Faduyile wants end to criminalization of failed suicide attempts

By Steve Ovirih.

The Senator representing Ondo South Senatorial District, Distinguished Senator Prof. Dayo Faduyile, OON has thrown his weight behind the need to end criminalizing suicide in Nigeria, noting that for a good number of people who indulge suicide, such thought arises from depression which is a medical condition.

Senator Faduyile gave this indication on Tuesday, 13th October at The Senate Plenary while seconding the Bill presented by Distinguished Senator Asuquo Ekpeyoung, Cross River South. Senator Ekpeyoung’s bill titled ‘Decriminalizing attempt to Commit Suicide’ emphasized the fact that to prosecute a victim of failed suicide attempt is to worsen the case as it goes beyond norm for any rational human being to make attempt to take his or her own life.

While seconding the Bill, the Professor of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Senator Faduyile noted that depression brings suicide and not dying during a suicide attempt for the victim requires mental health attention rather than chaining them through the prosecutorial route.”I want to support this bill because those of us who have been practicing Medicine understand that suicide is a medical condition.

“Actually, there is no man who will gleefully take his own life; what people call suicide is acute depression and those who are depressed most times are hardly aware of what they want to do. Those who had gone through not dying over a failed attempt can tell that it is a sudden decision that comes from few minutes of a resolve before the suicide attempt.

“The Law has made it clear that no one has the right to take anyone’s life including his or her own and that was the basis for criminalizing suicide attempt. Medical condition has shown now that it is not a deliberate act of the those who see suide as last resort,” Senator Faduyile noted.

The Lawmaker maintained that suicide is not a deliberate act for a willing soul and nobody of his or her own volition volunteers to end their own life, adding that the best way to treat anyone who did not die of suicide is not to criminalize them but rather to interrogate the cause of the morbid resolve that pushes people to such ‘tip off cliff.’ He said suicide victims deserve to be well treated and subjected to good medical treatment and by so doing they will realize that they have no right to taking their own life.

The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio refered the bill to the committee on Judiciary, Human rights and Health (Tertiary and Secondary) for further consideration.