The National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control [NAFDAC] has announced it would regulate popular insecticide, Sniper, following the increased number of suicides in the country.

According to NAFDAC, its move to regulate Sniper is in response to calls for a check on the proliferation and ease of access to Sniper in markets and streets across the nation.

The agency further disclosed that it will be partnering with other relevant bodies, as part of plans to discourage the use of Sniper as a tool for suicide.

Vanguard reported that the Director General of NAFDAC, Christiana Adeyeye, said Sniper containers  “could now be made very difficult to open, or may be turned into a spray rather than the liquid contents it is known for.”

The Director General of the agency, Prof. Christiana Adeyeye, made the disclosure during NAFDAC’s commemoration of World Food Safety Day.

According to Premium Times, the suicide rate has increased in Nigeria with Sniper among the agents popularly used.

Notable among the reported incidents is that of a 400-level student of the Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Chukwuemeka Akachi.

There was another case of a pastor in a popular Pentecostal church who recently committed suicide after consuming the deadly substance.

That was before Ayomide and Ajani Damilola of the University of Lagos were reported to have killed themselves using the insecticide following the accusations that they stole clothes in their hostel.

Another 32-year-old banker and mother of two, identified as Peace, of Ughelli, Delta State, committed suicide over her husband’s alleged infidelity.  She also took Sniper.