Nigerian Youths and Suicide, How Can We Help Them?

A silent, powerful monster; suicide is killing our youth in very large numbers. The word needs no lengthy definition. Quite simply, suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. The rightness or wrongness of suicide is an issue that is always going to be the subject of an unending debate. What cannot be debated however, is the existence of suicide in our Nigerian society, and it’s effects on our bright, promising youths.

Nigeria ranks in Africa as the country with the highest rate of depression and suicide. Globally, it is the second highest cause of death among people aged 11-29 years of age, but here in Nigeria, about 10 people out of every 100,000 die every year from suicide.

What are the Effects of Nigerian Youths’ Suicide?

The gift of youth is a beautiful fountain of endless, unimaginable possibilities. By taking their lives, these youths unknowingly stop that fountain, forever, without remedy. Let me give a bitter example. A few weeks ago, a final year Architecture student in one of the prominent federal universities in southwest Nigeria took his life. The story gets even more horrifying when you realize that he was the DOS [Director of Socials} in the department, a very high post for anyone to achieve.

Think of the boundless potentials that resided in that young man, how much of a positive influence he could have been on the society if only he had given himself a little more time to see his life unfold into more goodness. Sadly, all your thinking is medicine after death, as the promising young man is dead already, as with many like him who have taken that destructive, final step.

Death ends life, quite simply. A dead person cannot get a job, get married or do any of the special milestones that are part of the human experience. Death puts a final full stop to any and everything that could have been possible in a person’s life. That finality is always very difficult for friends and loved ones to navigate. If you’ve lost a family member before, you would be familiar with the sickening feelings of loss, grief, nostalgia and a multitude of other u emotions. The knowledge that your brother or sister has ended their own life is a very unsettling awareness. The bereaved family members now have to add lethal levels of anger, confusion, and self-blame to the issues that they are grappling with. Sadly, some of the bereaved fall into the dark trap of suicide idealogy , and will even go as far to act upon these suicidal preoccupations.

What are the Reasons for Nigerian Youths’ Suicide

But if people are aware of these far reaching effects of their suicidal actions, why then do they go ahead to take their own lives? Why are promising Nigerian youths cutting their own lives short prematurely?

One popular parlance in suicide counselling is to “wait till the good part”. It's a statement that means that people suffering from suicidal thoughts should try not to focus on the suffering they are going through at the moment, and instead, patiently look towards the future with radical optimism. But with the perpetually depressing financial climate in Nigeria, it is all too easy to focus on all that isn't going well right now, and do something drastic about it, like killing one’s self. Many of our youths come from dysfunctional families, usually with runaway fathers who have given their mothers too many children to care for on their own. Hence, once these people reach their late teens or early twenties, the pressure to start breadwinning to support their struggling families becomes almost impossible to cope with. For the boys, many turn to sports gambling, internet fraud or other easy ways of making money. And the girls, too, go down the rogue path. These might be profitable for a short while, but eventually, heavy debt, police trouble, unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted diseases usually force these young people into too tight corners.

Those with parents who can send them to tertiary institutions are not left out either. The backward educational systems in our federal universities is killing us, from our youth upwards. First of all, is the issue of overpriced fees, for underperforming universities. It was already difficult for parents to pay the fees before now, and these recent increments by the FG make it even harder for well-meaning guardians. And who is at the receiving end of this wickedness? The wards, the youths who are being forced to learn in sub-human conditions in our schools’ hostels. After paying such hefty sums for school fees, and not seeing the results of their efforts in their results {we have lecturers who will boldly state that an A is for God}, it is not too surprising to see that many youths are walking around with a constant feeling of despondency and depression, feeling like no matter how much they try, they can never attain the success that they desire.

Add that to the mental illness epidemic that is ravaging our country, and you have a recipe for disaster. Over 24 million Nigerians might suffer from mental illness, according to reports from WHO. It doesn't help either that many of them with these mental illnesses are dependent on hard drugs in order to “cope” with their symptoms, unaware of the fact that these narcotics worsen the situation.

How can we Prevent Youth Suicide in Nigeria?

Bleak as the situation might seem, we must not give up trying to help these young boys and girls. They might not look like it right now, but our youth are our best shot at a bright future for Nigeria, and it is our duty to save them from themselves. Our young people need to know that they aren't alone in the things that they struggle with. The mere sense of companionship that our gestures would express to them can do wonders in making them feel loved, valued and not alone.

Counselling, coupled with proper rehabilitation systems for those who have fallen prey to the scourge of hard drugs will save these lost children.

And saving the youth is what we’re here for at NBYF.

NBYF is committed to rescuing our young ones from the cold hands of suicide. Life stresses are a serious cause of these self-caused deaths, and here at our organisation, we make it a point of duty to provide these youths with the necessary lessons, welfare materials and counselling that they need in navigating this confusing maze called life. We ask that you join us in this mission to liberate our young people from the shackles of this kind of death. To you, your donation might look small, but know that any amount you gift to this cause would go a very long way in ensuring that our youths stay out of coffins. Join is to give Nigerian Youths a better life,we anticipate your contributions!

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