I have written before expressing my deep concern about the attitudes and behaviour of our youth. I see myself as a friend of the youth. But I am also concerned about some of social deviances many of our youth are into these days – the nonchalance, the blasé attitudes, the lack of moral standards, the cultism and drugs and lack of patriotism.
But today I want to also express our collective failure as a society to create an enabling environment for our young people to flourish. The Nigerian society is cruel, harsh and heartless. We have robbed the youth of their future. We have denied them opportunities for expression of their abundant talents. As a consequence, most of them are now scheming how to move to Canada or some other Eldorado. Many engage in the Long Trek across the Sahara in the vain hope of crossing the Mediterranean into Europe. The casualties are in their thousands. If they do not end up as slaves in Libya they perish in rickety boats in the treacherous Mediterranean Sea. It is a horrendous tragedy.
For those who do not plan to move abroad, surviving in Nigeria has become a nightmare. Some have taken the easy road of suicide.
The story that set me on this train of thought has been the tragedy of a recent suicide case involving a young final undergraduate of the University of Nigeria, by the name of Chukwuemeka Akachi. The tragedy was reported in the Guardian newspaper of Wednesday 15 May (p. 12). The tragedy occurred on Monday 13 May when the young man allegedly went to an abundant building on campus and drank 2 bottles of ‘Sniper’, an insecticide. He went into coma. Some Good Samaritans found him and he was rushed to hospital but was pronounced dead.
Apparently, the young man had for several months been tormented by mental illness. In one of his profile updates on Facebook he had written had put a caption under a photograph, “Demons”. On April 11, he wrote: “The music stopped”. And on Sunday May 12, a day before he took his own life, he wrote: “My mental health has been on life-support for a while now. Thanks to those who call. Text. Visit. Speak to me. May we always remember. May we never forget. You may have added a few hours, months or days to my time here. But you know life on life-support is expensive, right? Thanks for trying. Amen.”
He was known to have attempted suicide before. Two lecturers, we understand, were closely counselling him. But, alas, he had his way this time around on that tragic day of Monday 15 May.
From all we know, Chukwuemeka Akachi, 22, was a rather bright student of English and Literary Studies. He was also a budding poet and rather very sensitive person. He described himself on Facebook as: “Human…Survivor and Finit hic Deo (God ends here).
He apparently left an electronic suicide note at 7.01 am before taking his own life later in the day: “Forgive me. In case you the one who found the body, I am really sorry. It had to be someone, you know. I have chosen Joe Nkeitah’s poem as my suicide note: ‘They said you came looking for me. I didn’t drown; I was the water’. Where do atheists go to when they die? Lol. Amen.”
This tragic case may not be that unique. When I was a student at Oxford University in the United Kingdom I encountered several cases of mental breakdown and even suicide. Oxford is a highly pressurised intellectual environment in which the competition to excel is fierce. There was the tragic case of an exceedingly bright young African-Caribbean girl from one of the inner cities of London who took her life during first term. She felt she was out of place in an environment filled with upper class children of lords and captains of industry. A friend of mine from Kenya, a brilliant biochemist and grandson of a Mau Mau general, lost his mind and was sent back to his parents in Nairobi. The other case I remember well had to do with intellectual vanity more than anything else. A brilliant student from a billionaire family in Hong Kong went straight from his final paper and plunged to his death over Magdalene Bridge. He felt he had performed poorly and could not face his family. When the results came out he got one of the best first class honours among the entire body of graduates that year!
I have learned from life itself that being a genius can be in itself a path of loneliness and high risk. Consider the case of the Japanese mathematical genius Yutaka Taniyama (1927-1958). He was one of the brightest young men in the world and had achieved world academic renown in his twenties. He suddenly took his own life without any apparent reason. He said he did not see how he could face the future anymore. He left a note for his fiancée pleading with her for forgiveness for any “embarrassment” he might have caused her. There is also the tragic case of the American poet Sylvia Plath (1932-1963) who was married to the British poet Ted Hughes. Young, beautiful and a brilliant mind, she succumbed to suicide at the peak of her powers. I cannot forget the case of the South African Afrikaans poet Ingrid Jonker (1933-1965). Before taking her life she wrote a poem for her mother: “My mother, dying, was as sunny as a ladybird, so full of secrets, so surprising, so tender.”
Many cases of suicide are being reported these days not only on our campuses but throughout all walks of life in our country. Many of the victims are middle class professionals – accountants, lawyers, doctors and engineers. It is a national epidemic.
What bothers me about the case of Akachi is that I believe the authorities could have done better. I do not know whether those 2 lecturers that were assigned to look after him were professional counsellors. He should have been prevailed upon to see professional psychotherapists. And his parents or close relations should have been brought into the matter. He should never have been left alone to fend for himself. With our prevailing environment of insecurity, fear, violence, nihilism and anomie, life for most Nigerians has become a Hobbesian nightmare – solitary, nasty, brutish and short. It has been worsened by the fact that the traditional moorings of kinship and family that held us together are being eroded by the day. Young people in particular feel lost. We must offer them hope. We must give them love and succour, otherwise our society will be in mortal danger.
To those who have become dispirited with life, I urge you to be courageous. I find that prayer helps. Living a life of faith helps. Having a goal and a purpose helps. One of the books that has changed my life is that of the German neuropsychiatrist Victor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (Beacon Press, 1959). Frankl lost his parents and entire family during the Nazi holocaust in Germany. He himself was consigned to a concentration camp. He watched his colleagues die every day. He reveals in his book that what can save a man in very dire straits is a vision of the future.
We have to keep in mind what we can do to improve not only our own lot but that of those around us. We live by hope. And we must keep the candle of hope burning bright. Shalom!
Obadiah Mailafia
