The Oyo State Fire Service has announced that it rescued a 45-year-old man from committing suicide in Iseyin town.

Maroof Akinwande, who is the Chairman of the Fire Service, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists in Ibadan on Wednesday.
Akinwande noted that the incident occurred at the Oja-Illa area in Iseyin on Tuesday night.

He said that the man was rescued alive from an electric pole when he attempted to commit suicide.

He added that the man has been handed over to the personal assistant to the Chairman of the local government area.

“On getting there, it was a man of about 45 years of age attempting to commit suicide by climbing a live electric street light pole on Tuesday night.

“Our officers quickly swung into action by applying all necessary rescue equipment, and the man was rescued alive from the electric street light pole and handed over to the personal assistant to the Chairman, Iseyin Local Government,” he said.

Iseyin, Oyo State, has in recent years faced tragic incidents of suicide. In August 2017, Master Adewuyi Kehinde, a 14-year-old JSS 3 student of First Baptist Model College, Koso, took his own life. Reports indicated that Kehinde, feeling excluded from his elder sister’s naming ceremony in Lagos, hanged himself at home after a previous attempt involving ingestion of chemicals was interrupted by neighbours.

The boy’s parents, Mr and Mrs Adewuyi, who are a driver and a trader respectively, were described as indulgent toward Kehinde and his twin brother. Police sources at the time noted that the tragedy could have been prevented had the initial suicide attempt been reported to authorities.

On Thursday, 17th December 2023, the town witnessed another suicide when a middle-aged man was found hanging from a tree near St. Thomas Catholic School, Oja-Agbe, along the Iseyin-Abeokuta road. Residents reported that the man had expressed distress to friends over accumulated debts linked to sports betting.