While life is precious and a gift from God, it should never be taken for granted. Mistakes may happen here and there, but not ones that would take the life of a breadwinner of both nuclear and extended family.
How do you explain the act of carelessness of the producers who invited the late Junior Pope Odonwodo, a 39-year-old, and three other Nollywood artistes to a movie location, and Pope Junior and others drowned? He was said to be under the River Niger water for more than three hours. This is just a deliberate waste of lives.
The executive producers and producer knew the job would require a boat, and there were just two life jackets for 15 persons. Do they think a life jacket is a designer shirt for the rich? And the excuse was that Junior refused the life jacket because it was dirty. Noted. What about the other three? No paramedics, no lifeguards around, no nothing.
About two months ago, a particular sequel of a movie was shot on my street. From both ends of the streets, there were paramedics, firefighters, and even the police on standby for three good days. The producers had pasted their inconvenience apology at the entrance of every building three weeks before.
You don’t like making comparisons, but some people believe that God will do everything even when they fail to fulfill their part. It’s like writing an examination and expecting the Celestial King to come and write it. If the one writing the examination did not read, it is an automatic F.
And for those talking about cardiopulmonary resuscitation, CPR, this may work if the person has spent less time underwater. Though new research says two hours, there could be a resuscitation of a drowned body, but three or more hours is a foregone conclusion. Most content creators should also not forget that drowning survivors may likely suffer brain damage due to the time their brains were without oxygen. Usually, hospitalization is always required for more than 50 percent of drowning victims.
Research states that victims who drowned in saltwater would have osmosis pull water out of the bloodstream and into the lungs, making the blood thicker and taxing the heart. In freshwater, osmosis works in the opposite direction, diluting the blood, destroying red blood cells, and altering electrical activity in the heart. These can all result in cardiac arrest. It is a traumatic way to die.
Do you know what? It is so disturbing and annoying that people don’t understand the meaning of privacy. All they want to do is break the news first just for the sake of content creation. You cannot just post someone’s body in public glare without giving them a dignified look even in death. That is too gross.
The internet does not lie. His children would go online in the next 10 to 15 years and see that. How do you want them to feel? Money-making content creators should be careful about all of these things. One other thing, some celebrities are quite fond of making a mockery of the dead by posting their last conversations, crying online, and making all sorts of sober facial looks that don’t align with their body language. It is not a must to come online. Be sincere to yourself. Don’t use the dead to trend.
Many would be the first to write RIP on the wall of a dead person on social media. Even when you request to know the cause of death, some of them may not even know what, how, or why it happened. Come to think of it? Does the Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) have group insurance for its members? And how about these actors, did they insure their lives? Life is all about risk.
Yes, someone just snorted about the Nigerian insurance companies’ hidden clauses to avoid payment of compensation. That is another story for another day. May the souls of the departed rest in peace.
See you next week.