Treating suicide attempts as crimes under our laws is illogical. It no longer makes sense and should be discarded forthwith.

This is what a private member’s Bill sponsored by Francis Waive (Ughelli North/South/Udu) in the House of Representatives seeks to achieve. We call on the National Assembly to give this Bill accelerated hearing and pass it.

Suicides, especially in the public spaces, have become rampant of late. On December 16, 2021, 21-year-old Odunare Olalekan was videoed perching on the rails of Berger Bridge in Epe, Lagos for several minutes before jumping to his death in the Lagos Lagoon.

Also, perhaps for the first time in Nigeria’s recent history, a yet-to-be-identified commercial bus driver committed self-immolation.

He bathed himself in petrol and set himself ablaze because officials of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, LASTMA, impounded his bus.

The harrowing economic and security problems of the country which are imposing mass poverty and desperation among Nigerians are pushing many people to their wits’ ends. Many young men and women have no jobs.

Most of our tertiary education graduates have remained unemployed. Indeed, millions of Nigerians have been dislodged from their farms and communities by Boko Haram, bandits and herdsmen terrorists, and government does not seem to have any answers to their woes.

Many people have reacted to their misery by taking extreme measures such as resorting to inhuman crimes like kidnappings, ritual killings or suicides. If anyone is caught in the act of taking his or her own life, should that person be treated as a criminal? The Criminal Code Act Cap 2004 prescribes one year imprisonment for such acts. But Waive, a Christian cleric, wants suicide attempts to be decriminalised.

Instead, such victims should be offered assistance for mental or psychological illness and made to perform community service for six months.

His bill has passed the second reading. Some are calling for outright cancellation of the community service proposal in the bill. For them, it makes no sense to punish a mentally-ill or psychologically-damaged person who had been pushed by circumstances to believe that death was preferable to life.

For us, what matters is that such a person should be given the medical care and counselling he or she needs to regain his/her faith and hope in soldiering on with life. The community service should be packaged in a manner as to enhance the recovery process. It should not expose the person to further trauma or social stigmatization.

The aim of the rehab of a person saved from himself or herself should be to reposition such a person to resume living as a worthwhile venture. It should be part of our efforts to restore value to the lives of our citizens.

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