It may appear as if we 've lost empathy, but we have not! - Rekiya Ibrahim Attah, veteran Nollywood actress

Her face is in fact her signature. Take a closer look at her picture. Remember her? Rekiya Ibrahim Attah, a veteran  Nollywood actress and producer  who has starred in so many movies and soap operas. Did you ask what about her? Well, she recently posted on her  facebook wall that everyone should endeavour to be happy regardless of what is happening around us. Hear her:  “decide to be happy always. Never allow anyone’s negativity get on your inside. Be you!”

Those were her words. Adaeze Amos in this press chat took her up on  whether it is possible for one to be happy at these times when many are dying and no one is sure of who would die next?

 I would say yes it is possible to be happy! I always would advise that people try as much as possible to stay happy but that’s not forgetting the fact that human beings have their own natural senses. It is natural to get angry, it’s natural to cry, it’s natural to feel sad. And so, when I say that don’t let anybody’s negativity hit at your person, I would be referring strictly to the fact that you shouldn’t let anybody  hit your own self esteem. Because you need your self esteem at a high level to now be able to react to what is happening around you. For me, I think it’s natural that people get angry or sad about some things. But you see, you need a complete human being who is confident of himself or herself to react to some of those natural phenomenon.

Don’t you think empathy is one of the things we have lost during this period of coronavirus?

It may appear as if we have lost empathy, but we have not!  You feel sad about ugly things happening around you but there is really nothing one could do about it. And so, you just look on as if it is no longer strange. We now hear deaths everyday, so, it looks very easy for it to appear like we have lost empathy. I know that may not be completely the right situation. The fact is that people just don’t know what to do. And so they tend to just feel better by carrying on with what they are doing and then it appears to another person as if we all have lost empathy. But it’s not like that.

Remember too that when life hits at one sometimes, you don’t even really know what to do or how to go on and then you get to that point where it is almost like I don’t care whatever it is that is going on around me and stuff like that. Very sad situation but what are you going to do?

Take something like coronavirus for instance, you don’t even know if you are carrying it. We are talking about people who are asymptomatic, you don’t even know the next person that has it. You don’t even know whether you are a carrier because you have not had the opportunity to be tested or don’t even know what your status is. Everybody is trying her best or his best to keep safe and all that. It’s overwhelming for human minds honestly. And I think at some point the human mind would just collapse into itself and just be like okay whatever the situation is where do we go from here? But we still manage to make efforts to keep our environment as safe as possible. We all have been trying our best to ensure that we stay safe and protect ourselves.

This chat is really lengthy. Hence it is divided into two sections. The part two of it would be dished out later.