I read with shock and utter dismay the statement credited to the President of the Senate, Senator Godswill Akpabio that “If you fail to die by suicide, we’ll jail you.”
This is not just insensitive, it is wicked, inhuman and a clear confession of state failure.
Let us decode what this government is telling Nigerians:
EITHER WAY, THEY WIN.
They will continue to introduce anti-people policies that force you to die. In dying, you will either die by hunger, die by insecurity, die by economic hardship, die by fuel subsidy removal, die by inflation, die by unemployment.
And if you don’t die by all that, you will be frustrated to kill yourself – suicide.
And in attempting to kill yourself and you fail, you will be punished for a job badly done, by being sent to jail.
Either way, you must die. And if by happenstance you escape death, you will be put away anyway, this time in jail.
Is this Renewed Hope? Or Renewed Hopelessness? Or Renewed Shege?
How can a Senate President, in a country where a bag of rice is N100,000, where Nigerians are committing suicide daily due to hunger and hopelessness, be threatening citizens who attempted suicide with jail instead of help, therapy and hope?
This shows that this government has lost empathy. They have criminalized depression. They have criminalized poverty. They have criminalized being a victim of their own failed policies.
You pushed Nigerians to the wall, you removed everything that made life bearable, and when they break down, you threaten them with prison.
Attempted suicide is not a crime, it is a cry for help. What Nigerians need is a functional healthcare system, mental health support and economic relief, not jail.
The Senator should immediately retract that draconian statement and apologize to Nigerians.
President Bola Tinubu must call himself and his Senate President to order and focus on eradicating the anti-people policies that are driving Nigerians to despair.
Nigeria has become a country where the poor cannot breathe, cannot eat, cannot sleep, and cannot even die in peace.
The Nigerian people are saying, ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
We want a new Nigeria where no man will be oppressed and where the government will be for the people, not against the people.