From his home, Idowu Usu can tell when someone has died in the lagoon. Among fishermen in Ago Egun, a community in the Yaba area of Lagos, South West Nigeria, there is a belief that the dead announce themselves with a sudden wind. Even in the stillness of the dry season, such a wind may rise without warning, and soon word spreads that a body is adrift. It could be a fellow fisherman, or a passenger thrown into the water by a crash on the Third Mainland Bridge. Sometimes, it is suicide.
The body drifts to shore, where it sinks into sand and sediment until it vanishes. On the occasions when relatives come searching, fishermen and local divers begin hunting for the dead.
Ago Egun’s floating houses are visible from the bridge, which connects Lagos Island to the Mainland. The occupants, descendants of fishermen who migrated from Benin Republic and the Badagry axis of Lagos, still live largely on fishing.
From a few shelters built to relieve fishermen from sailing for days at a stretch, the community has grown into hundreds of bamboo houses stretched along the lagoon’s shore and standing on wooden stilts. With the Third Mainland Bridge only a few metres away, residents have become the first responders during suicide emergencies.
“When someone jumps into the water,” said Alaba Usu, a 35-year-old fisherman, “they don’t just sink. They resurface after a few moments. If there’s no help by the second drift upward, they finally sink.”
On one fishing trip through the lagoon to Ebute Ero, a bustling community in the Isale Eko part of the city, Alaba spotted a man struggling. The waves were strong that day, but the man clung to something afloat.
“As we sailed closer, we told him not to let go,” said Alaba.
From about 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., the fishermen stayed as the man recovered on the shore. He later narrated how he had resorted to begging for alms to claim the corpse of his wife, who had died in the hospital with their baby. After trekking 24 km from Ajah to Ebute Ero, he begged but failed to gather enough. Despairing, he moved near the bridge and eventually landed in the lagoon.
A dead body may be found dressed as if on their way to work – suit, tie, wristwatch, even shoes – but always swollen, said 32-year-old Joseph David, who was born into fishing in Ago Egun. In Lagos’ warm tropical lagoon, a submerged body usually resurfaces within three days. During this time, gases from bacterial decomposition and the water inhaled at death cause it to rise. To handle such a disintegrating corpse, fishermen often steel themselves with shots of Eagle Schnapps, a potent Nigerian gin, after which they cut into the bloated flesh. Some families claim the body for burial, while others insist it be laid to rest on the shore in line with local traditions.
Across the globe, suicide is a leading cause of death, particularly among young people. In Nigeria, modelled estimates suggest that thousands die by suicide each year, though many cases might go unreported because of stigma and cultural taboos. In Lagos, the country’s sprawling commercial capital of over 22 million people, the Third Mainland Bridge has become a notorious site for such deaths.
Rising several metres above sea level, the bridge offers a sweeping, unbroken view of the lagoon on both sides. Countless weary residents, including foreigners, have been reported to leap into the waters below.
Earlier this year, a video emerged of a woman who leapt into the lagoon moments after alighting from a commercial bus. While passengers quickly alerted nearby fishermen, who managed to pull her out, reports later suggested that she did not survive.
In March this year, the body of yet another woman believed to have jumped from the bridge was recovered near the University of Lagos (UNILAG) waterfront.
Fishermen say drowning may not always be the cause of death in such cases. The sheer impact of hitting water from the bridge’s height, they explain, can be as devastating as landing on a hard surface.
Hardly a week passes without someone ending their life on the Third Mainland Bridge, according to the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA). While fishermen recall encountering more male bodies, several cases involving women have been documented.
Some are rescued alive. But pulling a drowning person to safety can itself be a brush with death. Fishermen say such victims often thrash wildly in their desperate bid to survive, or, in the case of suicide, violently resist rescue. Idowu remembers the day his uncle dived into the lagoon after a man who had jumped in. Instead of clinging for life, the drowning man fought to be left alone, nearly dragging his rescuer under with him.
