By Femi Oyelola
Nigeria joined the rest of the world on 17th May to mark the World Hypertension Day aimed to raise awareness and promote hypertension prevention, detection, and control.
This year, its 20th anniversary, it is being observed with the theme, “Measure Your Blood Pressure Accurately, Control It, Live Longer!”
Hypertension has continued to be a major public health challenge—a silent killer that affects over one billion people worldwide, according to the WHO.
Modifiable behavioral risk factors such as tobacco and alcohol use, high salt intake, physical inactivity, unhealthy diets, and mental stress continue to drive its prevalence
The Federal Government recently lamented the rising number of deaths from cardiovascular diseases, including hypertension, heart failure, cardiac arrest, stroke, and others in the country.
A Cardiologist with ABUTH, Shika Zaria, Dr Ibrahim Ahmed, while speaking to Weekend Peoples Daily, said Hypertension remains a leading contributor to premature mortality from heart attacks and strokes in the country.
He added that worryingly, the unmet need—defined as the gap between those with high blood pressure and those adequately diagnosed, treated, and controlled—remains as high as 88%. This indicates that 9 out of every 10 people with hypertension are not receiving optimal care
Similarly, the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) also revealed that high blood pressure remains the number one killer disease in Nigeria, accounting for about 52 per cent of the cause of sudden deaths in the country.
The Director-General of NIMR, Prof. Babatunde Salako, made this known at a symposium on Sudden Death in Nigeria: Public Dissemination of National Survey.
The DG who defined hypertension, as high blood pressure (HBP), added that it is a long-term medical condition in which the blood pressure in the arteries is persistently elevated.
According to Salako, hypertension is a silent killer that 70 per cent of people are not aware of. Because it usually comes with no early symptoms.
To stem the tide of sudden death, Salako urged Nigerians to keep a healthy lifestyle, do regular exercises and blood pressure checks, eat healthy, and avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
Reacting to this, the Citizen Co-chair, Strengthening Social Protection Systems TWG OGP Kaduna / Lead, Society for Equitable Development & Unity, Sumayya Abdullahi Hussaini, opined that for millions of Nigerians, high blood pressure isn’t a date on the calendar, it’s a daily, deadly reality.
According to her, it creeps in quietly, often without symptoms, until it delivers a devastating blow: a heart attack, a stroke, kidney failure, or worse.
She stressed that in Nigeria today, over 40 million adults live with hypertension. That’s more than the entire population of Ghana. And yet, more than half of them don’t even know they have it.
Sumayya Abdullahi Hussaini added that Hypertension isn’t just a clinical term. It’s the young father in Lagos who collapses after years of untreated stress and poor diet. It’s the market woman in Kano who dismisses pounding headaches until it’s too late. It’s the teacher in Enugu taking herbal mixtures, unaware that her blood pressure is dangerously high.
She observed that hypertension didn’t become a national crisis overnight. It’s the product of many interlocking factors, including Lifestyle shift:” Our diets are changing. Home-cooked meals are being replaced with salty, sugary, and fatty processed foods. Physical activity is down, and alcohol and tobacco use are up, especially in urban areas.
“Limited awareness: Over 50% of Nigerians with hypertension are undiagnosed. And of those who know, only 1 in 5 has it under control. Regular blood pressure checks are still not part of everyday healthcare, especially in rural areas.
“Broken healthcare systems: Many primary healthcare centers lack basic equipment to check BP, not to mention affordable medication or trained personnel. The cost of antihypertensives remains out of reach for many.
“Stress and poverty: Insecurity, unemployment, inflation, and constant uncertainty all these feed a toxic cycle of chronic stress that directly impacts heart health.
“Cultural beliefs and misinformation**: Too many still believe high BP is caused by ‘thinking too much’ or spiritual attacks.
“ This delays proper care and leads people to unproven and often dangerous alternatives.” She said
Corroborating this position, the Deputy Executive Director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, Mr. Leo Atakpu disclosed that Hypertension is a major problem in Nigeria today because so many people find themselves in very desperate situations leading to making desperate moves to achieve desperate aims and that in itself, has somehow increased the number of people coming down with the disease.
He explained that it was not as prevalent as it is today. In the past, hypertension was perceived to be the problem of the elderly, but today, we find young people, youths, and in some mild cases, we also have children coming down with high blood pressure.
According to him, some of the causes of the silent killer diseases can be grouped into unhealthy eating patterns as a major cause of hypertension, and it includes people who eat their meals with a high amount of salt, because some people take delight in eating salt, but that is preparing the ground for hypertension.
“Another issue is the lack of physical activity. People just eat, wake up in the morning maybe they manage to pray, some don’t, then they rush to work where they eat or go to different places to eat and drink, come back to the house, watch movies or go online, then log out and go to the bed to sleep.
“Lack of physical activity can also predispose an individual to hypertension and the way life is structured in Nigeria, we are constantly on the move, people are upbeat wanting to meet needs, wanting to survive, trying to attend to family and all of these brings unnecessary pressure to a lot of people that they tend to forget that there’s need to also create time for physical activities which is very important to curb hypertension.
