Goodluck
Jonathan's former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity who is a
writer and columnist has written yet another interesting piece to
Nigerians. It's a must read.
Reuben Abati
I once wrote about Nigeria’s “children of anger”, but the country
seems to have progressed from anger to clinical depression, resulting in
a rise not merely in social aggressiveness, but a determination by
certain individuals to escape from it all. The percentage of Nigerians
seeking escape through suicide nonetheless remains small relative to the
size of the population, but the sharp increase in the number and
frequency of reported suicides in the last two years alone speaks to a
certain dysfunctionality requiring closer inquiry.
Suicide is an act of self-destruction, an escape from the self, an
act of self-defeat. Whether the suicide is anomic or fatalistic, due to
loss of job, broken relationships, dis-inhibition, economic deprivation,
environmental factors, disability or psychosis, it usually arises from
an awareness of the inadequacy of the self. What Germans call
“weltschmerz”, that is, a discrepancy between personal expectations and
the reality of personal space, which for many may result in anger,
aggressiveness, a feeling of rejection, isolation, inadequacy and
ultimately a revolt against the self.
It is often assumed that poverty is synonymous with this resolve to
deconstruct the self but the highest suicide rates are actually found
in countries with wealth, and better environment, and all ten of the
most popular spots for suicide in the world are in developed countries.
What is certain however regardless of the place and time, is that human
beings decide to abbreviate their own mortality when they resolve that
they can no longer live with the discrepancy between what they are and
what they would like to be, or what they have been and what they have
suddenly become or what they expect and what happens to them eventually,
all of this basically in the context of the imagined stigma, shame,
disgrace or disappointment.
What is instructive in our own circumstance, however, is that
suicide has always been frowned upon in our society: It is forbidden by
law, religion, society and tradition, to the extent that in local
communities, persons who commit suicide are not given any decent burial,
they are thrown into the evil forest to serve as a deterrence to
others, and the affected family is stigmatized. It is for this reason
perhaps that suicide cases used to be very few in our land. Besides,
Nigerians are known for their optimism and resilience.
We were once described as one of the happiest people on earth, and
one Dictionary describes a segment of our population, the Yoruba as the
“fun-loving people of the South West part of Nigeria.” Nigerians love
life so much they describe virtually every funeral as a “celebration of
life” and every life, including the poorest is advertised in funeral
posters as “a life well spent.” The cemetery is seen as a desolate,
lonely, outside corner of the social space where no one is in a hurry to
go. But all that has changed; or appears to be changing, for in the
last two years, suicide seems to have become fashionable among seemingly
ordinary folks.
I use the phrase “seemingly ordinary folks” advisedly, because the
other kind of suicide that is known to Nigerians remains even
surprising, and I refer here to the terrorism, religious
fundamentalism-inspired suicide attempts of the likes of Umar Farouk
Abdulmutallab and Boko Haram agents. When the news broke in 2009, that
the former had been uncovered as a suicide bomber, Nigerians were
shocked. The reaction then was that it was impossible for a Nigerian to
willingly decide to die for, of all reasons, ideological or religious
reasons. We were soon proven wrong when Boko Haram began to deploy both
male and female, mature and teenage, suicide bombers who turned Nigeria
into an extension of the killing fields of al-Qaeda. This trend
continues, with the hope within the larger society, that it is something
that would end someday.
What the emerging literature shows is that the conditions for every
suicide vary in time and space, but in Nigeria, the reported cases
point to too many cases of self-deconstruction on the basis of economic
deprivation, loss of status, debt, helplessness. The responsibility of
government is to ensure the security and welfare of the people. There
has been a great failing in this regard, with the people driven further
below their perceived reality, which reinforces the causative principle
earlier defined. Some of the recently reported cases are as follows: a
man ended it all because he could not give his wife “chop-money”,
another woman chose to die because she could not pay off her debts, in
one week in Lagos, a doctor, two women and an elderly man chose the
Lagoon as their death-spot. With the way the Lagos Lagoon has suddenly
become a popular spot for suicide in Nigeria, it may well in due course,
become one of the most popular suicide spots in the world.
It is noteworthy, if I must say so, that the ten most popular
suicide spots on earth are associated with the sea, and bridges, with
perhaps the sole exception of the Aokigahara Forest-Mount Fuji in Japan
where suicide rate is as high as 100 per year. The Japanese may tolerate
suicide and consider it supernatural, but here in Nigeria, it is a
growing trend that should be discouraged. Some priests have said the
Lagos Lagoon is angry and that is why it has been attracting persons to
jump into it: if indeed whatever spirit that controls the Lagoon is
hungry, the Oba of Lagos and his chiefs should hurry up and feed that
spirit with whatever it eats. I assume that this would be a more useful
venture than the partisan declaration by the Oba of Lagos that nobody
should contest against the incumbent Lagos State Governor in 2019! But
how about the other unreported causes of suicide, far away from the
Lagoon? This is where the dilemma lies and where our constructive social
theory, and the admissibility of every piece of evidence, empirical and
customary, meets a brick-wall.
