In the last few weeks, the nation has been awash with chilling news reports of people committing suicide by drinking an insecticide known as Sniper. This dangerous potent chemical, meant for use only by professionals, who know how to handle it properly, contains Dichlorovinyl Dimethylphosphate (DDVP), and was not produced for human consumption. Rather, it is meant to kill insects and other household pests, such as wall gecko and cockroaches.
DDVP is a very dangerous chemical that literally tears the organs of the body apart in a way that results in agonizing death of the victim. So, idiotic individuals who drink it in the absolutely wrong belief that it would allow them easily end their lives (for whatever reason) do so foolishly.
No Sniper drinker has ever lived to tell the story. First the devil plants the idea of suicide in the person’s head, then encourages the individual to get hold of one bottle of Sniper. Really, the devil is “D’Evil” in Sniper.
Granted, everyone is destined to die some day, because that is what the Bible clearly stated in the Book of Hebrews 9:27. But taking one’s life is a fearful venture that one should treat with disdain because it is an abomination associated with evil. Traditionalists of the olden days threw suicidal victims into the thick forest because it was perceived to be a taboo and the suicide was not fit to be buried near the homestead. Such a person deserved to be thrown away in the evil forest, to be eaten by wild animals.
These days, committing suicide seems to be trending, given the alarming rate at which it is happening. If nothing is done fast, it might degenerate just like cultism started like a joke and spread its tentacles into secondary schools. In parts of the urban areas, cult gangs call the shots. One begins to wonder how people would boldly end the life they had no contribution in creating. What mindset leads to such decisions? The ones that did not drink Sniper would jump into the lagoon and drown; some hang themselves while some others resort to drinking battery mixed with stout. Then again, others take rat poison or slash their hands with a sharp knife and consequently bleed to death. It is the sort of situation that Mr. Femi Adesina, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Public Affairs once described as “One mind less, one world less” in his days as the pioneer editor of the Daily Sun.
Great thinkers have fingered frustration, difficult times, depression, illness, devil at work and life becoming meaningless and worthless etc, are major reasons why people end their lives abruptly using Sniper. But one of the best seller’s written by Robert Schuler says, ‘Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do.’ The book is an interesting piece that x-rayed various challenges that people go through to prove that life is not a bed of roses. But tough skinned individuals like the biblical Job proved that tough times never last. It makes me to begin to wonder what form of tough challenge should lead one to take one’s life. Drinking Sniper to aid suicide has never solved any problem and would never solve any; rather it increases and multiplies the aspersion cast at a suicidal victim.
From Ikorodu came the shocking news of an Okada rider who committed suicide after killing his wife and son based on allegation of infidelity against his wife. The story that a professor committed suicide was not a palatable one. At the foremost University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) a student drank two bottles of Sniper to end his life. A young man committed suicide here in Lagos because his girlfriend jilted him. A pastor took his life because he could not raise money to pay for his accommodation and an SS1 student who should probably be between 15-16 years took his life by drinking the same corrosive, evil Sniper. The list is endless.
It is high time for individuals, neighbours, friends, colleagues, and leaders of thought, started to work on changing the mindset that leads people to take their own lives. If we get the mind settled within ourselves, no one will attempt to drink Sniper; when we get it right from within, suicide will be far from us. Again, there is need to resurrect communal living. Let us begin to live communally and interact like in the 70s and 80s when neighbours at No.8 knew almost all tenants down the street up to No.20 of the same street. Let us know the residents in our neighbourhood like the back of our hands. A neighbour might be going through depression and hard times and wouldn’t have the courage to speak out for fear of rejection. The next alternative would be to reach out and grab an any ready bottle of Sniper to end his life without looking back. But a few heartfelt visits and a little care can change the whole picture and revive the flagging spirit and get the victim to see a new ray of light.
It is also ripe for people to begin to care, share, give and shockingly surprise others. Giving should not be during festive periods alone. No! Wake up and ask: whose life can I bless today, by way of advice, sharing and restoring lost hope? Food and beverage industries, wake up, do not enjoy the year-end-profits alone, kindly use part of the profit to campaign against suicide. Load your truck with food and beverage and distribute in schools where lives seem low – you just might not know the about-to-drink-Sniper individual you could save.
Sincerely, this new, agonizing way of ending life among people is no longer a hidden problem. Parents and guardians at home, while training and paying exorbitant school fees, begin to instill this other form of discipline on the dangers of taking one’s life no matter the challenge. School authorities, religious institutions, begin to create awareness on the dangers of committing suicide. Corporate offices, include the dangers of committing suicide in your work safety rules. Do not be deceived by gentle dispositions, it could be that the person is going through stress. An interaction with a young fellow revealed that not all that glitters is gold. He told me: “When I am at home during the holidays, I am a good boy who does not go out, but in school, we are the ‘landlords; the real owners of the school.” He simply meant that his lifestyle at home was different from his lifestyle in school. He lives in two different worlds.
Religious bodies, the time has come to preach and teach genuine repentance. Ostentatious lifestyle and prosperity preaching, reaping where one did not sow thereby enforcing unhealthy competition among the youths should stop because it has also been fingered as one of the wrong reasons every young person wants to get rich quick. A preacher gives testimonies of how his children fly first class to go back to school abroad, while their contemporaries in the church can barely have a decent life. Such children go home and begin to wonder the kind of parents they have and a lot go through their mind, right or wrong.
The government is not blameless with the present situation of economic hardship. A pastor in a branch of Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG) took his life because of economic adversity; he could not foot his bill and decided to end it.
Now that we have new governments, the first responsibility of the federal and state governments is to protect lives and property. If you fail to do so, know ye that you are the one giving out the dreaded ‘Sniper’ to Nigerians to drink and end it fast. Government officials should help the citizenry rather than engaging in grand stealing. Please let us all end this syndrome ‘One mind less, one world less.’