Lagos University announced the death of one of its workers, 36-year-old Sunday Meshioye.
The university said the late Mr Meshioye took his life in a statement released in Lagos on Friday night by ingesting a pesticide suspected to be snipper.
It observed that Mr Meshioye was a transport supervisor belonging to the Faculty of Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, until his death.
“It is indeed with a heavy heart that the management of the university announces the news of the untimely death of Sunday Meshioye.
“He was received as an emergency case at the Medical Centre of the university on Tuesday Sept. 10, where it was discovered and reported that he had ingested the pesticide, ‘Snipper’.
“He was administered first aid treatment before being conveyed in an ambulance to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba,” the university said.
It said the deceased had been planned for a meeting with the university’s counseling unit before his untimely death.
The university said this was after several instances of attempted suicide have been reported.
On Tuesday, the deceased appeared before a panel of inquiry set up in accordance with the current rules of the university to investigate the cause of the fire that gutted the bus in his custody, the university said.
“His painful decision to end his life came even before the panel had concluded its investigations, as it had only sat once.
“The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, on behalf of the entire university community, commiserates with the family of the deceased and prays that God grant the family the fortitude to bear the loss, ” the institution said.
In an effort to monitor the rampant cases of suicide among young people, especially students, the Vice-Chancellor decentralized the institution’s counseling unit.
In an interview in Lagos, Mr Ogundipe had told journalists that bringing the unit to other parts of the university apart from the Department of Student Affairs would facilitate access to counseling.
He said the unit has been given to the University’s Faculty of Education, College of Medicine and other important parts so that students who may experience some type of stress can readily reach out for assistance by speaking to someone.
“Suicide is never the best way out to life’s challenges, seek help, talk to someone about whatever it may be, ” Ogundipe counselled.