Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved an amendment to Nigeria’s mental health law to decriminalise attempted suicide, signalling a shift from prosecuting people in psychological distress to providing treatment, care and psychosocial support.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Muhammad Ali Pate, disclosed this while addressing State House correspondents after the FEC meeting on Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2026.
Pate said the proposed amendment to the National Mental Health Act would be transmitted to the National Assembly as an executive bill.
He explained that the proposed reform was aimed at ending the application of colonial-era provisions that criminalise attempted suicide and instead recognise it primarily as a public health and mental health issue requiring professional intervention.
According to the minister, suicide accounts for more than 7,000 deaths annually in Nigeria, while an estimated 300,000 suicide attempts are recorded across the country every year, citing World Health Organisation statistics.
He said that despite the scale of the problem, attempted suicide remains criminalised under Section 327 of the Criminal Code Act and Section 231 of the Penal Code.
According to Pate, the existing provisions could result in people experiencing severe psychological distress being treated as offenders rather than as patients requiring urgent medical and psychosocial care.
“The idea is that attempting suicide is not a crime,” Pate said, explaining that the reform would change the prevailing approach to one that recognises people attempting self-harm as requiring care and support.
He said the criminalisation of attempted suicide discourages people experiencing mental health challenges from seeking help and is inconsistent with the National Mental Health Act, which provides for treatment, protection and supportive care for people at risk of self-harm.
Pate likened the current approach to punishing a person for suffering from an illness, arguing that mental health conditions should receive the same compassionate and treatment-oriented response as other health conditions.
“So it’s changing the paradigm to one whereby they require care and support,” he said.
The proposed amendment, if passed by the National Assembly and signed into law, would represent a significant change in Nigeria’s approach to suicide prevention and mental health, shifting the focus from criminal prosecution to prevention, treatment, protection and recovery.
