Akpabio su!cide bill opposition sparked debate in the Senate as he insisted survivors should face prison, even as lawmakers passed the bill for second reading.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio has pushed back hard against a bill that would scrap criminal charges for attempted suicide, telling his colleagues plainly that anyone who survives such an attempt should end up behind bars. His objection didn’t stop the bill though — the Senate still passed the Suicide Prevention Bill 2026 for second reading and sent it off to the judiciary and health committees for further work.
Akpabio made his position known on Tuesday, during debate on the bill sponsored by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong, who represents Cross River South. He wasn’t subtle about it either.
“As far as we are concerned, we are saying that suicide is a crime for now. Therefore, if you attempt it, you better succeed. If you don’t succeed, we will send you to prison,” he told the chamber.
He said it again later, just in case anyone missed it the first time. “If you attempt it and don’t succeed, we will jail you. So, if you attempt it, you better succeed.”
Even with Akpabio standing firmly against it, the Senate moved the bill forward anyway, passing it for second reading. He did note, though, that the chamber hasn’t held a public hearing on it yet — a point that’s likely to come up again before this is all settled.
Ekpenyong, presenting the bill, laid out what he sees as a glaring contradiction in Nigerian law. On one hand, the National Mental Health Act treats a suicide attempt as a psychiatric emergency, something requiring urgent medical care. On the other, the Criminal Code and Penal Code still treat the same act as a punishable crime.
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“Our law presently speaks with two voices,” he said. “The National Mental Health Act recognises attempted suicide as a psychiatric emergency requiring immediate intervention. Yet section 327 of the Criminal Code and section 231 of the Penal Code continue to expose the same person to criminal punishment.”
Akpabio
His bigger worry is what criminalization actually does in practice. His point was simple — treating it as a crime pushes people further from help, not closer to it.
Families, afraid of what might happen legally, end up hiding attempts instead of seeking support. Health workers, he said, sometimes hold back on full reporting for the same reason.
“Criminalisation can discourage people from disclosing suicidal thoughts or seeking help,” he said. “It may cause families to conceal attempts, health workers to avoid complete reporting, and communities to treat a medical emergency as a source of shame.”
He then put it to his fellow senators as a straightforward question, really. When someone survives something like this, what should the government’s first move actually be — punishment, or protection?
He was also careful to clarify what the bill doesn’t do. Removing criminal penalties for the person who survives, he stressed, is not the same as excusing anyone who pushes, pressures, or helps another person toward taking their own life. Those actions, he made clear, remain entirely separate matters.
The debate pulled in other voices too. Ned Nwoko, representing Delta North, backed the motion to move the bill forward but wanted more clarity on how it would actually work in practice to prevent suicide, not just change how survivors are treated afterward.
Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele raised a more technical concern, questioning how these changes would apply across all states, given that each state has to separately adopt the Administration of Criminal Justice Act before such reforms take hold locally.
Senator Abdul Ningi of Bauchi Central took a different angle, praising Ekpenyong for bringing the conversation to the floor at all. His point was simple — people shouldn’t automatically be branded criminals without anyone considering what actually led them there.
There’s more to the bill than just the legal side, though. It actually lays out a decent support structure too — things like crisis helplines, medical assessments, referral pathways, and rehabilitation for survivors. Akpabio
There’s also a push to train police officers, teachers and healthcare workers on how to respond appropriately, plus a national data system meant to track patterns and strengthen prevention efforts going forward. Akpabio
If it eventually becomes law, survivors would be directed toward medical care and ongoing support instead of facing time behind bars. For now, though, the bill sits with the Senate’s judiciary and health committees, where the public hearing Akpabio pointed out was missing will presumably need to happen before anything moves further.
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