“We kept waiting for him to resurface,” Idowu narrated. “We started seeing bubbles of air. We were wondering what was going on and had started contemplating sending one of us after him when we noticed his hand. We quickly held him.”
To rescue someone attempting suicide, Joseph explained, a rope is fastened around the waist of a highly skilled swimmer, who dives in after the victim. Once contact is made, colleagues haul them both out together. Fishermen then press on the victim’s swollen belly to expel water or give them a medicine that induces vomiting.
Silence
I arrived on the Third Mainland Bridge before dawn. Fishermen’s boats drifted gently in the distance, as if paddled by the careful unfolding of morning. The sudden realisation of the bridge’s height and the lagoon’s vastness pressed against my balance behind the guardrails. As the deck trembled under the weight of speeding vehicles, the haunting loneliness that shadows suicide on the bridge began to unfold.
Neither motorists nor the police officers stationed just a few metres away questioned my motive in the 30 minutes that I stayed there, sometimes wandering along the rails. There was no evidence of a working alert system, despite earlier claims by the federal government that it had installed surveillance cameras on the bridge.
“They do not patrol,” said Joseph of the police officers. “They don’t do what they’re posted there to do.”
He explained that officers often turn to fishermen whenever a body needs to be retrieved from the lagoon, only to take the credit afterwards. Suspecting that some of them might have even extorted grieving relatives in the process, Joseph stressed that fishermen never demand money to recover a corpse.
“We do it for free,” he said, “knowing it could have been us.”
At the marine police post near the UNILAG end of the lagoon, Adiku Solomon, an officer, said they could not be everywhere at once. He explained that their primary duty was to protect the university, though they could be called upon in an emergency.
“When something like that happens,” he said, “they can then contact us through the Commanding Marine Officer.”
However, some believe the burden of surveillance should not rest on the police alone. Olamide Felix, the chairperson of Yaba Local Council Development Area, said integrating fishermen, local divers, and other members of the fishing communities into a surveillance team could be more effective in curbing suicide on the bridge.
As a teenager growing up in Ayetoro, a fishing community near Ago Egun, Olamide encountered dead bodies during fishing expeditions with friends. He recalled once seeing a man soliloquising on the bridge, as if in prayer or some spiritual trance. Suddenly, the man plunged into the water. Olamide and his friends got to him before he drowned, and with help from adults transporting timber on the lagoon, they pulled him out alive.
Relieving instances of questioning suspicious movements around the bridge, he said formal collaborations with locals would not only prevent deaths, but also empower youths of the communities, some of whom are graduates but without gainful employment.
While acknowledging the value of grassroots surveillance, Lagos-based clinical psychologist Isiaka Balogun worried about the toll repeated exposure to traumatic recoveries could have on local fishermen.
“They would need structured care and debriefing,” he said.
In conversations with HumAngle, several fishermen admitted they often could not continue the day’s work after encountering a dead body. Their accounts echoed Isiaka’s concern.
As a child, Joseph and his friends suffered nightmares following such encounters. Today, he believes that only the installation of tall barbed-wire fences along the guardrails could effectively curb suicide in the area.
Isiaka, who attributed Lagos’ suicide numbers to urban pressures, economic hardship, and social isolation, said the Third Mainland Bridge offers a grim certainty to residents seeking to end their lives.
The involvement of fishermen and local divers, he said, must be seen only as part of larger systemic changes that make psychological support more accessible.
“A synchronised alarm system linking fishermen, emergency services, and mental health professionals could cut down on reaction times and save lives,” he said.
HumAngle reached out to LASEMA, the Lagos State Waterways Authority, and the National Emergency Management Agency, but messages went unanswered. For those who live by the lagoon, this silence is all too familiar.
Idowu has saved lives, pulled out corpses, and even helped lay one to rest. But he has also stood helpless as people drowned who might have been saved. He believes that with financial and material support for fishermen and local divers, many deaths on the bridge could be prevented.