Before suicide becomes a norm

The frequency of the suicide cases reported in the past one month, many of them in Kano state, suffices to give well-intentioned Nigerians serious worry. For example, the Kano State Commissioner of Police (CP), Hussaini Gumel, has confirmed that one Nuradeen Shehu who worked as a security guard in a private school on Danmusa Street, Gadon Kaya of Gwale Local Government Area (LGA) of Kano State reportedly took his own life by hanging himself with a rope in one of the classrooms in the school.

The CP explained that when the incident was reported to the police on Sunday, January 28, 2024, a team of policemen from Gwale division was despatched to the scene. The classroom door was forced open by the operatives and the body of the guard was taken to the Murtala Mohammed General Hospital where a medical doctor confirmed him dead. Shehu’s body was thereafter released to his family for burial.

A week earlier and in the same Kano state, a 17-year-old Qur’anic school pupil identified as Idris Nasiru also committed suicide in Tudun Wada LGA. Nasiru was an Almajiri pupil of Malam Shuaibu Tsangaya in Tudun Wada. His body was found hanging in an uncompleted building in the area on January 22, 2024. It was reported that Nasiru’s teacher, Malam Ayuba Sha’aibu, discovered Nasiru’s body in the search for the missing boy took him to the uncompleted building. Sha’aibu immediately notified the village head of Tudun Wada and the police. Still in Kano, a middle-aged man recently hanged himself along Yahaya Gusau Road. Separate cases were recorded in Sauna Kawaji and Tsamiya in Gezawa LGA of Kano state.

With the above statistics, the number of reported suicide cases in Kano state alone is quite alarming. It’s far from mincing words to say that Kano, like Lagos, is a cosmopolitan city with vast economic potentials (human and material), rich indigenous culture, and home to Islamic knowledge and scholarship. But why is Kano also ahead of others when it comes to social problems including youths’ addiction to drugs, endemic divorce, and ‘advanced’ political thuggery? Kano, as much as Nigeria, needs special prayers before suicide becomes a common norm.

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Last week in Bunue State, a 72-year-old retired soldier allegedly committed suicide in his compound located opposite St. Joseph Catholic Church in Nyiniongun, a suburb of Makurdi. The deceased, whose name was given as Francis Dooga, allegedly hanged himself to death on a tree at his residence. Neigbours said Dooga’s body was found at about 6:00pm on Sunday, January 28, 2024 dangling on the tree. According to media reports, the late retired soldier was heard complaining of how he may not receive his pension in bulk because of some dishonest persons that defrauded him.

About a fortnight ago in Ogun State, a soldier, Boyi ThankGod, serving with the Nigerian Army and attached to 35 Artillery Brigade, Alamala, Abeokuta, allegedly shot himself in the head and died immediately. Media reports said the soldier killed himself while on standby duty on Monday, January 15, 2024 which was the same day Nigeria marked its Armed Forces Remembrance Day. Accounts from unconfirmed sources said the late soldier had complained about his unpaid allowances and showed signs of depression before he took his own life.

Similarly, a staff of a new generation bank in Lagos, Amarachi Ugochukwu, committed suicide on Monday, January 8, 2024. The 32-year-old bank staff was a marketing employee of a bank in Ikorodu, Lagos State. It was learnt that the deceased, at about 1pm on the fateful day, went into the restroom where she drank insecticide. Her colleagues started looking for her when the phone she left on her table kept ringing and she was not around to pick up the calls. She was later found dead inside the toilet with the bottle of insecticide and her suicide note. In the suicide note, she blamed the hard economy for her decision to end her life; stating that nothing was working well for her. In the note, she also apologised to her parents and other members of her family. She ended the note with, “Dear Lord, have mercy on me!”

The occurrence of these suicide cases in just one month simply shows how suicide has ceased to be an aberration of rare incidence that is attempting to assume the cultural prominence of a norm. In a country where kidnapping, highway robbery, cultism, ritual killings, insurgency and terrorism are separately and on a daily basis claiming dozens of lives, it would be genocidal to again allow suicide to make the list of existing threats to human life in Nigeria.

Suicide has, twice, been a subject of discourse on this page though from different perspectives; first on April 16, 2016 and second on June 22, 2019. With its current frightening trend, it is time everything possible is done to curb the incidence of this horrible scourge. The young and the old, male and female the employed, under-employed and the unemployed, have all engaged in this crazy act of self-destruction.

Because life is sacred, Islam forbids one to take his own life. Family members particularly parents, religious leaders and colleagues, can do much to prevent individuals from committing suicide. Once early warning signs are observed in an individual, he should be helped to overcome challenges that threaten his dreams or survival. Suicidal signs may include an individual having problems with eating, sleeping and socialization; displaying reckless behaviours such as over-speeding while driving; talking about suicide; giving away possessions; and researching into suicide methods on the internet.

Individuals with such tendencies should be educated on how to manage failures or disappointments in life. They should be told that failure isn’t the end of life; and that the expensive option of suicide is never a solution to any problems. Unfortunately, poor governance in the country is denying Nigerians access to counselling services, which in the good old days of local governments in the country, were offered by the social welfare department. Today, this department only exists in name in most of Nigeria’s 774 LGAs.

While we call on government at the state and local levels to respectively reinvigorate their social welfare ministries and departments, government at all levels must take concrete steps to reduce poverty and unemployment. This is in addition to practically improving the living conditions of Nigerians including paying workers subsisting wages. No matter how our critical circumstances make us feel, suicide is evil. May Allah preserve our faith in Him, the Singular Provider of sustenance, amin.