Emevwo Biakolo is a writer, family therapist and professor of Communications at the Pan-Atlantic University. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde he talks about the things that inspire him, mental health, increase in suicide rates and his books on relationships.
Tell us about life as a lecturer?
Life as an academic is simple. We teach, research and serve community in various ways, areas and interests.
What inspired you to go into family therapy?
I have been interested in marriage and family issues for decades. While in The Guardian I wrote more about family than about politics. I came to realize over time that families need emotional care and mental well being as much as they need physical and material health and sustenance or any policy or ideological debates.
How can this help to build better relationships and homes?
Material and physical problems trigger mental health problems and these in turn lead to mental and emotional difficulties. It’s a case of recursive causality. We need to pay greater attention to mental health challenges of couples and families.
Many are finding it difficult to handle disappointment with suicide and depression on the increase. What are some of the lessons learnt?
As I said, families and society in general need to pay more and more attention to mental health issues.
Let’s talk about your books on relationships?
So far I have written just two books on the subject: The Meaning of Marriage (2010) and the recent book, Withness Conversations (2022) which is on the subject of communication in marriage and couple systems. The first book was based on my experience of marriage. I went into my first marriage at 23. Before our 30th anniversary, I wanted to document my experience of and reflections on marriage. The second book, Withness Conversations: Love and Commitment in Couple Communication is more professional, more about couple communication and relationship, more oriented towards clinical work in marriage therapy. My core thesis in it is that the affective element in marriage is not enough. Affectivity is critical at the beginning for sure, but that moral and spiritual factor called commitment is ultimately what will sustain the marriage. Commitment is love that does not shout or wear the red colors of sexual attraction.
What are some of the challenges encountered in the sector?
Mental health is a broad field. Just as there is a variety of physical diseases, so there is a variety of mental health problems. Depression, which in its extreme state as in Major Depressive Disorder, is only one of many issues, but it seems to command public attention recently particularly because of some high profile cases or media focus. It is possible that given the economic difficulties of the last seven years, and attendant social consequences, cases of depression may have increased. Unfortunately, I do not have access to governmental data (if they exist at all) or to some other database to make any definite statement about the incidence of depression in our country.
However, depression is just one form of mental health problems. Substance addiction is probably also on the rise, but again we need valid data and data collection procedures to say anything worthwhile. What we have is merely anecdotal information. From a professional point of view, you cannot make any proper judgment based on that level of information.
There is also some trending media reportage on marital and relationship distress, especially if this leads to divorce or separation, but again the data evidence is slight or non-existent.
Finally, the serious mental health problems such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder often tend to occupy the attention of psychiatrists, because this is primarily what they are trained for and we have mental health facilities in Nigeria devoted often to these areas. Marital and family therapy is a particularly new field in our country, and what I see is that the professionals who attend to marital issues, professionals such as psychiatrists, social worker, clinical psychologists etc,. do the best they can, but this is a specialty area that they are not specifically trained to handle. That for me represents a real challenge in the mental health field that no one seems interested in talking about.
Tell us about some of the memorable moments in life and your career?
I have had so many, but a few standout moments would include getting the School of Media and Communication of the Pan-Atlantic University off the ground, and up and running in 2008, just a year after my resumption at the then relatively new Pan-African University. I also enjoyed working at The Guardian and writing a weekly column from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Starting the NAFACEN ngo has been important too.
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What or who inspires the things you do?
I am passionate about human development: the well being and growth of individuals, couples, families and of course society as a whole. I think of my career as an academic or indeed my earlier years as secondary school teacher as one of involvement in developing human beings. As a therapist, this care for people’s well being, for their growth and thriving is also a major motivator. I believe that in serving people and society, I am serving God. So you may say it is love of God and humanity that pushes me forward.
Let’s talk about the National Family Counselling and Educational Network which you started with your late wife, Dr. Margaret Biakolo?
Well, the NAFACEN, which is the acronym for this organization is still very much work in progress. We have not yet realized our potential. Sadly, Margaret is gone, so I am left to soldier on with the vision we shared. Luckily, my present wife understands the passion that drives me on and recognizes that I shall persist with the effort to bring this dream to reality.
