The Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) has dismissed rumours that Mercy Johnson was involved in the boat accident that claimed the life of Junior Pope.
Pope died in April after he fell into the River Niger in Asaba, Delta state. He was on his way to a movie location.
The actor passed away alongside four other crew members in the boat accident.
There were, however, rumours that survivor Thank God Ikoma, while testifying about his escape, mentioned that Emeka Mercy Johnson was on the boat.
Emeka once served as Mercy Johnson’s personal assistant and goes by the sobriquet Emeka Mercy Johnson. The development implied that the actress was involved in the tragic incident.
However, in a statement signed by Abubakar Yakubu, national secretary of the AGN, the guild maintained that Mercy was not on the boat.
The AGN said the reports were “utterly false, baseless, unfounded and idiotic” while asking the public to disregard them.
“Our attention has just been drawn to a disturbing and shocking mis- interpretation of statement of ordeal revealed by one of the survivors of the Asaba boat mishap which claimed the lives of Jnr Pope and four other crew members recently,” the statement reads.
“The revelation was made by Thank God Ikoma during a thanks giving service in a church recently where he mentioned that one Emeka Mercy Johnson who had served as a PA to Actress Mercy Johnson in the past and always referred to as Emeka Mercy Johnson apparently as his sobriquet.
“We vehemently condemn the bloggers this malicious mis-interpretation of the statement and urge our members, the general public and fans of Mercy Johnson to ignore the social media news as it is utterly false, baseless, unfounded and idiotic as Mercy Johnson was NOT on the ilI- fated boat.
“The mis-interpretation of the revelation was nothing but imagination of the blogger who could have been high on some substances. Please, ignore and disregard the statement and which was a calculated attempt to malign, smear and tarnish the good name, image and reputation of Mercy Johnson.”