Veteran Nollywood Producer, Chief Eddie Ugbomah died on Saturday afternoon in a Lagos hospital following a protracted illness, two days before he was scheduled to undergo surgery on Monday.
The Filmaker‘s death was announced by Shaibu Hussein, a member of a committee set up to raise funs for his treatment.
“I have the permission of the Chair of the Chief Eddie Ugbomah Medical Fund Committee Alhaji Adedayo Thomas (DG, NFVCB) to break the news of the passage into eternity of the Veteran Filmmaker Chief Eddie Ugbomah, OON,” wrote Hussein on Facebook on Saturday afternoon.
“The veteran filmmaker died an hour ago at the hospital where he was scheduled to undergo a surgery on Monday. Sad..but we totally submit to the Almighty.”
While the actual illness was undisclosed, Ugbomah had said it had to do with the nerves, his ears and brain.
In an interview with The Nation in November 2018, Ugbomah had appealed to Nigerians to come to his aid financially as he was ill and needed N50m to treat himself.
He however said he was not begging but needed them to patronise his works.
Ugbomah had said he was wrongly misdiagnosed and treated for malaria and typhoid by doctors at five different hospitals before doctors at the University of Lagos Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba, Lagos diagnosed what was wrong with him.
“It was something to do with my ears and my brain,” he had said in the interview.
“We’re looking to raising N50m for my own intellectual property, not that I’m begging anybody cap in hand. I have something to make my money,” he had said.
“All I need is everybody to support by buying the book, by coming to launch the documentary, by going to cinema houses to watch the films because they’re classics – ‘Black President’ and Desert ‘Warrior’ and ‘Black Gold.’ They’re all made in celluloid. I’ve taken them to America. They just came back this week in HD and DVD. Then, the documentary has been shot, it’s going through the editing now. The book is already written and going through compilation to print.”
Ugbomah also said his autobiography, titled ‘Eddie by Eddie Ugbomah’ and a documentary on his his birth and life, titled ‘This Is My Life’, would also be unveiled in a festival scheduled to hold from April 20 to 25, 2019 to mark his retirement
Under the strain of finance, he had to depend on well-meaning Nigerians like Executive Director, National Film and Video Censors Board, Alhaji Adedayo Thomas, Chidia Maduekwe, Wale Adenuga and others for their voluntary financial gifts.
The Delta State indigene whose other works include ‘Rise and Fall of Oyenusi,’ ‘Oil Doom,’ ‘The Boy is Good,’ ‘Death of the Black President’ and ‘Apalara’ lamented that government had not come to his aid in his trying time.
