A public interest lawyer and rights activist, Daniel K. Kip, Esq., has asked the Federal High Court in Abuja to declare unconstitutional and void the provisions of Nigerian criminal law that punish people who survive suicide attempts, arguing that such persons should receive medical and psychosocial intervention rather than prosecution and imprisonment.
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Kip filed the suit on October 19, 2026, at the Abuja Judicial Division of the Federal High Court. The action, marked Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/2520/2026, challenges the constitutional validity of Section 327 of the Criminal Code Act and Section 231 of the Penal Code, both of which criminalise attempted suicide.
The Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the National Assembly are named as respondents.
The suit comes at a time when both the executive and the National Assembly are separately considering legislative reforms aimed at replacing the criminal punishment of attempted suicide with a health-centred response, placing the issue simultaneously before the judiciary and the legislature.
Kip commenced the action by originating motion under the Fundamental Rights (Enforcement Procedure) Rules, 2009, relying on several provisions of the 1999 Constitution, including Sections 1, 33, 34, 35, 37, 42 and 46.
He also relied on provisions of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the National Mental Health Act 2021 and the Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act 2018.
Among the 15 reliefs sought, the lawyer is asking the court to declare that Section 327 of the Criminal Code Act, insofar as it exposes a survivor of attempted suicide to prosecution and imprisonment, is inconsistent with the constitutional rights to dignity, humane treatment, personal liberty, health and freedom from discrimination.
He seeks a similar declaration against Section 231 of the Penal Code to the extent that it exposes survivors to imprisonment, a fine or other criminal punishment instead of medical and rehabilitative intervention.
Kip is also asking the court to hold that arresting, detaining, prosecuting, convicting or imprisoning a person solely because the person survived an attempt to take his or her own life, particularly where the act arose from severe emotional distress, mental illness, psychosocial disability or impaired mental functioning, constitutes or is capable of constituting degrading and inhuman treatment.
He argues that the constitutional duty of the state to protect life should be interpreted as protective and life-preserving rather than as authority to punish a person who survives a suicidal crisis where medical, psychological and psychosocial interventions are available.
The applicant is further asking the court to declare that the right to the best attainable state of physical and mental health requires a health, safeguarding and rehabilitative response rather than an indiscriminate criminal sanction.
He contends that Sections 12, 15 and 16 of the National Mental Health Act 2021 created a rights-based regime that entitles persons with mental-health conditions to dignity, counselling, rehabilitation, aftercare and treatment in the least restrictive environment.
According to him, retaining the punitive operation of Sections 327 of the Criminal Code and 231 of the Penal Code alongside that framework creates a contradiction between Nigeria’s criminal law and its modern mental-health legislation.
The suit also raises the issue of criminal responsibility.
Kip is asking the court to declare that prosecuting a person for attempted suicide without first determining whether his or her mental condition substantially impaired the ability to understand, evaluate or control the conduct is inconsistent with existing principles of criminal responsibility.
He relies in part on Section 28 of the Criminal Code and Section 51 of the Penal Code, which recognise circumstances in which mental disease or unsoundness of mind may affect criminal responsibility.
Beyond the declarations, the applicant is seeking an order striking down or rendering unenforceable Sections 327 and 231 to the extent that they criminalise survivors of attempted suicide.
He also seeks a perpetual injunction restraining the Federal Government, the AGF and prosecuting authorities from initiating, maintaining or continuing prosecutions under the challenged provisions.
Kip wants the court to direct that the primary governmental response to an attempted suicide or credible suicidal crisis should, subject to lawful immediate protective measures, be referral for medical, psychiatric, psychological or psychosocial assessment, counselling, treatment, protection and rehabilitation.
He is also asking for an order directing the respondents to give administrative and prosecutorial effect to any judgment in the case pending formal legislative harmonisation of the Criminal Code, Penal Code and National Mental Health Act.
At the heart of the case is Kip’s argument that attempted suicide should be treated as a health emergency rather than a crime.
“The Constitution protects life; it does not require punishment for surviving a suicidal crisis. Decriminalisation is not legalisation, endorsement or encouragement of suicide. It is the substitution of a health-centred and protective response for a penal response,” the filing states.
The applicant maintains that the right to dignity is not lost because a person experiences a psychological crisis and argues that branding a survivor a criminal could worsen the despair, humiliation and isolation that may have contributed to the crisis.
He expressly disclaims any argument that the Constitution creates a “right to die.”
According to the filing, the legal question is whether a state whose objective is to preserve life can punish a person precisely because that person survived a suicidal crisis.
Kip also relies on a January 9, 2025 judgment of the High Court of Kenya in Kenya National Commission on Human Rights & 2 Ors v Attorney-General & 3 Ors, in which the Kenyan court considered similar colonial-era legislation criminalising attempted suicide and held it unconstitutional.
The Nigerian filing acknowledges that the Kenyan judgment is persuasive rather than binding on Nigerian courts but argues that it has comparative value because of the similarities in the colonial origins of the legislation and the constitutional rights frameworks involved.
Kip, a Past Assistant General Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association, is also a member of the NBA Citizens Liberties Committee, the NBA Section on Public Interest and Development Law and the Legal Advocacy Response To Drugs Initiative.
He filed the suit through his firm, Tim Lebura Kip & Co. (Maestro Law (TLK)), alongside other counsel named in the processes.
No date has yet been fixed for the hearing of the suit.
Under Section 327 of the Criminal Code Act, attempted suicide is a misdemeanour punishable by up to one year’s imprisonment.
Section 231 of the Penal Code similarly exposes a person who attempts suicide to imprisonment of up to one year, a fine or both.
The court action comes against a broader reform push within the Federal Government and the National Assembly.
In August 2026, the Federal Executive Council approved a proposed amendment to the National Mental Health Act aimed at replacing criminal punishment for attempted suicide with healthcare intervention, with the proposal expected to be transmitted to the National Assembly as an executive bill.
Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Professor Muhammad Ali Pate, has argued that criminalisation discourages people in crisis from seeking help and conflicts with the approach adopted under the National Mental Health Act and national mental-health policy.
Separately, the Senate has passed for second reading a bill sponsored by Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong of Cross River South seeking to decriminalise attempted suicide and establish a national framework for prevention and rehabilitation.
Ekpenyong told the Senate that Nigerian law “presently speaks with two voices,” because the National Mental Health Act treats attempted suicide as a psychiatric emergency while the Criminal Code and Penal Code continue to provide for criminal punishment.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio, however, opposed the proposed decriminalisation during the Senate debate and argued in favour of retaining punishment under the existing law.
The Federal High Court has not yet determined the constitutionality of the provisions challenged by Kip.
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