Operatives of the Lagos State Police Command on Friday prevented a woman, Taiwo Titilayo Momoh, from jumping into the lagoon.
Momoh had made to jump into the lagoon from the Third Mainland Bridge.
The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, told newsmen at the Rapid Response Squad headquarters in Alausa, Ikeja that Momoh was in a taxi heading towards Oworonshoki on Third Mainland Bridge when she told the taxi driver to stop on the bridge.
According to Owoseni, the woman was about to jump into the water when a police patrol team on a routine patrol of the Third Mainland Bridge sighted her and prevented her from jumping into the lagoon.
He said: “She attempted suicide by attempting to jump into the Lagoon around Oworonshoki inward Mainland on Third Mainland Bridge.
“Unfortunately for her, she was rescued.
“The woman was in a taxi and alighted on the bridge and wanted to commit suicide by jumping into the lagoon.
“The police patrol team sighted her and rushed to rescue her before she jumped into the lagoon.”
Asked what the issue with Momoh was, Owoseni said from his interaction with her, she was depressed as a result of unpaid loans, adding: “She is still insisting that she wants to end her life.”
He said committing suicide was an offence under the law, but that the police would try to talk the woman out of committing suicide.
He said the woman would be taken through a post-trauma programme to ensure that she had hope and not commit suicide, adding that the police would do a medical evaluation on her to ascertain her condition.
Owoseni lamented the rate at which people commit suicide in the country, describing it as worrisome.
He said the police had begun patrol of bridges across the state to forestall other cases of suicide.
He added that it was now an offence for individuals to walk on bridges in the state and that no vehicle would be allowed to stop on any bridge in the state henceforth in order to prevent suicide incidences.
Owoseni said: “Right now, the woman is still in trauma and she still insists that she wants to end her life.”
Momoh, 58, a textile dealer in Lagos Island, had put off her shoes and was wrapping her dress around her when men of RRS 226 prevented her from jumping into the lagoon.
The lady, who lives in Lekki Lagos, disclosed that she was pushed into committing suicide in order to put an end to her constant sleeplessness and shame occasioned by her indebtedness to three Swiss textile dealers.
She noted that her problem started in 2015 when a Bureau De Change dealer carted away the N18.7 million she wanted to change to pay her foreign creditors.
She added that the creditors had given her Swiss textiles worth several millions of naira, noting that she has maintained good relationship with the creditors for more than 15 years.
Momoh said her situation was compounded when robbers invaded her shop in Lagos Island, carting away most of the textiles that was left with her.
She emphasized that most of the time, she has been having sleepless nights and seeing the ghosts of the creditors whenever she was alone.
Momoh, a member of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, disclosed that on several occasions she had attempted to see her Parish Pastor to identify with her problem and for the church to help her raise money to meet the demands of her Swiss creditors in order to assure them that she would pay their money.
She noted that she was only allowed to see the second-in-command, which has yielded no fruits.
Momoh said: “Added to all these, my first son, whom I felt would stand by me and console me, abandoned me.
“By the time I’m gone, maybe he would come around and inherit what is left.
“I don’t want to use my debt and death to disturb anybody.
“I was in the shop this morning.
“I have looked everywhere and estimated what is there.
“I think, with my house, a bungalow, those I am leaving behind can still live comfortably.
“I want to go and meet God.
“This world is empty.”
“I won’t because I want to get rich join cult group.
“I go my way and I don’t socialize unnecessarily.
“I was a Muslim.
“I have because of this problem been jumping from one faith to the other.
“The problem is too much for me to bear.
“I want to go back to God.
“That is why I have dressed very simply.
“I am ready to meet Him.
“If He cannot address my problem on earth, let me go back to Him.”
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