Assistant Editor, Dare Odufowokan and Medinat Kanabe report on the growing trend of suicide and suicide attempts by teenagers and other youthful persons
WHILE the country has been contending with a worrisome high rate of suicide cases in the past three years, suicide or suicide attempts involving very young persons, teenagers inclusive, have become very common.
According to reports by international and local organisations, as well as concerns raised by various professionals, these tragic events and the stories behind them are pointers to a dangerous trend.
A recent report published by the World Health Organisation (WHO) submitted that more than a million people die annually from suicide across the world, painting a global mortality rate of one death every 40 seconds. And while about a million actually die through suicide, the organisation says about 10 to 20 million people attempt to commit suicide annually.
Back home in Nigeria, WHO’s 2014 ranking also shows that suicide and attempted suicide is growing at an alarming rate of 6.11% in the country. Consequently, Nigeria is now ranked in 106th position on the table of countries with rising cases, overtaking countries like Lesotho, Malta, Afghanistan and Colombia in the inglorious contest.
Recently, precisely in November 2016, a humanitarian organisation, the Humanist Movement in Africa (HuMAf), while making public the report of a research it conducted across the country into what it described as the worrisome trend of suicide and suicide attempts amongst youths, called on the authorities to find out and address reasons why young ones, teenagers inclusive, are now taking their own lives in droves.
The organisation, which claimed that of every five suicide case in the country, three would involve someone between the ages of 15 and 25, lamented that in the last three years, there has been a worrisome rise in the number of teenagers who willingly jump or hang themselves to death.t
“Sadly, the rate at which Nigerians rush to commit suicide has witnessed tremendous increase among young ones, especially teenagers, who now take their own lives in queer manners for the flimsiest of reasons. In the last three years, the number has constantly been on the rise.
It is unfortunately predictable that if not checked, this worrisome increase in suicide among young ones will, in no distant time, reach an alarming rate amongst Nigerians. The implication of this on the already threatened mortality rate in the country is best imagined than experienced,” Rev. Tola Joda, the country representative of HuMAf in Nigeria, explained.
No respite in sight
Sadly, it appears there is no scaling down in the trend, rather, reports show that the act is on the increase across the country. News of young people jumping to their deaths, hanging themselves and bizarrely ending their lives by taking all forms of poisonous substances, continue to assail our ears and eyes nearly on a daily basis.
Recently, a 17-year-old former student of a community secondary school in Ankpa, Kogi State, North Central of Nigeria, committed suicide.
The deceased, identified simply as Silas, dangled from a rope tied to the ceiling of one of the classes in a public primary school located in the neighborhood where he lived with his aged father.
Incidentally, the late Silas who, according to reports, had dropped out of school two years earlier on account of his family’s financial state had told his blind father and a few friends of his desire to end his life sooner or later. But little did they know that he planned to do it same day.
“He told us earlier in the morning that he desired to die as soon as possible. He even said he is prepared to kill himself if he has the opportunity. He actually said the harsh economic condition of his family is no longer bearable to him. He left school three years ago for the same reason.
He left for Lagos to learn a trade but returned last year when his master died suddenly. He told us that all his effort to get another place to live in and learn his work failed. It was a distraught Silas that returned to Ankpa. Since his return, he has been a loner who hardly relates with people,” a neighbor of the deceased said.
According to a family source, “Silas took his life, blaming his action on the prevailing hardship. He hanged himself when he thought all his plans to make it in life had failed. His father is blind and his mother died over ten years ago. He had just one elder sister who is here in the village doing nothing. He was such a good boy before he left for Lagos.”
Another case is that of a 19-year-old undergraduate of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Verishima Unokyur, committed suicide right in his parent’s home in the Mafoluku area of Oshodi, Lagos State.
His saddened mother, Patricia Unokyur said he must have been manipulated. The 200-level Social Work student had sent a text message to his best friend, welcoming him into the New Year and had added “See you in heaven,” at the end of the message. He committed suicide the following day by hanging himself with his tie. Verishima whose father died when he was barely 5 years old, lived with his mother and younger brother, Asor.
Asor, who was asleep when his brother killed himself, said he didn’t show any sign that he would commit suicide. Asor told newsmen that he remembers that before he went to sleep, his brother was quiet. “I asked what was wrong with him, but he said nothing.” Little did he know that his elder brother was tired of living.
According to a report in the dailies, Verishima had told his mother, who is a top employee of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), that he would die anytime, which prompted her to take him to different prayer houses. He was described by his secondary school teacher as an introvert who always kept to himself. “Nobody knew anything about him,” he added.
Confirming his introverted nature, his mother said the victim, who was an usher in a Pentecostal church, never gave her any trouble while alive, but his extremely reserved and shy nature worried her, yet she insisted that her late son could not have just decided to take his own life because she knew him very well.
“I know he was too reserved. I forced him to talk to me. I asked him if he was facing any form of threat in school or anywhere else. I even asked him whether he didn’t like the school he was attending, but he said all was well. Since he entered the university, his reserved nature got worse,” she said.
