It's illegal to attempt suicide in Nigeria, and fail

fuad lawal

April 24, 2017 7:20 PM

A woman tried to commit suicide and failed. Now the government is punishing her for it.

Nigeria punishes people who fail at their suicide attempt. I kid you not.

Now, look at this scenario. You're probably depressed, or frustrated about life, and people just don't seem to get you. The pain becomes unbearable, so you try to take your life. (Please, if you ever feel this way, talk to someone. If you don't find anyone to talk to, please send us an email here: info@pulse.ng).

Back to this.

Let's say a suicidal person tries and doesn't succeed, you can get arrested and charged to court!

No, I'm not making this up. It's in Section 235 Cap C17, Volume 3 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

The year you see there, 2015, means it's quite recent some lawmakers sat to deliberate on this very issue!

Let's talk about Mrs. Taiwo. (We can't share her photo or full name because we don't want to make it any worse.)

On March 24, the 51-year-old textile trader was in a taxi heading towards Oworonshoki when she asked the driver to stop. According to the report, she then tried to jump, but was quickly stopped by a patrol team on the bridge.

They didn't take her to a hospital or anything, even though a psychiatric hospital was less than 30 minutes away.

They took her instead, to a police station. And charged her to court.

Mrs. Taiwo was granted a N500, 000 bail after she pleaded not guilty to a charge of attempted suicide.

She will be arraigned again on the 1st of June.

What sort of country do we live in when we are slow to punish corrupt people who plunge Nigerians into suffering, but we're quick to punish Nigerians who want to end their own suffering?

fuad lawal