There are people around you…… From Prison to
Presidency!
In my
last intervention( The Anatomy of Suicide) I discussed how I got
involved in suicide-matters and ended with the paper (Suicide is NOT an
option), which I presented in
2019, in which I x-rayed 10 suicide cases in Nigeria, 9 out of whom were students. Four of them committed suicide due to failed romance, 5 were
due to project/result issues while one
was due to depression, which might have been caused by the other two factors.
I will now discuss the outcome of a more
extensive investigation that lasted 3 years (2019-2022), involving a sample of
217. However, this will start with some preliminary remarks. The data was
sourced from the media and some of the reports did not contain all the
variables of interest (causes, methods, age).
Thus, the total for the various elements vary and that is why I limited
myself to percentages. Secondly, some of the classifications are not sacrosanct.
For instance, among the ‘causes’ of
suicide are depression/frustration, academic challenges and marital/domestic
issues. It is obvious that depression
and/or frustration, could have been caused by some of the other variables like
academic or marital issues. Thirdly, I obtained a ‘bulk figure’ from Nepal,
where 842 people committed suicide
within a space of 2 months( March-May 2020)
at the height of Covid-19 invasion and consequential lockdown. I decided
to treat it separately because it will ‘overwhelm’ the rest of the data if
incorporated. Furthermore, it provided information on just one of the
variables: methods of suicide. I
will therefore start with the Nepal cases, where742 of the people hanged themselves; 114 resorted to poison
while 19 resorted to other methods. The causes were not given but these may be
attributed to the socio-economic and psychological consequences of Covid in
general and lockdown in particular.
Coming to the sample of 217, which I obtained from all over the world but mostly from
Nigeria, the variables of interest were
gender, age, causes and methods of suicide and these are presented and
analysed hereunder. There were more males (62%) than females (38%) and in terms
of age, most of them were aged between 30 and 50 (33%), followed by those
between 20 & 30(27%). Students constituted 19% of the sample while those
aged below 20 made up 17%. Six of them were
little children below 10! 6% of the sample were aged above 50, with two of them
aged 82 and 85. The causes were categorised into 6 with ‘failed romance’
(jilting by spouses or lovers or sexual starvation) as the highest (22%);
frustration/depression, 19%; and marital/domestic issues, 17%. People who were ashamed or could not stand
the consequences of their actions accounted to 12%. Among these, some committed suicide in
detention while some did so before they were caught. Academic challenges were
responsible for 6.5% while the ‘others’
were 23%. Hanging, the ancient method of suicide, won the gold medal
(35%) quickly followed by snipper et al(32%).
If we had limited it to Nigeria and the youths in particular, snipper et
al would have won by a distant margin. Some people still relied on the gun (18%)
while others relied other methods like stabbing, drowning, and jumping down
from high-rise buildings (14.6%).
Thus, most of those who committed suicide were
males (62%); aged below 30, and these included students(63%), did so
mostly by hanging and poisoning(67%) and were mostly caused by
frustration, failed romance and domestic squabbles(58%). The male dominance is
apparently a universal affair. In 2020 75.1% of all the suicides in UK were males, almost the same with 2018 figure
of 75%.
The male-suicide rate failed from 17.2% in 2018 to 15.4 in 2020. In the
US, the males constituted 78.7% of all suicides between 2000 and 2020! In our environment, we blame
the outrageous societal expectations and pressures on men, including the ‘be
a man’ paradigm. Does it mean
that this also applies to the developed world?
However, statistics at times hides more than
it reveals. Going through all these cases, there were certain peculiar,
strange, surprising and emerging phenomena. The strangest were the cases of
Gregory Elles, Executive Director, Counselling and Psychological Services at
the University of Pennsylvania, who committed suicide on the 2019 World Suicide Prevention Day(
10/9/19); Pastor Wilson who committed
suicide immediately after burying a
suicide victim; and Fr Harkins of St James Parish, Kansas. When people who
spent their lives advising suicidal people and mapping out strategies to
minimise suicide, or preaching that lives
were sacred, resort to suicide, it
becomes obvious that suicide is a mysterious affair. Some of the cases looked
so unbelievable. These included three young persons who committed suicide
because one was scolded, another lost the battle for TV ‘Remote Control’ to the sister while the
third killed himself because the mother
could not give him N700 now-now( she promised to give the following
day). There are increasing cases of murder-suicide, those who kill others
before committing suicide and people who commit suicide so as to punish
others. There was this small girl aged
11 who committed suicide on her mother’s birthday because the mother always
told her that she was a source of sorrow for her! So, she committed suicide as
a birthday present to the mother; to ‘make her happy’. When people kill themselves to punish or get
even with others, it amounts to the weaponization of suicide! The truth is that suicide has been
democratized. It is now two-for-a-penny, available to everybody everywhere!
Of course, it has become a human-right!!!
