₦airaland Forum

SixSeven:
🇳🇬 Nigeria and the Law on Attempted Suicide: What the Law Actually Says

Many Nigerians are surprised to learn that attempted suicide is still a criminal offence in Nigeria. This post explains the law clearly, without judgment or stigma.


📜 What the law says

Under Nigeria’s existing criminal laws:

Southern Nigeria (Criminal Code – Section 327):
Attempted suicide is classified as a misdemeanor, punishable by up to one year in prison.

Northern Nigeria (Penal Code – Section 231):
Attempted suicide is also an offence, punishable by imprisonment, a fine, or both.


In simple terms:
👉 Surviving a suicide attempt can still lead to arrest and prosecution under Nigerian law.
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⚠️ Aiding or encouraging suicide

The law is much harsher on anyone who:

Encourages,
Assists, or
Helps another person attempt suicide.

This is treated as a serious felony, and the punishment can be life imprisonment.

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🏥 Lagos State’s approach
Lagos State has taken a slightly more compassionate step:
Courts may order hospitalisation or treatment instead of prison for someone who attempted suicide.

This reflects a growing understanding that suicide attempts are often linked to mental health crises, not criminal intent.


🔄 Is the law changing?
Yes — there is strong national and professional pressure to reform this law.

Mental health professionals, lawyers, and civil society groups argue that criminalising attempted suicide is outdated and harmful.
There are ongoing efforts to decriminalise attempted suicide and replace punishment with care, counselling, and rehabilitation.
Proposed reforms aim to treat suicide attempts as a public health issue, not a crime.


🧠 The reality on the ground

Prosecutions for attempted suicide are rare, but arrests do happen. Fear of arrest can discourage people from seeking help. Many experts agree that punishment does not prevent suicide — support and treatment do.

✅ Key takeaway

Yes, attempted suicide is still a crime under Nigerian law. No, this approach is not supported by modern mental-health science.
Change is coming, but until the law is formally amended, the criminal provisions still exist.


💬 Final thought

A society is strongest when it responds to pain with understanding, care, and support — not fear and punishment. Legal reform, mental-health awareness, and compassion must go hand in hand.

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Is suicide “un-African”? The honest answer is both yes and no, and history matters here. Traditional African societies placed a very high value on life. Life was seen as sacred and deeply connected to the ancestors, the land, and the community. A person did not exist only for themselves; they belonged to a family, a lineage, and a people. Because of this worldview, taking one’s own life was strongly discouraged and often treated as a taboo, not out of cruelty, but because it was believed to disrupt social and spiritual balance.

However, saying suicide is completely un-African in the sense that it never happened is historically incorrect. Suicide did occur in pre-colonial Africa, especially during times of war, slavery, captivity, extreme shame, or total social collapse. Oral traditions, historical records, and anthropological studies all show that Africans, like all humans, experienced despair and breaking points.

The real difference was not that suicide did not exist, but how African societies responded to suffering. Traditional communities had strong social safety nets. Extended families, elders, and communal living meant distress was noticed early and carried collectively. Pain was shared, not privatized. Modern life, by contrast, has brought isolation, pressure, and the idea that individuals must struggle alone.

So the truth is this: suicide is not biologically or inherently “un-African,” but African cultures strongly opposed it and built systems to prevent it through community, care, and shared responsibility. Africa’s wisdom was never about denying pain; it was about refusing to let people face it alone. In many traditional African societies, people who died by suicide were often not buried in regular communal grounds. This wasn’t out of cruelty, but because life was seen as sacred and connected to ancestors, the land, and the community. Suicide was viewed as a spiritual disruption, so special burial rules applied. Families still grieved, but the act was strongly discouraged. Today, most communities no longer enforce these restrictions, but the memory reflects Africa’s focus on shared responsibility and respect for life.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGp688WtEWA

We need to go back to our ways. Western ways will never ever work for us.

Empresa:
I don't know what Joshua is looking for in Nigeria. He can afford to bring his family to the UK. There are better places to holiday and choose to come to Nigeria.

Jakumo:
It will be instructive to see how Alan's sword stacks up against the fearsome and mysterious MQ9 Reaper extermination drone.

In other words, your buddy Alan's arms just might be a hair too short to box with Jeeesus.

Time will tell. Let us sit back and see how this muffug plays out in the fullness of time.

Jakumo:
Those who feel offended by the comical ululations of this horrid little man called Mr. Goofy have forgotten that by openly expressing his violent opposition to the ongoing US vermin eradication exercise in Nigeria, Mr. Goofy can now be congratulated for drawing the attention of Uncle Sam to his role as a terrorist spokesman and financier who is on record as having personally delivered kidnap ransom money to his Islamist goons in the bush, of which many were sent to paradise on Christmas day 2025.

If President Tinubu is for political reasons feeling reluctant to jail Mr. Goofy as a reward for his hysterical ranting in support of the very terror gangs that have earned their place in the crosshairs of American drones aloft over Nigeria as these words are typed, then Big Don Trump will have NO such qualms at all about instructing the Ministry of War to classify Goofy as a viable target for air-launched ordnance, or perhaps for the attention of something a little more intimate such as the small Kamikaze drone that found and smoked a terror kingpin called Sinwar who had been cowering in the rubble of a building in the Middle East.

Were I a gambling man, my money would be on Mr. Goofy meeting his maker in the very near future, after which all this irritating noise emanating from Mr. Goofy's blabbering big mouth will fade away like a bad dream at dawn.

billgabb:
Gumi is now APC enemy because he stood his ground against USA. APC is pretending to be happy about the strike even when they were running up and down to stop it. No matter how far they pretend, Gumi and APC are terrorists. Onanuga came online to vow never to forgive Obi and encouraged Nigerians to hate him to speaking the mind of the masses. Shame on APC and Gumi. They are the stupid ones.

brain54:
But I wonder how the president of a whole country...


Would go for treatment in hospitals outside the country. How would he face the doctors? How does he feel when they attend to him as a leader and president?


I would feel embarrassed and ashamed if it was me.

Common electricity/power that's not even directly or remotely My responsibility I feel ashamed and hide my face when I go to countries with stable light even when they aren't mocking.


Talk more of if I was directly involved or responsible.

I would hide my head in shameful failure. Our leaders have sold their shame 10 for 50kobo!

Heffalump:
Those supporters are the real cowards and enemies of Nigeria.

bjdon:
They have dealt with any past governor or commissioner like this. Bad roads, poor schools, dirty hospitals...none of those things anger them, but this type of thing gets them all riled up. Low IQ people with the wrong priorities

Hismajesty44:
Are you saying the king was complicit to dehumanisation of the young man or these people acted on their own?

Elzazzi:
Kings are not powerful as they used to be. The colonial forces really diminished their powers. Kings are under local government control today. But it’s good to see that the Benin people still give reference to their king.

Moveittothem:
If Gumi is not tamed now, he might insight and incite the North.

I wonder why Tinubu is scare of that man.

Zionmdde:
Is it not the same you that said gumi had a point the last time?
Why are you guys always confused

This tinubu asslicking is sure not for the weak

As US has decided to remember terrorists, may they not forget their supporters. Amen