Tragic news for Nollywood. Actor Junior Pope Odonwodo, known as Jnr Pope, passed away on Wednesday, April 10th, 2024. He drowned in a boat accident while on a movie set in Asaba, Delta State.
There were initial reports that he was receiving medical treatment, but this was later confirmed to be inaccurate.
“What God cannot do does not exist. Junior Pope is alive. He is taking treatment in the hospital,” Rollas said in a later deleted post on Instagram.
The Actors Guild of Nigeria’s president, Emeka Rollas, initially announced that Jnr Pope was receiving medical care. This caused some confusion because it wasn’t immediately clear that he had passed away.
Later on Thursday morning, Rollas confirmed the sad news of Jnr Pope’s passing. He expressed his deep regret, saying their initial hope that Jnr Pope would recover was unfortunately short-lived.
“My first post was out of excitement when we noticed his tingling fingers. Two notable hospitals tried their best to revive him but to no avail. God knows the best. We finally lost him.”
Jnr Pope leaves behind a wife and three children.
The Actors Guild President also confirmed that another person, Mr. Friday, had been found. However, there are still three people missing from the boat accident: a makeup artist, a sound guy, and one other person.
This tragedy happened just a few hours after Jnr Pope posted a video on Instagram. The video showed him riding in a wooden boat without a life jacket, which seemed to be part of a scene for the movie he was filming.
“See me lamenting. The risk we take to entertain you. Crossing river 9ja yesterday with no life jacket. Na wahoooooo. Who does that?” Jnr Pope captioned the video.
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