Samuel Adegoke, a student at the Ilaro Federal Polytechnic in Ogun State, reportedly committed suicide by drinking an insecticide after losing his school fee and his friend’s school fee through online gambling. Adegoke, who was a National Diploma II student in Electrical Electronic Engineering, committed suicide on Monday while his colleagues were preparing for their first-semester examination.
According to reports, Adegoke and his friend were returning from night class when the friend’s father sent him his school fees and he showed the alert on his phone to Adegoke. Adegoke then collected his friend’s phone and accessed his bank account using his friend’s password, transferred the money meant for his friend’s school fee and gambled it online. When the friend discovered the money was missing, Adegoke revealed that he had lost it via online betting and promised to pay it back immediately.
However, Adegoke then used his own school fee to bet online on Friday and also lost. This led him to commit suicide in his room while his friends were outside.
The Deputy Registrar of Public Relations at the school, Sola Abiala, confirmed the incident and explained that the father of the deceased did not want to take possession of his son’s body and asked the school authorities to bury him. Abiala also revealed that the deceased had used a similar method to get payment for his tuition fees in the previous academic session.
Meanwhile, the South West Coordinator of the National Association of Nigerian Students, Zone D, Adejuwon Olatunji, urged students’ unions in different institutions to activate guardian and counselling programmes to sensitise students against suicide. He expressed sadness at the loss of one of their students and called for better orientation programs to help students understand the dangers of taking their own lives.
