With suicide cases traced to the use of Sniper rising, many Nigerian citizens are at their wits’ end regarding how to mitigate these tragic occurrences. In another recent fatal incident, a female member of the National Youth Service Corps undergoing the one-year programme in Osogbo, Osun State, was a victim. After an interminable outcry on her needless death, the federal health authorities placed a ban on the sale of the product in the open market. The proscription is out of a legitimate concern, and stemming the scourge of suicide among the youth will test the society’s mettle to the limit.
Until Ayomikun Ademorayo’s death earlier this month, Sniper had gained notoriety as the fastest civil weapon for committing suicide among Nigerians. Widely used as a pesticide in agriculture and in homes as an insecticide because of its efficacy, the major challenge with Sniper is that it is easily accessible: practically anyone could buy it in the open market. Young people are exploiting this. At the weekend, two female undergraduates of the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, during a minor quarrel, attacked each other with Sniper. There was commotion in their hostel as the liquid swirled dangerously around them.
Besides, it is affordable. The small bottle, which Ademorayo applied to rid her hair of lice in preparation for her birthday, sold for between N350 and N500. The effect was instantaneous: she collapsed and died shortly thereafter. The chemical was so strong that Ademorayo’s colleague, who rushed to her aid, also lost consciousness. Ordinarily, this powerful product, especially the small bottle, should never have been approved for sale in the open market in the first place, knowing its highly hazardous content.
While Ademorayo’s death could be ascribed to negligence, the slew of other deaths with the imprints of Sniper was not. Mainly, Sniper has become the favoured fatal vehicle for committing suicide. One after another, secondary school leavers seeking admission to tertiary institutions, undergraduates with poor grades and jilted lovers have taken solace in swallowing the deadly solution. In one instance in Delta State a couple of years ago, an 18-year-old consumed three bottles of Sniper because she could not meet the cut-off mark of her choice of course – medicine – in the university matriculation examinations. All the pleas by her parents that she still had a future were ignored. How sad!
Her case aped that of a 400-level student of the Department of English and Literary Studies at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in May, 2019. The suicide, described as “pathetic and unfortunate” by the police, was shocking because the student, also a poet, was a first class candidate. He composed poems related to his suicide and posted them on Facebook. He drank two small bottles, even when one is enough to snuff out the life of a person, once the internal organs are exposed to it. It was the same in the case of a 19-year-old boy based in Lagos, who sipped the poison because his girlfriend reportedly quarrelled with him. Last February, another victim in Lagos recorded his own sniper-induced suicide with his Smartphone camera.
In December 2018, the social media was awash with the fatal story of a 300-level student of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. Media reports of the incident stated that she ended her life with Sniper because of the disagreement she had with her parents. Earlier in 2017, an undergraduate of the Faculty of Business Administration, University of Lagos, drank Sniper after her roommates accused her of stealing make-up and clothes. Similarly, in July 2015, a 32-year-old man in Yenagoa, capital of Bayelsa State, took Sniper on discovering that his wife was having extra-marital affairs.
In all this, a debate raged about whether to proscribe Sniper or not. For the protagonists of Sniper, the main argument was that it was mainly for agricultural purposes. The unspoken fact was that a major loophole rested on the open sale of Sniper in small bottles. For the farmers, the preference is for larger quantities, which could be applied as pesticides in farms.
However, the debate neared its end after Ademorayo, who was an orphan, died from the use of Sniper to wash her hair. In reaction, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control banned the product and others in the dichlorvos category from the open market and in small sizes, notably the 100ml pack. Citing its pervasive use for suicide, NAFDAC ordered the withdrawal of the consignments already on sale, and a total sales ban by September.
NAFDAC’s hammer was not shocking, but in all probability, it is only a temporary reprieve. Psychologists note that suicidal thoughts arise from feelings of failure, depression and lack of self worth or esteem. Over time, those with suicidal thoughts would engineer various ways to end their lives. A ban on one poison is unlikely to deter them. That was why perhaps in the past, frustrated people committed suicide using Dane guns, Gammalin 20 and sleeping tablets in large doses. In recent times, some people have been jumping into the Lagos lagoon in their desperate bid to end it all.
Across the world, fatal and non-fatal suicide acts are a serious public health issue. Regarded as the world’s hottest spot for suicide, the Japanese society was forced to outline fresh counter measures in 2008. Police estimates had stated that in the 10 years to 2006, 30,000 Japanese committed suicides annually. The authorities there discovered that young people took their lives by inhaling a particular gas, which they mixed at home after obtaining the recipe from the internet. Consequently, new measures were proffered, particularly the reduction in the cost of access to professional counselling services and expansion of phone-in therapy services.
Therefore, more than the Sniper ban, the three tiers of government, school authorities, the civil society and religious organisations should devise fresh strategies to curb the march of our youths to end their own lives. Educative programmes that discourage suicide should be introduced in schools and workplace. Parents and guardians should be on the alert for symptoms of suicides in their children and wards and take preventive measures.
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