By Angela Uwandu Uzoma-Iwuchukwu
The National Suicide Prevention Bill, 2026 offers the Senate an opportunity to align Nigerian law with its human rights obligations and with the evidence on suicide prevention. That opportunity should not be lost.
On 13 October 2026, the Senate passed the National Suicide Prevention Bill, 2026 (SB. 730) on second reading. During the debate, the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, opposed the bill’s central reform, reportedly stating: “If you attempt suicide, make sure you die. Anyone who attempts and fails will go to jail.”
The remark has understandably drawn public concern. More importantly, it reflects a view that still underpins our criminal law: that a person who survives a suicide attempt should be met with punishment rather than care.
From a human rights perspective, that position is difficult to reconcile with Nigeria’s constitutional and international obligations. As the bill moves to committee, it is worth setting out why.
An inconsistent legal framework
When a human being reaches a point of acute psychological anguish where they attempt to end their life, the immediate imperative of any just, constitutional state must be protection, not prosecution.
Yet, for decades, Nigeria’s statutory legal framework has treated deep personal crisis as a criminal act. Under Section 327 of the Criminal Code and Section 231 of the Penal Code, individuals who survive a suicide attempt face up to one year in prison (both provisions derive from colonial-era legislation; the United Kingdom repealed the equivalent offence through the Suicide Act 1961).
This punitive approach creates a stark legal contradiction with the National Mental Health Act, which rightly recognises attempted suicide as a psychiatric emergency requiring medical care and psychosocial support.
Nigerian law therefore currently treats the same individual as both a patient in need of urgent care and an offender liable to prosecution.
The recent advancement of a bill seeking to decriminalise attempted suicide and establish a national framework for suicide prevention, which passed its second reading in the Senate this week, marks a critical legislative watershed.
Sponsored by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong (Cross River South), the bill placed a fundamental human rights question before the nation: when a Nigerian survives a suicide attempt, should the state’s first response be prosecution or protection?
The bill resolves this inconsistency. Clause 18 repeals both provisions. Part II sets out the rights of persons who have attempted suicide, including confidentiality, informed consent, access to legal representation and protection from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The bill also provides for a Suicide Prevention Unit, national and state surveillance systems, 24-hour crisis helplines and mandatory training for health workers, law enforcement and correctional personnel.
The bill drew support from several senators. Senator Dayo Faduyile, a medical doctor, noted that some survivors have subsequently died by suicide while in detention. The bill has been referred to the Committees on Health and on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for a public hearing.
Nigeria’s human rights obligations
The question is not solely one of health policy. Nigeria has accepted binding obligations that bear directly on it.
UN Special Rapporteurs on the right to health and on torture have found the criminalisation of suicide attempts inconsistent with these obligations, noting that the detention of persons in acute distress may engage the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
The World Health Organization identifies decriminalisation as a critical step towards the Sustainable Development Goal target of reducing suicide mortality by one third by 2030.
From an international human rights and legal standpoint, penalising attempted suicide is fundamentally flawed, counterproductive, and inconsistent with Nigeria’s treaty obligations under international law.
- Criminalisation undermines the right to health and life
As a State party to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Nigeria must respect, protect and fulfil the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health under Article 12.
This includes removing legal and practical barriers to care. A law that deters people from seeking emergency treatment is such a barrier.
Instead of deterring suicide, punitive laws actively discourage people from seeking timely mental health interventions and incentivise individuals to ensure their attempts are fatal to avoid imprisonment. - A violation of human dignity
Subjecting a person surviving severe mental or emotional trauma to handcuffs, detention cells, and trial is a clear affront to human dignity under Section 34 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Incarceration exacerbates psychological suffering, stripping individuals of their agency at their most vulnerable moment rather than providing therapeutic care. - Distortion of public health data and interventions.
Decriminalisation is a prerequisite for effective public health governance.
When suicide attempts are illegal, official data severely underreports the true scale of the mental health crisis in Nigeria. Accurate data is essential to design targeted suicide prevention strategies, establish crisis helplines, train emergency responders, and allocate adequate health sector budgets.
The evidence on criminalisation
World Health Organization estimates cited during the Senate debate place suicide deaths in Nigeria at approximately 16,000 per year.
Practitioners regard this as a conservative figure, since fear of prosecution and stigma lead families to conceal both attempts and deaths.
Overcoming the misconception of deterrence
Arguments suggesting that criminal sanctions act as a “deterrent” against suicide stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of mental health dynamics and international human rights principles. Suicidal behaviour is not a calculated criminal offence; it is an indicator of unaddressed psychological distress, socio-economic hardship, or deep-seated trauma.
Countries across the world that have repealed legacy criminal provisions and replaced them with evidence-based mental health support, crisis response systems, and mandatory psychosocial assessment have seen improved mental health outcomes without an increase in suicide rates.
Federal and state competence
The Senate President and the Senate Leader, Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, raised legitimate questions about the bill’s application across states, given that the Penal Code operates as state law in the North.
This is a matter for careful drafting and consultation, not a reason for delay. The National Assembly should lead, and State Houses of Assembly should be engaged to undertake corresponding reforms.
The path forward: transforming legislative debate into legal legacy
As the bill moves to the Committees on Health and on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters for public hearings and stakeholder engagement, Nigerian lawmakers must prioritise constitutional rights, international standards, and public health over archaic penal logic.
Decriminalisation does not mean the state is indifferent to suicide; rather, it shifts the state’s response from the criminal justice system to the public health framework. To build a comprehensive protective framework, Nigeria needs to:
Repeal Section 327 of the Criminal Code and Section 231 of the Penal Code in full, without substituting any alternative sanction, to align national legislation with the National Mental Health Act.
Establish national prevention pathways: fund operational crisis helplines, community mental health care, and specialised training for law enforcement officers, teachers, and healthcare workers to serve as first responders.
Decriminalisation without accessible care would be incomplete.
Guarantee rights-based mental healthcare: Ensure that mental health interventions are accessible, voluntary, non-discriminatory, and rooted in human dignity.
Involve the states: Invite State Houses of Assembly to the public hearing and agree to a framework for corresponding reform of state criminal laws.
Hear affected voices: Listen directly to persons with lived experience, families and mental health professionals, consistent with the bill’s own provisions on the composition of the National Suicide Prevention Task Force.
The Senate has taken an important first step. The committee stage is where that commitment will be tested.
Nigeria should choose protection over prosecution and enact a law that treats survivors of suicide attempts with the dignity, compassion and care to which they are entitled.
•Angela Uwandu Uzoma-Iwuchukwu is Country Director, Avocats Sans Frontières France/Lawyers Without Borders).
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