Suicide: Akpabio’s sermon on Mount Callous

Somewhere around 74 CE, a remnant group of Jews taking refuge in a mountain fortress called Masada decided to end it all. Masada, a heavily fortified mountaintop stronghold overlooking the Dead Sea, had provided refuge for years as Roman soldiers laid Jerusalem waste. Eventually, though, the Romans, led by General Lucius Flavius Silva, using captured Jews and other labourers, breached the fortress by building a massive earthen ramp against its western side. They smashed the outer defences with a battering ram and set fire to the inner barricade of wood and earth. As the flames weakened the defences, they withdrew for the night, and then the Jews, led by Eleazar ben Ya’ir, took their own lives, knowing what horrors the Roman soldiers were certain to subject them to the next morning. Per Jewish historian Flavius Josephus, 960 Jewish men, women, and children perished at Masada.

But our own Ekiti land saw the destruction of a whole town. As I wrote in “Their imperial majesties and pernicious romance of a bygone age” (August 30, 2025): “On one occasion, the people of a certain Ekiti town all committed suicide to avoid seeing their own utter ruin at the hands of an advancing army of Ibadan soldiers.” It was the people of Ara-Ekiti, led by their Chief Elejofi, who took this course in August 1855.

Life indeed throws up impossible circumstances, although I would not go so far as to join Soyinka in calling suicide an affirmative commentary on life. Driven to the wall, many simply crash into it, billionaire or pauper. Rape victims, big-money men who lost it all, parents deprived of their children — name it. In Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a man unable to bear the poor yam harvest ends it all. Achebe writes: “That year the harvest was sad, like a funeral, and many farmers wept as they dug up the miserable and rotting yams. One man tied his cloth to a tree branch and hanged himself.”

In Femi Ademiluyi’s novel The New Man, the protagonist, Ayo, a produce inspector, decides on suicide following his overwhelming feeling of guilt and remorse after killing Laoye Layeni, Chief Layeni’s son, in self-defence against a mob. But once at the crocodile stream, he encounters Sade, a victim of sexual assault by a lunatic who is intent on the same course of action due to a feeling of shame and disgrace. Ayo abandons his own suicidal mission, persuades Sade to abandon hers, and resolves to submit himself to the police.

READ ALSO: Suicide bill: Atiku’s media adviser asks Akpabio to apologise

Just like no one willingly pays a ransom, no one randomly chooses suicide. Imagine a woman who has just lost her eight children and who instinctively heads towards a well, or a groom who reaches for his gun because he has just lost his bride. It is not the best course of action, but it is the result of a sense of desolation. In Nigeria, as in many other climes, attempts have been made, quite sensibly in my view, to decriminalise suicide attempts. When I first heard of the legal situation years ago, I felt it was dumb to have made such a law in the first place. In traditional society, people who make or nurse suicide attempts are not subjected to a cudgel: they are restrained and persuaded to hang on to life no matter what. The Yoruba say even if the child of a dead person wishes to be buried with them, that request will not be granted.

To hear Senate President Godswill Akpabio speak, though, you would think that people attempt suicide for fun. Speaking on Tuesday, October 13, during a Senate debate on a bill seeking to decriminalise attempted suicide in Nigeria, Akpabio uttered the following words: “If you attempt suicide, make sure you die. Anyone who attempts and fails will go to jail. As far as we are concerned, we are saying that suicide is a crime for now. Therefore, if you attempt it, you better succeed. If you don’t succeed, we will send you to prison.”

It is a no-brainer that decriminalisation can help reduce the shame and stigma associated with suicidal thoughts and attempts, encourage people to seek help from healthcare professionals and counsellors, demonstrate human compassion, and protect human dignity. If someone has attempted suicide and failed, do you approach him or her with a cudgel? No. You empathise with their condition and encourage them to hold on. Without the fear of prosecution, such people could be more willing to talk, whether the underlying problem is trauma, depression, financial hardship, abuse, social isolation, or other complex circumstances that require appropriate intervention. Decriminalisation of suicide can apparently help to protect vulnerable populations: people experiencing poverty, discrimination, domestic abuse, or cruelty.

To Akpabio, though, such people can go to blazes. Apparently, when he is not sending prayers to mailboxes, he is sending death threats to the distressed, making utter mockery of the position that he holds. In its editorial titled “Child defilement crisis as urgent imperative for moral rebirth” and published on Thursday, October 15, The Guardian observed pointedly: “Child defilement is not just physical; it is psychological warfare. Survivors grapple with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal thoughts.” So if a child or even a biological adult violated by her father contemplates suicide, is Akpabio’s recommendation for her to make sure she dies?

Akpabio can lecture his forward-looking colleagues and the rest of us from his Olympian height for as long as he likes; it does not change the fact that the present law is defective. As the World Health Organisation (WHO), 2023 — Policy Brief on the Health Aspects of Decriminalisation of Suicide and Suicide Attempts, states, decriminalisation is an important step in suicide prevention. The organisation rightly identifies criminalisation as a barrier to help-seeking because it can increase stigma, shame, and fear of legal consequences, and recommends replacing punishment with accessible mental healthcare, community support, and evidence-based suicide prevention. According to the International Association for Suicide Prevention, criminalisation can deter people from seeking help, perpetuate stigma, and discourage accurate reporting. It recommends legislative reform alongside investment in mental health services, professional training, and public education. Countless studies support this position. I am, of course, not speaking of murderers and terrorists seeking the easy way out. I have no pity for such people.

Nigeria keeps putting people who do nothing significant or progressive in office: so-called democrats who destroy democracy. As I wrote last week, although my headline was truncated by a production mix-up, a nation paying people to do nothing will amount to nothing.