National President, Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN), Emeka Rollas, has made a U-Turn to say that Nigerian actor, Junior Pope finally did not survive from Wednesday’s boat mishap while returning from a movie shooting.
In a statement Thursday on his Facebook page, Rollas expressed sadness over the death of Junior Pope, saying “our joy was shortlived”.
He said although he earlier announced that Junior Pope was alive when they noticed the tingling of his fingers, he eventually passed away after efforts to revive him failed.
He added: “Two notable hospitals tried their best to revive him but to no avail. God knows the best. We finally lost him.”
“Mr Friday corpse has been identified but three other corpses are yet to be found.”
He further announced the suspension of all movies involving riverine areas and boat riding while barring actors from acting in any movie to be produced by Actress Adanma Luke until further notice.
Adanma is the producer of the movie “The Other Side Of Life” that Junior Pope was featuring before his tragic death on Wednesday.
The film titled “The Other Side of Life”, was also suspended indefinitely.
Also, AGN said there will be no shooting in all locations nationwide on Thursday, April 11, 2024.
Corroborating Rollas, the Delta State chairman of AGN, Emma Onyemeziem, confirmed that the corpse of the actor had been deposited in a morgue.
Recall that divers on Wednesday afternoon recovered the body of Junior Pope after falling into Anam River in Anambra State when a boat he was riding in capsized.
One of the divers who recovered their bodies, Peter Chinedu, said they were on their way to a movie location.
A sympathizer, simply called David, however, stated he was returning from a shooting location when their boat capsized on Anam River.
The actor had earlier shared a video of himself and others on the boat on their way to the movie location.
Captioning the video, he wrote: “See me lamenting….The risk we take to entertain you; crossing River 9ja yesterday with no life jacket…. Na wahooooo Who does that ??”
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