Lagos suicide: How strange sickness, pressure to marry made Dr Allwell Oji jump into lagoon

*Dr Oji Allwell, 35, worked at Mount Sinai Hospital in Lagos.*

Physician heal thyself.

These words may have haunted Lagos doctor Oji Allwell Chiawolamoke for the better part of his medical career.

He was Christian so he must have read about how mockers used that line to taunt Jesus Christ — he claimed to be the world’s only saviour, the one who would rescue from sin, shame and death; yet seemed powerless at helping his own family, and hung apparently helpless as his own life was violently taken away on a wooden cross.

“We were close and we often discussed about his life,” a close associate of the late Dr Oji told Paul Ukpabio and Hannah Ojo in a story The Nation published on March 23 – the day Oji’s body was recovered from the Lagos Lagoon.

Oji had, on the Sunday before, jumped off Third Mainland Bridge into the huge water body. He took the deadly step after leaving a family prayer session at home for a professional meeting on Lagos Island.

Oji was a sickle cell carrier but that may have played no role in his decision to end his 35-year existence on earth.

His associate said the doctor suffered from another thing, something that made him embarrassed before humankind.

*Dr Oji told his driver to stop. He said he wanted to take a pee. But he got off the car and jumped into the lagoon.*

“Sometimes it happened like a convulsion, and it even embarrassed him at his place of work while he was busy with a patient,” the associate said.

“Although the family did their best to manage the situation, there were times when he and some members of the family exchanged words because they taunted him for acting abnormally.

“His frustration heightened when his father died about four years ago and some family members believed the burden of his (Oji’s) health condition contributed to the father’s death.

“These were some of the reasons he told me at that time that he wanted to end it all, but I tried to encourage him with the Word of God,” the associate said.

In the same Word of God, mockers taunted the Son of God “physician, heal yourself.”

*Mrs Catherine Oji, mother of the victim at the spot where son jumped into Lagos Lagoon.*

Unfortunately, Oji, March 19, eventually let go of this troubled existence.

Another factor may have conspired with Oji’s embarrassing condition to make the doctor, a man who swore oath to save lives, take his own.

“The mother tried to arrange marriage for him at a time but it did not work,” Oji’s associate said.

“The deceased’s younger brother is already married and his sister is also a medical doctor.”

The associate suggested that the seeming inability of a “convulsing” 35-year-old medical doctor to find a wife may have led to the tragedy of Third Mainland Bridge.

He was a physician, but he couldn’t save himself.

Was it depression? Was Dr Oji depressed because of family pressure and his heath condition?

*Parents are known to pressure their children into marriage. Oji was 35 and unmarried.*

“That kind of suicide could also have been caused by financial, family or social factor,” Secretary of the Nigerian Medical Association, Lagos State Chapter, Dr Babajide Saheed, said.

“An act of suicide of such could be caused by stress. The medical profession is well known for its stress factor; the hours of work which he had to combine with other societal duties.

“Abroad, the case of doctors committing suicide is not as alarming as it is here because the people out there understand the stress level inherent in the profession,” he said.