Experts and stakeholders have called for urgent reforms and actionable strategies to address Nigeria’s worsening mental health crisis and rising suicide rates.

They made the call at the Third Vanguard Mental Health Summit held on Friday with the theme “Taming the Rising Tide of Suicide” and sub-themed “Substance and Silence: Unmasking the Dual Crises of Addiction and Suicide in Lagos.

The summit was organised by Vanguard Media Limited and was marked a renewed national call to make mental health a core public health priority. In his welcome address, Mr. Eze Anaba who is the Editor of Vanguard, emphasised that mental health is not a luxury but a necessity, urging policymakers to move beyond rhetoric and act decisively.

“Just last week, the World Bank reported that about 139 million Nigerians are now living in poverty,” Anaba said. “This harsh economic reality pushes more people to the edge, and sadly, for some, it leads to the painful conclusion that life is no longer worth living.”

Anaba however expressed optimism that the summit would accelerate the passage of the bill to decriminalise suicide, stressing that “a compassionate, rather than punitive, approach is needed to address the crisis.”

He added that journalism must serve as a catalyst for social change: “When we invest in mental health, we invest in the strength of our people and the future of our nation.” Delivering the keynote address, Professor Sheikh Taiwo Lateef, a psychiatrist from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, faulted attempts to subsume the pending suicide prevention bill into the National Mental Health Act, calling it a policy error.