As a country, society and government, we would always have to deal
with deviant behaviour, into which category suicide – the ultimate act
of violence and rebellion against self and society falls in this
particular context, what is crucial is society’s level of preparedness
to reduce the scope and range. In Nigeria, we are not prepared at all.
When people fall into depression in other countries, they visit
counselors and psychiatrists. In Nigeria, a prominent leader once
dismissed psychology as a useless course that should be removed from the
curriculum. Graduates of psychology end up doing something else, or
they end up offering pro bono counseling on social media like my in-law,
Joro Olumofin, but with people dying for no just reasons and jumping
into the river or hanging themselves or killing their spouses and family
members, this is a country in urgent need of professional counselors.
Psychiatry is another relevant discipline that has been utterly
neglected.
I once gave a keynote address at the Psychiatric Hospital, Aro in
Abeokuta and I was again Keynote Speaker at the 100thanniversary of
Psychiatry in Nigeria. Nothing has changed since then. We don’t have
enough psychiatric doctors or hospitals in Nigeria. The few psychiatric
hospitals are poorly funded, psychiatric doctors are poorly treated, the
discipline is disregarded, and yet this is a country of psychotic cases
at all levels, the more serious cases are in government, making
decisions that create more problems of bipolar disorder in the larger
society. Nigeria is a victim, like many other developing countries, of a
one-sided embrace of globalization and its gains and evils. People
watch TV and they are socialized into a new form of thinking that is
disconnected with local values and culture. They become anti-heroes in
the process. Suicide or attempted suicide has not fetched any one or any
family any kind of honour in our society.
Given this sociology, greater attention needs to be paid to the
increasing incidence of suicide, in the North and the South
particularly, with the most vulnerable states properly identified and
strategic intervention measures put in place. A preliminary observation
indicates that the most affected persons in the North are radical
Islamic extremists used as pawns by the Boko Haram, while in the 10 most
affected states in the South, the cause is basically existential. This
observation is based on reported cases, but with the increasing
frequency, it is safe to hazard a guess that there are many more
unreported cases, which may provide additional or different sociological
conclusions.
Whatever the case may be, this rise of despair in the country needs
to be managed. Suicide prevention hotlines have been announced, but the
thought of suicide should be discouraged in the first place, through
better governance, opportunities for professional counseling, and better
management of mental health. Most Nigerians don’t even know who to go
to, or talk to when they are depressed! And if they know, they don’t
want their private secrets to be known. When the suicide succeeds or
fails, the relatives are in need of help: they will need counseling, to
deal with the frustration and the shame.
I believe that suicide-related problems can be fixed. The challenge
is to convert the people’s pessimism into optimism through
people-centred governance and to deliver the much-expected,
much-trumpeted change in their circumstances.
Disappointment leads to frustration, to anger, to despondency, to
losses, to despair and ultimately to self-destruction for the
weak-hearted. But suicide is not a solution. And to those who doubt
this, Teebliz, Tiwa Savage’s husband is a living testimony. Not too long
ago, he wanted to jump into the Lagoon. He said his wife, the award-
winning singer, had disappointed him. He accused her of many
better-unmentioned-again-things. He could not take it anymore and he
wanted to self-destruct.
His suicide attempt was more or less televised, because it was
everywhere on social media – it is not every suicide that is so
televised- eventually he was prevented from taking the plunge, and he
raved and ranted afterwards and then went quiet. Months later, he has
been shown taking photographs with the same woman for whom he wanted to
play a Romeo without a Juliet. In their most recent outings, they have
been shown with their son, Jamil who looks like his father’s twin, and
last weekend, the boy had his Christening at a church in Lekki. Teebliz
has been pictured bonding with his son and beaming with fatherly pride.
If he had jumped into the Lagoon when he wanted to do so, he would
have been long dead and forgotten. But Teebliz looks much happier now,
and deep within him, he must be grateful to the persons who did not
allow him to jump. He must be particularly happy seeing his son growing
up into a fine young kid. There is nothing in this life that cannot be
fixed and there lies the futility of suicide.
About the Author:
Reuben Abati is a writer, columnist and former Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to former President Goodluck Jonathan.