It is also surprising that despite the various
convenient methods of committing suicide, people still resort to crude, painful
methods like hanging and stabbing. The most bizarre case was that of Chigozie,
a Port Harcourt based young man, who ripped open his stomach and removed his
intestines in June 2022. I shudder at the kind of pains he suffered in his last
minutes and what led him to choose this severe method of suicide. It is obvious
that the rich also cry as in the cases of
Volker Bouffier a German Minister;
Alvaro, son of former Mexican president and Hilary, a wealthy lady who generously facilitated 200,000 surgeries
across the globe. The ‘suicide industry’ is also afflicted by the scourge of
fake news. The allegation that Mr & Mrs Odipo, a Kenyan couple committed
suicide over $78000 wedding debt, was discovered to be fake. The believable
story even included a suicide note, which blamed the wedding guests and
relatives for their miserly gifts. There was also the case of this fellow, Mr
Galva, an Indian, who could not get himself to commit suicide but rather
commissioned someone else to do kill him. I don’t know whether the ‘contractor’
has been able to extricate himself from the law. There was the case of Alex Murdaugh who hired somebody to kill him so that his son
could cash the $10 insurance
claims. Anyway, this particular
case failed and I wonder whether this was
love for son or criminality or being smart by half
The first and actually, the only thing that
pushes people into suicide is AHD
(Acute Hope Deficit). Whenever people believe that the current
situation will only get worse, that there are no silver linings in the cloud,
then the suicide bell starts ringing.
How soon they take the option depends on personality and other circumstances. Thus, I agree with one Esther Timothy,
an expert in these matters who opined emphatically that ‘People opt to
end their lives when they think there is no other way out of their predicament’.
She supported her position with the case of
a man who had been an ATM for
three years and had lost his wife,
mother and only brother while in jail and was finally sentenced to life
imprisonment! The man was a candidate for suicide and he went
straight for it but the Good Lord saved
him from it all. He attempted to kill himself because he had no hope. (ATM?
Awaiting Trial Man). Furthermore, suicidal people are not known by
their looks and or demeanours. Ayodeji,
a PhD student was full of life and lacked nothing, according to
his father but he committed seppuku!
This evidences the fact that we don’t know what our relations,
neighbours and colleagues are going
through by mere casual observation, in tandem with the ageless Shakespearean
assertion( Macbeth) that ‘there is no art to find the minds construction
in the face’! There are also people who refuse to take responsibilities
for their actions, always holding others responsible for their predicaments,
and therefore believing that those ‘others’ have held them in vice-like grips from which they cannot
escape. Such a person who believes that
he has been done in by others,
especially the more powerful others,
refrains from taking any personal action to extricate himself and as
such, suicide becomes the option. In
effect, suicide depends on what happens to people(societal/environmental), how
they react what happens to them(personality/psychological) and the ease,
convenience and opportunity to commit suicide!
The
Great Chicago Fire of October 1871 resulted in a damage of circa, $200m.
a man whose shop was TOTALLY razed came around, calmly surveyed the carnage,
positioned a half-burnt table at the center of the charred ruins and placed a
sign: Everything lost except wife, children and hope. Business starts as usual
tomorrow morning
Everything lost except----
Here is another perspective on the matter. We should not base our happiness on others. People are to be treasured, loved and perhaps be celebrated. However, it will be giving too much to place our happiness in the hands of anybody because it is in the nature of the human person to disappoint.. This explains why many people are living in misery today… As much as we may love people, our happiness should be placed on our relationship with them. This is because they can be kind to us today and turn against us tomorrow. Someone who has promised to stand by us today may turn against us tomorrow. That is why Jeremiah( 15:5) says: woe unto the one who put his trust in men (Fr Emmanuel Okami, ( 2020) A light onto my path, p125; Floret Systems, Benin). This also applies to things, acquisitions, status et al. One may commit suicide because he has to move from VGC to Ajamgbadi or from Lagos to the village of from Canada to Nigeria! This is somehow related to the words of Viktor Frankl that life is never made unbearable by circumstances but only by lack of meaning and purpose. When peoples’ lives are bereft of meaning and purpose, they find it easier to decamp!
As I said earlier,
I am a behavioural scientist, and this
is not my field but I can still make some suggestions on what we can do as
relations, colleagues and neighbours, and proffer some advice to those of us who
still have our heads on our shoulders. As the crowd asked John the Baptist and
Apostle Peter What then shall we do? (Luke,3:10;Acts 2:27-40) We
should be our brothers keepers; we should give people hope (which is not just a
matter of cash); we should check in on others who suddenly exhibit withdrawal tendencies, become gloomier, and easily irritable. This
does not necessarily mean poke-nosing irritably into others businesses.
Loneliness is one of the greatest enablers of suicide. So, when you have people
who are down and out, don’t let them out of sight. There was this lady who lost
all her 4 children and was persuaded to go stay with the mother. The mother
left for a few minutes to get groceries and that was that!
