The Lagos State Police Command has rescued a woman, Taiwo Titilayo Momoh, who attempted to jump into the Lagoon from 3rd Mainland Bridge today.
This is coming few days after a medical doctor, Allwell Orji jumped into the Lagoon from Third Mainland Bridge.
Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni told newsmen at the Lagos Government Secretariat, Alausa, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria on Friday 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 on the Third Mainland Bridge sighted her and rushed to save her before she jumped into the Lagoon.
“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,” he said.
The commissioner said from his interaction with the woman, she had depression as a result of unpaid loans, adding that “she is still insisting that she wants to end her life.”
Owoseni noted that 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 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, adding that 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.
“Right now, the woman is still in trauma and she still insists that she wants to end her life,” he said.
As the woman was being led from the RRS headquarters into a waiting police vehicle, she was confronted by several television cameras and still cameras and she reacted by saying that she was not a criminal and that her photograph should not be taken.