Interrogating the Prevalence, Determinants and Consequences of Suicide among Youths in Nigeria

Abstract

Suicide is a social problem that has been in existence in human history for a very long time. It appears that every civilization in human history witnessed its fair share of people who for one reason or the other were unwilling to continue to stay alive. In the contemporary era, the prevalence of suicide is not only disturbing but appears to be only way out for the persons involved. This paper therefore interrogated the prevalence of suicide in our contemporary era among youths in Nigeria. The paper also examined the determinants of suicide, the consequences of suicide and offered remedial measures for mitigating the phenomenon in our contemporary Nigerian society. This is a theoretical paper which is anchored on the General Strain Theory by Robert Agnew (1992) and the Classical Theory of Suicide by Emile Durkheim (1897). It was found that Nigeria ranked 72nd in the world as at 2019 in global suicide deaths documentations with 18,608 suicide deaths recorded per year. Determinants of suicide were found to include personal risk factors like financial constraints, family history of suicide, loss of loved ones, mental illness, physical illness, substance abuse, depression and so on. The consequences of suicide were found to include economic hardship on the bereaved when the victim is the breadwinner, stigmatization and psychological/emotional trauma. The paper recommended among others that parents should learn to befriend their children; they should learn to study them, understand their moods and their body language and give the necessary support to them.