Another family member who spoke on the issue said after his father died in 2004, his mother, who was a second wife, took her two sons and left the house. She also made sure that none of their other siblings got to reach them as she blocked all means of communication between them and their father’s relatives.
Similarly, on June 20 2016, news broke of a 19-year-old lady, Uche Obiora, who committed suicide at Alhaji Ede Avenue, Igando, Lagos. She was said to have committed suicide following a quarrel with her lover. The deceased, was said to have visited her lover’s home over the weekend but what really caused her to commit suicide is not known.
While some people said a quarrel ensued between her lover and herself over suspicion by Obiora that her boyfriend, Ernest Ihaza, was having an affair with another lady, another version stated that during the visit, Ihaza announced his intention to discontinue with the relationship.
“During a verbal confrontation between them, Ihaza was said to have stormed out of his apartment but on arrival, he reportedly met Obiora writhing in pains on the floor holding on to her stomach. The boyfriend, who later reported the case at the Igando Police Division, disclosed that Obiora drank snipers insecticide,” a source said.
At the Ugbuwangue area of Warri in Delta State, a 12-year-old Junior Secondary School (JSS) I student committed suicide in September 2016. The victim, Godwin, who was said to be living with his paternal uncle, Okotie- Eboh, was found dead inside his room by the housemaid. Godwin hanged himself with a rope attached to a window protector.
Still in September 2016, another Junior Secondary School (JSS) II student of Gyegeh Memorial College, Logo1, Makurdi, Benue State, Jessica Beer, committed suicide.
Beer reportedly drank a substance believed to be poison and was rushed to a clinic in Akpehe, before doctors confirmed her dead on arrival.
The Nation reported that the girl committed suicide because her boyfriend, Labi, a pork meat seller at Wurukum Market in Makurdi, who impregnated and abandoned her, had impregnated another girl.
Still in September 2016 in Abuja, a 21- year- old girl committed suicide after a video recording of her masturbating went viral. The video went viral when she decided to send the video to a close friend via WhatsApp but mistakenly sent it to her ex-boyfriend who shares the same name with her friend.
The video then went viral after her ex-boyfriend posted the embarrassing 4-minute video on Facebook. Her friend Zodwa said: “She called me in the wee hours of Wednesday and I could feel that she was emotionally down. I also know that she wasn’t a talkative so I left her alone.”
A litany of reasons
Many more such instances can be reported, along with cases in which the suicide attempt failed either because the youngsters were caught in the act or rescued in good time. In May, for example, a 13-year-old girl from Cotonou in neighboring Benin Republic, who lived with a couple in Ketu-Epe, Lagos State, set herself on fire in the backyard of the house, only to be saved by an alert neighbour who put out the flames using a water hose.
Wesun, as the girl was identified, had told her rescuer that she decided to take her own life because the madam of the house, whom she was working for as a maid, was maltreating her. She reportedly added that several efforts by her to leave the place and return home to her father in Cotonou have been aborted as her father insisted she must stay and earn money.
“I was driving into my compound when I saw fire springing up at the backyard of my neigbour’s house. I quickly peeped over the fence and saw Wunsu, their maid, on fire. She wasn’t doing much to fight the fire nor did she raise any alarm. I was shocked. I quickly went for the water hose I usually use to wash my car and I put the fire out,” her rescuer explained.
In all these cases, several reasons have been adduced for the actions of these teens. While economic roots of many of these tragic acts have been established, either through the notes left behind by the deceased or through the testimony of their relatives, friends and neighbors, many other incidents have left no one in doubt that it is not only teens with economic challenges that are committing suicide.
“While it is true that the phenomenon of “morte per crisi” (death by crisis) is one of the sharpest manifestations of the many pressures and difficulties that are coming to bear on our young ones, with varying degrees of intensity, as the economic situations of their parents and guardians further plummet, it would be wrong to say there are no other reasons for the rise in teen suicide,” Dr. Biola Jenrade, a former University don now working as a social health volunteer in the North-East, said.
Jenrade, a psychologist, added that teens, like adults, are today committing suicide for varying reasons, such as academic failures, spiritual confusion, financial challenges, insecurity, parental crisis, broken home, depression, mental instability, loss of loved ones, sexual abuse, drug abuse, alcoholism, humiliation, bullying and even stigmatization.
“The bottom line is that once any crisis is left unattended to for too long, the teen involved is at the risk of attempting suicide. Unlike during our own days, many of these young ones we have here are not as adaptive as we think. Once they are under pressure, they are looking for the easiest way out. In such a situation, death is usually an option.
“Many of the teens we have spoken to after suicide attempts have given feelings of hopelessness and helplessness, among other things as reasons for the actions. Such teens often feel like they are in situations that have no solutions. At that crucial time when all seem lost, they can see no way out but death.
Most suicidal teens, at the point of setting out to end it all, feel like they have no control over the situations; they feel they are unable to change their situations. Other causes include trying to escape feelings of pain, rejection, hurt, being unloved, victimization or loss. Teens may feel like their feelings are unbearable and will never end, so the only way to escape is suicide.
