Senate Advances Bill to Decriminalise Attempted Suicide, Provide Medical Treatment
The Senate on Tuesday advanced a bill seeking to decriminalise attempted suicide in Nigeria and provide medical treatment and continuing support for survivors, while calling for urgent federal intervention over deadly erosion and landslides in Cross River State and declaring worsening insecurity and mass displacement in Kebbi State a national emergency.
The upper chamber also passed a bill sponsored by the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Jibrin Barau, to provide a statutory framework for the Yusuf Maitama Sule Federal University of Education, Kano.
The four developments highlighted the Senate’s legislative and oversight interventions on public health, environmental disasters, national security, humanitarian relief and education.
Leading debate on the bill to decriminalise attempted suicide, its sponsor, Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong, said the proposed legislation sought to resolve the contradiction between existing criminal laws and the National Mental Health Act, which recognises the need for medical intervention during mental health emergencies.
He said the bill would replace punitive responses to suicide attempts with appropriate medical assessment, treatment and continuing support for survivors.
“At the heart of this bill is a simple question. When a Nigerian survives a suicide attempt, should the first response of the state be persecution or protection?” Ekpenyong asked.
The senator noted that while the National Mental Health Act recognised attempted suicide as a psychiatric emergency requiring immediate intervention, Section 327 of the Criminal Code and Section 231 of the Penal Code continued to expose survivors to criminal punishment.
“Our law presently speaks with two voices,” he said, insisting that the contradiction needed to be resolved to ensure that people experiencing mental health crises received appropriate care rather than prosecution.
Ekpenyong warned that criminalising attempted suicide could discourage people from seeking help, encourage families to conceal incidents and prevent health workers from reporting cases promptly.
He also argued that treating suicide attempts as criminal offences could deepen the stigma surrounding mental health conditions and undermine efforts to obtain reliable data for national suicide prevention programmes.
“The police station or correctional facility should not be the default destination for a person who requires urgent clinical care,” he said.
The proposed legislation would establish a coordinated framework for suicide prevention, crisis response, referrals and continuing support for survivors. It would also promote public education and training for health workers, teachers, law enforcement personnel and emergency responders to help them identify warning signs and connect vulnerable people with appropriate services.
Supporting the bill, Senator Adedayo Faduyile, representing Ondo South, drew on his medical experience to argue that attempted suicide should be treated as a medical emergency rather than a criminal offence.
He said depression and other mental health conditions could impair a person’s judgment, making treatment and recovery more appropriate responses than punishment.
“The best way to treat anybody who did not succumb to a suicide attempt is actually not to criminalise it. They need help,” Faduyiledeclared.
He argued that placing survivors in police stations or correctional facilities would not address the underlying medical conditions responsible for their distress, stressing the need for professional care.
Senator Abdul Ningi, representing Bauchi Central, commended Ekpenyong for bringing the issue before the Senate, describing it as an important legal and public health debate that deserved broader professional and public consultation.
He said the bill should proceed to further scrutiny to enable psychologists, medical practitioners and other stakeholders to contribute to a more effective national response.
However, the debate raised questions about the proposed amendment’s application across states operating under different criminal justice frameworks.
Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele cautioned that provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act were not automatically applicable in every state, depending on the legal framework adopted by the respective Houses of Assembly.
He said the Senate needed to clarify the extent to which the proposed amendment would apply nationally before proceeding further.
The Senate President, Godswill Akpabio opposed moves to decriminalise attempted suicide, insisting that survivors should be jailed, as the Senate passed for second reading the bill seeking to replace criminal punishment with medical treatment and rehabilitation advanced through second reading for further legislative scrutiny.