What are some of the other things that occupy your time?
Basically, teaching or lecturing, research, counseling, reading, writing, journalism and running my family.
Tell us about the people you admire/role models?
I have many people whom I admire; most have passed away but a few are around. The first on the list of those whom I admire would be my parents, both my father and mother, who were individually very different personalities. My father was a man of great wisdom and character. In a culture and society, the Urhobo culture, that was prevalently non-Christian and polygamous in his time, he was a model Christian and faithful husband of one woman. My mother was a serial entrepreneur, energetic, restless, fearless, and incredibly hardworking. She manifested her faith in work and caring for her family.
Growing up I had a school principal, the Rev Father Stephen Ogbeide, who taught me Latin, and the value of the classics and of learning. He was a disciplinarian and a faithful priest. Then at the University of Ibadan, I admired the late Prof Isidore Okpewho, a real scholar and writer, and a good family man. There are many others also, but you would have to wait for my autobiography, ha ha!
What would you consider as the turning point in your career?
Getting my first appointment as a lecturer at the University of Ibadan in 1984; it was Prof Dan Izevbaye who gave me the chance. He thought that I had an unusual analytical mind. He himself was a master analyst in the field of literary criticism and justly famous in that discipline. Secondly, going to work at The Guardian in 1989. It was Prof Godwin Sogolo who introduced and brought me to The Guardian. Thirdly, coming back home from abroad to start the School of Media and Communication in 2007 was an important move. Finally starting the NAFACEN in 2010. These represent my academic career, career in journalism, in management, and in therapy.
Did you feel like quitting at any point?
Whenever I have considered quitting, I have quite simply quit. For example, when I could no longer continue as lecturer in UI, I quit. When I felt that my work abroad was done, I left. When as Dean of the SMC, I recognized that the best thing for the institution, for my family and mental well being was to quit, I simply resigned. Being stuck in a place out of say financial consideration is anathema to me. Professionally, I need to be happy at what I do and where I am, and if that proves impossible, I get out. Money is usually the last thing I think about when I consider professional work. Money is undoubtedly important, but professional fulfillment is not primarily about material satisfaction.
What are you looking forward to in the next few years?
Taking care of my family, providing therapy for couples and families, lecturing, journalism, writing.
What advice do you have for young people who are in relationships or planning to go into one?
First, prayer; second, prayer; third, prayer. If you do not know how to pray, or have no God to pray to in your life, I have no advice for you, but I can provide therapy if you need one.
What lessons has life taught you?
Love is the hardest thing in the world. That is why as St John of the Cross says, “in the evening of our life, we will be judged on love.” Since we are basically self-centered beings, our ego gets in the way of self-giving. Yet we have no identity without the ego. That’s the human conundrum…the struggle with the self as egoist. This ego-worship tells us we are the center of the universe; reality tells us something different, that we are just one out of 7.2 billion humans. And we also have the Ego of egos to consider, to contend with, namely, the Ego of God.
So if we want to be truly happy, we have to battle the ego to serve others in self-sacrificing love. You see, life is a testing time, a time allotted to us to see how much we have trained and fought ourselves to triumph in the battle of love. Most people erroneously think that success, materially or socially or professionally or in business, is the most important thing. These are goods, but not the ultimate good. Love is.
The commonest testing ground of love for most of the human race, of course, is the institution of marriage and family. For, your first neighbor is your spouse, and if you cannot love this neighbor who shares your bed and table, to the point of giving up your ego for her or him, how can you love God whom you do not see, or your other neighbors who are far from you, physically or metaphorically?
Who or what do you consider as the greatest influence in your life?
Next to my Christian faith, that would be my parents. My father was a praying man. He woke up every day since I knew him at 4 am in order to pray for some two hours before he went to Mass or to work. My mother on the hand was a prayer-on-the-go sort: she woke up, said a short prayer, did household chores, took her rosary and went to her business praying her beads. Different models of prayer – one daily meditation, the other constant vocal prayer. I have now lived combining both. I consider prayer the most important thing in my life.