Some others sought quick death because they are afraid of disappointing others or feel like they are a burden to others, such as their parents, sponsors, etc. There are also environmental factors like bullying, cyber bullying, abuse, a detrimental home life, loss of a loved one or even a severe breakup that usually lead to suicidal feelings and behaviors amongst teens,” he said.
Not a desire to die
Meanwhile, professionals, including psychologists and other health workers, who work with suicidal teens, have stated clearly that teens who attempt or commit suicide do so not because of a desire to die, but, rather, in an attempt to escape a bad situation and/or painful feelings.
“It’s rare that only a single event leads to suicide,” Jenrade said matter-of-factly. According to him, it is usually when the situation becomes extremely unbearable and no other option or solution appears in sight, that a teen turns to suicide as a way out of what he or she usually assumes to be a hopeless situation.
“Becoming suicidal doesn’t happen because of one event or incident. The only exception here is when suicide comes as a result of mental illness. Some teens who attempt suicide suddenly without becoming suicidal at first usually do so because of depression, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder. Except in cases like this, suicide is not usually a one event case,” he added.
He explained that when a suicidal teen is lucky to have someone pay enough attention to help him or her turn around a seemingly bad situation, a suicide could be averted.
This means that by helping a teen turn around a bad situation or by teaching her or him how best to deal with painful feelings, we can defeat the causes of teen suicide. Most times, this requires professional help by a doctor or a psychotherapist and may also involve the teen’s school, such as in cases of teen bullying.
A Private Neuropsychiatrist, Dr Lasbat Farri, owner of Farri Specialist Hospital, Yaba said teenage age is an age where the teenage body is going through a lot of changes for both the girls and boys. These changes go with the psychological attendant consequences that we see.
One of these is depression; depression could set in at that age.
They include changes in academics, environment, which may be decisions taken by their parents at that age. For some, it could be difficulties in getting admission into the university or failing external examination.
“Life has its positive and negative, for negative, at that age they may lose love, lose friendship and depression begins to set in.
In some countries, the commonest causes of death include heart attack, cancer and suicide. In Nigeria, there is gross unemployment so you can imagine what can happen. After passing through school, going through training and hoping that when you finish you will get a job; but to your dismay you find out that these wishes are not fulfilled,” could easily cause depression.
Continuing, he said “there will be disturbances in your mind, which can lead to depression and one of the complications of depression is suicide. You begin to contemplate the whole scenario, back and forth and then look at yourself and the environment, you begin to tell yourself that this is not the kind of life you envisaged for yourself and you are now faced with it.”
He explains that at this point, “the person begins to believe he cannot do well for himself; he cannot do well for the society and cannot do well for his environment. It is a kind of spontaneous thing.
“Your thinking will just be summarised and nature knows no vacuum. It always lives in equilibrium of pleasure principles. You are surviving and you are living because you are looking forward to a day and when that day comes it gives you a kind of pleasure.
“Imagine looking forward to that day and the day comes and something happens and you are disappointed.”
Explaining what a parent should do if their child begins to say things like he will die soon, Dr Farri said most suicide intensions are communicated and as soon as someone communicates it, crisis intervention should be immediately done.
He noted that instead of taking the person to a prayer house, the person should be taken to a hospital because doctors are trained to recognise the feature of the circumstantial evidence that could prompt one to want to commit such an act.
He further said most suicides are communicated: “When such communications are made by the male sex, it has to be taken seriously.
“I am not saying that girls don’t communicate suicide but usually when girls communicate suicide; it has to do with phenomenal change which is rectifiable most of the time if they are attended to, but if a man communicates such notion, it should be taken seriously. What I am saying is that suicide is more common in men than in women.”
On signs to watch out for in teenagers who may be prone to committing suicide, Dr Farri said the signs include change in behaviour, change in association and change in communication. “You find that there is a change in your child’s way of talking and what he says.”
The solution to such a situation, according to him, is to sit him down, and let a pastor, imam, doctor or anyone he takes seriously speak with him. He may probably say the difficulties he has been having and at the height of it, you should see a psychiatrist or a specialist who is trained in dealing with such cases.”
Teachers and friends are not left out. First of all, Farri said if you notice such in your friend or student, you should make sure that you take the person to a counselor, whether it is a school, church or mosque counsellor, then they will proceed to see a neuro-psychiatrist.
Even though he praised the churches and mosques for their efforts, he called on them to communicate positive message to the teenagers.
“Tell them that if their expectations are not met and they feel disappointed, all is not lost because they can pick up the pieces from where they left it and start again. They should be told that they can learn from past events and move forward instead of giving them silly messages saying some witch is after them. Tell them they are the architect of their fortune or misfortune. Nobody is bewitching anybody anywhere; humanity has passed that level. Either it goes well for you or not, tomorrow may be better.”
He also disagrees with those who say the poor is more prone to committing suicide as he said suicide does not have anything to do with whether you are rich or poor.
“It depends on your perception of what success is and what failure is.”
