It has emerged that Dr. Alwell Orji, the medical practitioner who took his life last Sunday by jumping into the Lagos Lagoon, had attempted suicide a number of times.
According to the Sun newspapers, previous reports had emerged that the young man had four years ago attempted jumping down from the family’s two-storey house. Only the intervention of neigbors staved off the disaster.
“Four years ago he attempted to kill himself and, thereafter, had tried doing so on a number of times,” a man who pleaded anonymity said, adding, “since then, his family had been monitoring him. We don’t know the kind of sickness he was suffering from, but we knew he was being monitored. That was why he was assigned a driver to take him around.
“He was such a gentle boy, who never made any trouble. His family has lived on this street for long; his father died four years ago.
Another neighbor said some concerned people had gone to the police pleading for the driver’s release as he was innocent and had no part in his former employer’s death.