World Suicide Prevention Day: The Crime of Suicide in Nigeria

Today is September 10, and it is the day the whole world talks about suicide prevention. In Nigeria, things are different about how suicide is viewed.

Under Section 327 of the Criminal Code Act and Section 231 of the Penal Code Act, a Nigerian who survives a suicide attempt can be prosecuted and jailed for up to a year. The "it is a crime for a person to commit suicide" laws can best be described as colonial hand-me-downs, copied from a 19th-century English statute that Britain itself repealed in 1961. Nigeria kept it. The logic of criminalization is argued to never have really been about deterrence but more about control, disguised in the language of order. In practice it means that a person who swallows pesticide in a moment of unbearable pain and survives may wake up in a hospital bed to find a police officer rather than a counsellor waiting at the door.

The consequences of such a law are predictable and well documented. Families and individuals hide suicide attempts rather than seek care, doctors may be under-reporting cases to protect patients from prosecution, and survivors avoid follow-up treatment for fear of being arrested. The World Health Organization estimates that roughly 720,000 people die by suicide globally each year and that some 73% of those deaths occur in low- and middle-income countries. In Nigeria the true toll of such a law is largely unknown, but researchers put the annual figure estimates at around 15,000 deaths, which may be an underestimation given the stigma and the incentive to keep such thoughts under wraps. Besides, many stories of attempted suicide hardly make it out in the open even on social media. As a result, estimation can only go so far in dealing with something that may be related to a mental health crisis and public health emergency.

In October 2024 the government convened a National Taskforce on the Decriminalization of Attempted Suicide, chaired by the legal scholar Cheluchi Onyemelukwe. A companion bill, the National Suicide Prevention Bill 2024, had its first Senate reading in February 2025. The Federal Executive Council has since approved a draft amendment to the National Mental Health Act, and officials say a government white paper is finished. At a press briefing in 2025 marking World Suicide Prevention Day, Nigeria's health minister, Muhammad Pate, said the government intends to decriminalize attempted suicide by December 2025, as the moment the punitive provisions are formally repealed.

Nigeria's mental advocates are cautiously optimistic about the outcome of descriminalizing suicide. Chime Asonye, who founded Nigerian Mental Health, put it bluntly: a person who survives an attempt "needs a clinician, not a charge sheet." But he and others warn that removing a law from the books does little if there are no resources to support alternative solutions. The National Mental Health Act of 2021, itself a long-overdue replacement for a 1958 Lunacy Act, mandated a dedicated Department of Mental Health Services. Despite being short-staffed or poorly budgeted. Previous reviews of the state of the mental health sector found scant state-level adoption of the law, no operating budget, and no coherent implementation roadmap. Decriminalization, in other words, risks becoming another white elephant proclamation.

It is also important to note that Nigeria's suicide problem cannot be separated from its economic one. The Association of Psychiatrists in Nigeria says roughly 90% of suicide attempts are linked to underlying mental illness, and about 80% of those to depression, an illness with a well-established relationship to poverty and precarity. A 2025 World Bank estimate puts more than 106 million Nigerians below the extreme poverty line; Afrobarometer found that 79% of Nigerians reported serious hardship in 2024. President Bola Tinubu's reforms, which centered on the removal of a longstanding fuel subsidy and the floating of the naira, were meant to stabilize the macroeconomy and attract investment. However, reality is different from millions. Fuel subsidy removal has also driven up the cost of living sharply, even as inflation has begun easing from its 2025 peak. Nigerians describe salaries that no longer stretch to cover food, transport, and rent in the same month, a squeeze that mental-health professionals say now spills directly into clinical caseloads.

Decriminalization of suicide is the wrong move, this has to be said. Treating suicide attempts as medical and mental health emergencies rather than crimes should include improving how stories of attempted suicide are reported, more education on the shame associated with suicide, and more support to allow survivors to seek help without fear of ending up in prison. But law reform may be the lighter half of the job. The other half is building a compassionate and sustainable mental health system and an economy that gives citizens better economic support to lead better lives.

If you are experiencing thoughts of suicide or emotional distress, please reach out to a trusted person, a mental-health professional, or a crisis helpline in your area.