We also compare a lot, forgetting that in
comparison, we will never ‘win’ because whatever happens, there are always
people above and below us. No one is ahead or behind because everyone is
running his/her own race. Warren Buffet started investing at 11 while Sanders
started selling chickens at 65; Obama retired at 55 while Trump started at 70;
Bezos failed several times before Amazon
while Zuckerberg succeeded at his first attempt. So, just relax, face your face and stop
comparing yourself with others because. There is nothing wrong with being
who you are. Appreciate, value and learn rom others but remain uniquely you. It
is that uniqueness that makes you valuable: having something different to offer
the world in a useful way. You are a limited edition and you must be unique so
as to be irreplaceable. Love the different, unique and blessed you( Ik
MuoII)
Some parents use harsh words on their
children, alienate these kids by
excessive control and at times
have unbelievable expectations
from them. It is common for parents to tell their children: ‘don’t ever come
home with that kind of result’ or ‘don’t
disgrace the family by doing so and so.’ In that case, the child decides to
exit this world rather than face the acerbic tongues or non-compassionate
attitude of the parents. I have told the
story of a girl who committed suicide on her mother’s birthday so as to make
the woman happy. So, parents should be more compassionate towards their
children, communicate more openly with them, be compassionate when they have
challenges, encourage rather than castigate them when they make mistakes and
investigate their mood-swings.
The Church produces and markets faith and
hope, and people commit suicide when they do not believe that God is there for
them or have no hope that things will get better. Luckily, the BOOK, our
maker’s manual for successful living, contains all that is needed for this
assignment. We should deemphasise
prosperity, seed sowing and
‘mystery’ of money, and rather give
message of faith, hope and God’s love.
The messages are ready-made and already prepared in take-away packs!. There
is nothing too hard or impossible for God(Jeremiah,32.17; Luke,1:37); no
temptation has befallen us which has not been experienced by others before and
God always provides escape routes(
1 Cor, 10:13) especially when we become still and know that He is God,
supreme over everything( Ps 46.10) and remember that He will
yet fill our mouths with laughter and our lips with shouts of Joy(Job,8:21).
We have been advised that ‘for every predicament you face in life, God
has sufficient grace to carry you through. For every need, He has a supply. For
every problem, He has an answer. For every hurt, He has a cure. (Stanley
Jones) and that ‘If you want to be depressed, look within. If you want to
be defeated, look back. If you want to be distracted, look around. But if you
want to be delivered, look up. (Corrie ten Boom)’
Here are some words for those who feel like ‘doing it’ and indeed for all of us. The world is not a bed of roses: there MUST be challenges (simple or complex) and disappointments even from trusted ones. But you are not alone; your life does not belong to you alone because there are many significant others (stakeholders), and others have passed through worse predicaments than you are going through. If you feel that Job is an old school story, recall the stories of Mr Ogbodo who lost his wife and four children to a fire incident in Jos in 2021; Ezekiel Del lost his father, mother, wife and 4 children to bloodthirsty ethnic-cleansers at Gidin Akwati, in 2018; a student who went to do his clearance only to be told to start afresh because he came in through the back door or the Ilabor family that lost ALL their three children to the Soliso crash, and they were live witnesses to their gruesome deaths because they were at the airport to pick their children! These people are STILL alive!
Do you remember the stories of the serial failure of Abraham Lincoln and the recent case of Mandela or even Obasanjo who achieved the PTP feat?(PTP: prison to presidency) Do you know that most of the great men we wish to be in their shoes had very ‘wicked’ impediments? Charles Dickens was lame; Plato was a hunchback, Roosevelt was crippled by polio, Hellen Keller was deaf and blind, Beethoven was deaf and Moses did not see the promised land!
It is normal to
fail but we can fail successfully. How? By learning
from your failures and growing stronger and wiser through them. Surrendering
your future to your past just means you drown in remorse and hopelessness. But
if you practise ‘failing forward’, you can experience future success. So
acknowledge your failings, see yourself cleansed by the blood of Jesus, let go
of your disappointment in yourself, and get up and try again: (The Word
for Today, 27/7/18)
I agree that life is like a camera:
FOCUS on what is important, CAPTURE the good times, DEVELOP from the negatives
and if things don’t work out, TAKE ANOTHER SHOT and if you
fail, never give up because fail means first attempt in learning. End is not
the end; it means efforts never die. If you get NO for an answer, remember
that NO means next opportunity. Lets be positive!
The he-goat told his brethren to stop worrying about his size but rather to pray for his life because once he is alive, he will grow. Once we are alive, things will look up; opportunities will emerge and improvements are possible. If and when we delete ourselves, we have closed all possibilities
Suicide is NOT an option, it is like
applying a permanent solution to a temporary problem. And whatever it
is…
“Find a great mentor, someone who has already been through the many challenges of being an entrepreneur..” -Jodi Levine
Entrepreneurship in Practice: Cases, Challenges and Lessons By IK, MUO PHD is now available on Amazon, since 14/5/21. Click here to view Available for order +2348033026625 | Delivery : Worldwide
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