“The other is the high consumption of beverages, and I’m talking about beverages that contain alcohol. The rate at which young people consume such beverages is so rampant and high, and some don’t care about the quantity; they just want to get themselves excessively drunk.
“They mix all kinds of things, some even get different concoctions, even drugs, and all kinds of drinks and things that weaken their organs. All of these predispose the individual to hypertension.
“Another common cause is what is called congenital (I’m not a doctor), those science students or doctors will know what is called congenital causes, like family history, from parents to children, one generation to the next.
“You meet a doctor and you’re being presented with cases of the symptoms of hypertension, he may ask you if you have a history of hypertension in your family, and once you confirm, it is easy to track because one member of the family had hypertension.”
Mr Leo Atakpu stated that in terms of the statistics of hypertension cases in Nigeria, the figure is becoming alarming. Each adjusted prevalence increased to some 32.5 percent, that’s like 27.5 million people in 2020, and today, five years later, it should be higher.
He lamented that once anyone has the disease, if it’s not properly attended to, it can lead to what people now suffer from, such as sudden death due to heart failure, and then you risk heart failure too if you do not attend to it at its early stage.
“For most adults, they don’t seem to have any clear cause of high blood pressure. This type of high blood pressure could be called primary heart attention, as called by medical personnel, or what they call the essential heart attention.
“This type of attention tends to develop gradually over many years and build up in the arteritis and sometimes, become what is known in science as ‘Atherosclerosis’ when you have your vein clogged with substances and that clogs the free flow of blood to all parts of the body leading to the risk of high blood pressure.
“Once anybody has this problem, I think it is important that the person visits the nearest clinic or hospital to be checked and advised by the doctors on how to manage the condition.
“More importantly, I think the current cost of living in Nigeria, the insecurity, the breakdown in our socio fabrics in Nigeria, and the current economic hardship that the Government of the day has placed everybody are also things that can trigger high blood pressure among people.
“Parents, people who normally are meant to work for eight hours are now working for 12-16 hours, trying to ensure they meet end needs; the more people work, the more problems come up.
“Again, lifestyle is also a challenge, you find out that some people, despite the difficulty, are still multiplying children and they don’t care how these children will survive, but when the pressure comes, it will be upon the parents, both father and mother.
“So you find people begin to do odd things, very desperate things, to be able to attend to their children, ensure they get the basic needs of life, and all that before you even talk of going to school.
“So, if you remember that you have not paid your children’s school fees, that alone is enough to put pressure on any man or woman, and much of the problem is on the man in Nigeria.
“So, it is important that the Government begins to take steps to address issues of poverty, so that people can begin to have access to the basic needs of life and bring down the pressure of economic pursuits in the life of men and women alike, and even young people.
“The other point that needs to be mentioned is the kind of desperation we now find in our young people. This get-rich-quick syndrome is driving some young people into things they are not supposed to do.
“A child that just graduated from the University is so agitated, some are still in the University and doing all kinds of criminal activities like Yahoo Yahoo, different kinds of desperate things in search of money.
“They don’t sleep at night, they are busy pressing computers, phones, their generators are working 24/7, they are sending millions of criminal letters to so many people every day, creating all kinds of tension for themselves because they are afraid that the long arm of the law might catch up with them.
“These things pile up a lot of pressure on younger people who are into such lifestyles. People must take life gently and easily; be contented and satisfied with what they have.
“In the past, our parents just had a few furniture in the living room and they were satisfied; people would come around and those who couldn’t sit would stand. You have a long bench outside that people can sit on and gist with you before they leave.
“But these days, you find a young man of 20 who wants to live in a mansion, wants to own the biggest cars, yet he has not worked anywhere, he has no experience, but wants to own everything in this world.
“Nigerians should desist from the desperate pursuit of desperate things. Some people want to live an expensive lifestyle; you lost your neighbor or close relation, and you are thinking and planning an elaborate funeral, planning how to get money that you didn’t have to take care of that person when they were sick.
“You are gathering and tasking everybody for an expensive funeral, and the dead man will not even eat any of those things being prepared.
“They should not unnecessarily bother themselves over so many things in life. There is a need for Nigerians to cooly, calmly, and gently pursue things in life and take life one day at a time, the way it comes.
“Accept your fate the way it comes, sometimes, things could be good, other times, it may not be so rosy, and when things are that way, don’t do desperate things just to survive, and don’t unnecessarily bother your heart.
Hypertension, Mr. Atakpu warned, is one of the biggest killers of all cardiovascular diseases known in medicine.
So, Nigerians must take heed and ensure that they do not unnecessarily bother themselves with the things of this life because it is a short life, one life with no spare part, according to him.
“Once you fall, you perish and go give account to your maker, that is what is recorded in the holy books. So, it is important that people take life gently, keep hope alive, and just keep pushing one step at a time, do not kill yourself over nothing, and ensure you live for your loved ones,” he stated.
