We owe ourselves a sense of responsibility where our SAFETY and that of others is concerned.We drive without seatbelts, ride on bikes without helmets, cook inside our rooms without ventilation, cross the road with any care, embark on long road trips without spare tyres in our cars, and we even dare to scorn others who dare to be SAFE in their ways
The late actor Junior Pope, who drowned in a boat mishap on Wednesday, April 10
IT is sad that it has taken yet another tragedy to force a discussion on how to ‘DO THE RIGHT THING’, in Nigeria.
Nollywood, the film industry in the Nigerian creative space, like any other field of endeavour in Nigeria, is typically NIGERIAN, bound by ‘Nigeria’ and Nigeria just only happened to Nollywood.
The unfortunate NIGERIAN FACTOR, has yet again, made mince meat of what otherwise should be COMMON SENSE.
How do we, as a people so flagrantly dislocate our senses from what should ordinarily be a ‘sine qua non’?
Do we just take things for granted or gleefully worship at the altar of SENSELESSNESS, even in the most basic of things?
It is not rocket science to know and understand that the sanctity of human life is paramount in any survival equation. This means that SAFETY and all it takes to be safe is a key and primary responsibility that everyone should owe himself or herself.
While some safety parameters are out of the hands of the individual in some isolated cases, majority of the decisions that foster and engender safety is either innate or at least, it is an individual’s call to make. We owe ourselves a sense of responsibility where our SAFETY and that of others is concerned.We drive without seatbelts, ride on bikes without helmets, cook inside our rooms without ventilation, cross the road with any care, embark on long road trips without spare tyres in our cars, and we even dare to scorn others who dare to be SAFE in their ways.
It has become a culture of ‘anything-goes’ for us in Nigeria.
This boat mishap may not have been the first of its kind but social media has amplified this particular incident and so we are all suddenly ‘jolted’ or it seems like we are.
Reckless disregard for safety is a cancer in our society, at all levels.
Cars plunge into the lagoon ever so often, these days and Safety is at the core of most of such occurrences.
Buildings are incinerated frequently due to our sloppy culture of ‘I-don’t care’ mentality and attitude.
Nigerians have just adopted and wallowed in endlessly NEEDLESS CARELESSNESS.
The phrase “no be today we don dey do am” is very common in our lingo, mostly to underscore and gleefully justify ‘repeated ‘unsafe’ activities without repercussions’.
Sadly, repeated unsafe actions without dire consequences does not automatically justify an unsafe action or activity as ‘safe’.
Question: who is faulty or faultless in the unfortunate boat mishap? I declare that everyone in that boat had a personal responsibility to make a critical safety decision whether to board that boat or not, without a safety jacket. Other considerations, aside, the occupants of the boat owed it to themselves, as a primary and instinctive duty to self to be SAFE.
Moving forward, we can be awakened by this one-tragedy-too-many and learn to always do the RIGHT THING.
May God rest the victims, in peace. Amen.
The best time to be SAFE is now and always.
*Lawani, Showbiz impresario, is head at KUKURUKU INC.
* https://www.linkedin.com/in/edi-lawani-37b58934/
