Nollywood actress, Kate Henshaw has come out to voice out against Nigeria’s traffic laws and pedestrian policies. She recently highlighted the contrast with practices in developed countries, and fans have been reacting.
According to him, she cannot overemphasize the importance of understanding orderliness and respect for pedestrians, and she hopes more Nigerians will travel the world to see how coordinated human beings can be while in traffic.
Kate added that traffic lights stopped working when she in Canada recently, but drivers still managed to contain the situation without chaos, hassle or disruption to movement.
Her words, “It is advisable to travel the world or to as many places as one can afford, to see how others function in their societies. To see how orderliness can indeed be a mindset that must be imbibed. One thing I have seen is the power of pedestrians in developed countries as opposed to here, where if you’re not driving a car, you are considered persona non grata.
The Nigerian highway code states, ‘You have no right of way at a pedestrian crossing or zebra crossing until you have stepped on it when you do, traffic should give way to you.’ I boldly state that this is a complete fallacy. The pedestrian has no right whatsoever and is even dared to step on the faded zebra stripes if they are so emboldened. Abroad, pedestrians and even animals are respected.
An incident occurred while I was being driven on the expressway in a province in Canada. The traffic lights suddenly stopped working for a bit, and there was no chaos, hassle or disruption to the movement of traffic. Everyone from each junction took turns waiting for two cars from each lane to drive. No traffic warden stepped in to organise the people. Why behave like zoo’s should be our natural habitat?”
WOW.
Nollywood is a sobriquet that originally referred to the Nigerian film industry. The origin of the term dates back to the early 2000s, traced to an article in The New York Times. Due to the history of evolving meanings and contexts, there is no clear or agreed-upon definition for the term, which has made it a subject to several controversies.
The origin of the term “Nollywood” remains unclear; Jonathan Haynes traced the earliest usage of the word to a 2002 article by Matt Steinglass in the New York Times, where it was used to describe Nigerian cinema.
Charles Igwe noted that Norimitsu Onishi also used the name in a September 2002 article he wrote for the New York Times. The term continues to be used in the media to refer to the Nigerian film industry, with its definition later assumed to be a portmanteau of the words “Nigeria” and “Hollywood”, the American major film hub.
Film-making in Nigeria is divided largely along regional, and marginally ethnic and religious lines. Thus, there are distinct film industries – each seeking to portray the concern of the particular section and ethnicity it represents. However, there is the English-language film industry which is a melting pot for filmmaking and filmmakers from most of the regional industries.
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