought by their family to a prayer house, healing centre, or religious facility and is being held there involuntarily. The conditions may involve physical restraints, isolation, prolonged fasting, and deprivation of prescribed medication. The operators of the facility assert that the person's condition is spiritual rather than medical, and that the family's decision to bring them there provides all the authority needed to detain them. This situation is deeply common in Nigeria, where mental illness carries severe stigma and where religious frameworks for understanding disturbed behaviour are widely held. The result is that some of the most vulnerable people in Nigerian society — those with mental illness — are subjected to conditions that would constitute torture in any clinical context, with their legal rights entirely unrecognised by those holding them.
The Fallacy
Religious and Family Authority as a Substitute for Legal Process
The claim that a family's decision and a religious leader's authority provide a lawful basis for detaining an adult person is fundamentally wrong as a matter of Nigerian constitutional law. The right to personal liberty — the right not to be detained without legal authority — is one of the most fundamental rights in the Nigerian Constitution and is not extinguished by mental illness, by family concern, or by religious belief. Involuntary detention of any person — including a person with a mental illness — requires legal process: either a court order or, in very limited circumstances, a formal medical detention authorisation under applicable law. A prayer house or healing centre has no authority to deprive anyone of liberty, regardless of the family's wishes or the spiritual framework invoked.
What the Law Says
Your Legal Foundation
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)
Section 35 — Right to Personal Liberty
“Every person shall be entitled to his personal liberty and no person shall be deprived of such liberty save in the following cases and in accordance with a procedure permitted by law: (e) in the case of persons suffering from infectious or contagious disease, persons of unsound mind, persons addicted to drugs or alcohol or vagrants, for the purpose of their care or treatment or the protection of the community.”
Section 35 is critical and contains an important nuance: it does permit detention of a person of unsound mind, but only 'in accordance with a procedure permitted by law' and for the purpose of 'care or treatment'. This means that even involuntary psychiatric detention requires compliance with a formal legal process — it cannot be achieved by family decision alone. A prayer house is not a procedure permitted by law, and chaining or confining a person in a religious facility is not 'care or treatment' in any legally recognised sense.
Lunacy Act, Cap L17 LFN 2004 (operative pending replacement by a modern Mental Health Act)
Sections 8–12 — Formal Procedure for Involuntary Mental Health Detention
“A person alleged to be of unsound mind may be received into custody by order of a magistrate upon a sworn complaint, medical certificate, and examination by a medical officer. Such detention shall be in a designated institution under medical supervision.”
The Lunacy Act — Nigeria's operative mental health legislation — sets out a specific legal process for involuntary detention: it requires a magistrate's order, a sworn complaint, and medical certification. Detention can only be in a designated institution under medical supervision. No prayer house, no matter how well-intentioned, qualifies as a designated institution. A family that bypasses this process and delivers a relative to a prayer house for indefinite confinement has taken the law into their own hands, and the operators of the facility who maintain the detention are liable for false imprisonment.
National Health Act 2014 (NHA), No. 8 of 2014
Section 27 — Mental Health Care Standards
“A user has the right to — (a) participate in the decision regarding their mental health care; (b) be informed about their mental health status; (c) be protected from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
Section 27 of the NHA establishes that persons with mental health conditions retain their patient rights, including the right to participate in decisions about their care and the right to protection from degrading treatment. Physical restraint, isolation, denial of medication, and forced fasting — common conditions in prayer house confinements — are prohibited degrading treatment under this section as well as under the Constitution.
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)
Section 34 — Right to Dignity of the Human Person
“Every individual is entitled to respect for the dignity of his person, and accordingly — no person shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment.”
The conditions prevalent in prayer house detentions — chains, isolation, prolonged denial of food, forced exorcism rituals — constitute inhuman and degrading treatment in clear violation of Section 34. This violation is independent of the liberty issue under s.35 and can be the basis for a separate fundamental rights enforcement application in the High Court.
What Scripture Says
God's Word on This
Mark 5:15 (NIV)
“When they came to Jesus, they saw the man who had been possessed by the legion of demons, sitting there, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.”
This passage describes the restoration of a person who had been living in chains — bound, isolated, and beyond the reach of those who had tried to restrain him. The sign of his healing was that he was 'sitting, dressed, and in his right mind' — restored to dignity, calm, and human fellowship. Genuine care for a person experiencing mental illness seeks this kind of restoration. Keeping a person in chains and calling it deliverance is the opposite of what this passage depicts: it is bondage presented as healing.
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What They'll Say Next
Common Counter-Arguments
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They might say: “He consented when he arrived — we have a record of his agreement to come here.”
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