Reps lament increase in act of suicide among Nigerian youths

• …ask Health Ministry to develop strategy for mental health management 

By Christiana Ekpa

The House of Representatives on Thursday asked the Federal Ministry of health to develop national strategy to address the underlying mental health factors leading to increase cases of suicide among Nigerian Youths.

The House in a bid to further help address the sad development, seeks to review the mental health laws of the Country.

The House resolutions followed the adoption of a motion moved by Hon. Jonathan Gaza Gbefwi (Nassarawa APC) at the plenary.

The Lawmaker while presenting the motion, disclosed that there is a prevalence of suicide cases in Nigeria, especially among youths between the ages of 15-29 years in the recent times.

Hon. Gaza further stated that statistics are showing that one-fifth of suicide cases are of persons with aged 13-19 years and over 50% of the crisis calls received through hotlines are from youth aged 13-29 and 27.8% of them are students.

“According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), suicides and attempted suicide cases recorded in the 36 states of the Federation, including the FCT, were 333 and 196 respectively as of 2017, while other reports show that about 80 persons ended their lives between April 8, 2017, and May 12, 2019.”

He said that socio-economic factors are contributing largely to mental illness like depression, anxiety disorders and others, which he said are on the increase and are the leading causes of suicide in Nigeria.

“The only form of legislation on mental health is the Lunacy Ordinance enacted in 1916 that assumed the status of law in 1958.”

He said there was a need for the review of mental health law in the country in order to strengthen mental healthcare services to Nigerians to reduce the rate of suicide.