The Ideological Concept of Suicide in Southern Nigeria

This study examines how ideology and cultural beliefs shape the moral classification of suicide in Southern Nigeria, contrasting the views of the Yoruba (South-West) and the Igbo (South-East) ethnic groups, through the application of Althusser’s Ideological State Apparatus (ISA), Durkheim’s Suicidology, and Joiner’s IPTS. The integration of these three provides a comprehensive view on how society dominate the ideological belief systems; construct and enforce the moral classifications of suicide, which then align with and explain the specific types of social integration failures or excesses (Durkheimian categories), observed in the Yoruba and Igbo cultural contexts in arguing about the perception of suicide as "good" or "bad". A qualitative, interpretive, and comparative textual analysis of four major literary works which are Death and the King's Horseman by Wole Soyinka, Ola Rotimi’s The Gods Are Not to Blame, The Concubine by Elechi Amadi, and Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart is used. While the Yorubas sees suicide as an escape route (especially those of high-status individuals), the Igbos does not. This comparative analysis demonstrates that the moral evaluation of suicide is not universal but is dynamic, context-dependent, and deeply rooted in the prevailing belief systems maintained by a society’s cultural apparatuses.