Do you remember the video of the man who tried to jump from a pedestrian bridge in Ajah in 2025?
The video spread quickly, and in it you could see that people gathered to just stare; two men tried to pull him away from the ledge, and at some point, people were even seen hitting him while trying to restrain him.
Then came the reactions;
The man survived, but under Nigerian law, surviving a suicide attempt has never automatically meant that you would be met with care.
Just ask Peller, who was arrested after crashing his car during a livestream while visibly distressed in December 2025.
That is the strange thing about Nigeria’s approach to suicide attempts.
People will be in enough distress to try to end their life, and by some luck they survive, and the next thing they have to deal with is the possibility of arrest and prosecution.
On August 19, 2026, the Federal Executive Council approved an amendment to the National Mental Health Act that would remove criminal penalties for attempted suicide. The proposed amendment will still need to pass through the National Assembly before it becomes law, but the thinking behind it is simple: someone experiencing a mental health crisis needs care and support.
And honestly, when you think about it from the perspective of the person involved, the old approach raises a very obvious question.
If someone is already at the point where they no longer think they can keep living, how exactly does threatening them with punishment make things better?
To be fair, it’s also hard to recognise mental health struggles, which is part of the problem. Sometimes, we only recognise that someone is struggling when things have reached a point where we can no longer ignore it, e.g
- Someone standing on a bridge.
- Someone crying on Instagram Live.
- Someone disappearing for months
- Someone then attempting suicide.
When these things happen, that’s the only time we pause and say, “Oh, maybe this person needs help.”
But psychological distress can show up long before that.
- It can look like your friend who has stopped replying to texts, and now you think they are ignoring you.
- It can look like someone who is exhausted all the time but keeps forcing themselves to work because rent is due and landlords don’t care about your mental health.
- It can look like not meeting your targets at work and getting queries.
- It can look like not having the energy to brush your teeth.
- It can also look like someone who is still going to work, raves, and posting daily on Instagram while feeling horrible.
Because of the society we are raised in, a lot of people struggling do not even have the language for what they are experiencing. They get called lazy, difficult, dramatic, ungrateful, and lazy again, because Nigerians, especially Nigerian parents, love that one.
According to the Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Muhammad Ali Pate, the World Health Organisation estimates that more than 7,000 people die by suicide in Nigeria every year, while there are an estimated 300,000 suicide attempts annually. The government has said it is targeting a 15 percent reduction in suicide cases by 2030.
It might just look like numbers, but every one of those numbers is someone’s child, partner, sibling, and friend. When we only talk about suicide through laws and statistics, it is easy to forget that.
Decriminalising attempted suicide does not magically solve the mental health crisis in Nigeria. It will not suddenly make therapy affordable. It will not erase stigma. It will not guarantee that every hospital has trained professionals waiting to respond to someone in crisis. But it can remove one very harmful barrier. Fear.
Now, let’s say the amendment passes, and someone survives a suicide attempt. What happens next?
- Is there a crisis line they can call?
- Will the people responding know how to handle someone in psychological distress?
- Can they access mental healthcare without needing to sell a kidney and their family house?
- Will their family know what to do?
- Will their community respond with care instead of shame, gossip, and “but what exactly is even wrong with you?”
You cannot say, “We no longer want to punish people in crisis,” and then leave them with a healthcare system that cannot adequately support them.
Nigeria still needs more accessible mental health services, trained healthcare workers and first responders, crisis support, and community systems that can meet people where they are.
However, this is a step in the right direction; now we just need to continue to hold the government and each other accountable so it can be successfully integrated into society.
