After years of
battling the ugly shadows of depression and grief, Ada Ameh has
finally passed on. The Nollywood actress was pronounced dead on
Monday, at the age of 48. She died at a hospital in Delta state where she was
rushed after slumping.
Grief is a wound to the soul that never heals. Its tentacles
of sadness continuously shuffle one with a gallery of memories to reinforce
loneliness. It’s a dark space that flirts with one’s mind by juggling images of
what was and what is. And Ameh fought bravely against its cascade of bitterness
as she lost six siblings and her father within the space of a few years. But,
according to her, everything came crumbling down when her only child — a girl —
died in 2020. The dam of black wings broke and it swept her mental health down
south.
The ever-smiling, bubbly Ameh that warmed the hearts of
millions as ‘Emu’ in ‘The Johnsons’, the Nigerian popular TV series, became
weighed down by depression to the point when she had to exclaim: “it is taking
my life.”
FROM ‘MUMMY AND DADDY’ PLAY TO NOLLYWOOD
Ameh was born in Lagos on May 15, 1974, to a father from
Benue and a mother from Akwa Ibom. She grew up at the naval barracks in
Ajegunle. Ajuma, a former Super Falcons midfielder, was one of her sisters.
In a 2016
interview, Ameh said her interest in acting began as a child doing “mama
and papa play.”
“I recall that as children, we used to gather ourselves
after school and engage in all those plays we categorise as mama and papa play,
where someone will be asked to play the dad and I will play the mum and so on,”
she had said.
Her professional acting career kicked off in 1996 after Zeb
Ejiro, the Nollywood producer, starred her in ‘Domitilla.’
She would go on to feature in numerous Nollywood movies like
‘V Boot’, ‘Aki na Ukwa,’ ‘Phone Swap’, and ’30 Days in Atlanta’ among others.
Her role in ‘The Johnson’ made her a household name across
the country.
BECOMING A MOTHER AT 14
In 2021, the actress revealed that she became a mother at 14.
She said after giving birth, she was thrown into the
streets, where she began indulging in alcoholism and her “newly found freedom.”
“It wasn’t my parents. My peers influenced me. They
introduced me to early sex. One thing led to another, and I got pregnant,” Ameh
had said.
“I got pregnant in March, and I had my baby in December the
same year. That means I got pregnant when I was 13+.
“The most beautiful
part is that, on my 15th birthday, my baby was barely five months old. I was
marched out of the Barracks.”
GRIEF, MENTAL HEALTH AND DEPRESSION
In 2020, Ameh lost Aladi Godgift, her daughter, after an
unsuccessful surgery in Abuja. The loss quickened the actress’ descent into
depression.
The death of her daughter was sadly the eighth time the actress would be burying a relative within years.
She was wrecked by the chain of losses and constantly
returned to her daughter’s grave on each anniversary of her death to honour
Aladi.
“I had max depression. I’ve been depressed for some years
and it became very worse when I lost my daughter in 2020. We practically grew
up together — I was 14 when I had her — and she was my best friend. My world
crumbled when I lost her,” she had said.
“I had three of my sisters and three of my brothers and my
father before that time. Then my daughter died and sometimes, I could cry for
days.”
LAST WORDS
In June, Ameh shared a video on her Instagram page wherein she narrated how the mental health
issue had affected her to the point she could not deliver a client’s job.
She further said she was being sued by the client for breach
of contract.
“I have an issue right now and it’s taking my life, but I
won’t die. We would get over it. I was given a job, but I didn’t do it because
I have mental health issues,” she had said.
“Would people understand when say you have mental issues?
No, they wouldn’t. They are slamming me with a bill, suing me but it’s okay.”
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