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Chuks Udo Okonta
When Life Happens, collections of books have spotlighted how on escape family poverty through insurance mechanism.
The books authored by an insurance expert Chima Nwachukwu, are fictional series and collections of six different volumes, creativity crafted to educate; enlighten; entertain; inspire believe and persuasively encourage Africans at all levels of the social strata to embrace insurance culture as a means of escape from family poverty and National underdevelopment.
The Book Project according to the author, was inspired by his personal encounter with a young beautiful Widow sometime in the month of March 2006, on the street of Lagos.
The widow had approached the author for financial assistance to enable her start up a small roadside business so she and her 8-year-old daughter would not starve, as her late husband’s relatives had stripped her of every valuable her late husband left behind and without anything else or anyone to fall back on.
The author being a fresh Life Agent then couldn’t help the widow much as he was yet to receive his first Commission, however, her heart-rending story inspired him to commit to aggressive selling as he wanted to help as many breadwinners as possible to secure their dreams and the future of their loved ones, having imagined with conviction that the story would have been different had the late Widow’s husband purchased Life Insurance Policy for his family.
Not long after his decision to commit to aggressive selling did he realised that even if he were to devote his entire lifetime to combing the streets, he wouldn’t have added a digit to the penetration figure since with the combined teams of marketers in the industry, the penetration figure still hovers around one per cent in Nigeria.
It was at this point he received the idea to script a storyline to dramatize the operations and Benefits of Insurance and consequently “COVER ME”, the 1st 100 per cent Insurance-based TV Drama Series was born in 2013 which the author financed through till 2018 without much success.
There is a saying that ‘Dreams don’t die for as long as the Dreamer looks into the future with the lens of Hope.’ So in 2019, he published a 603 pages Novel which was later launched at the University of Lagos, on April 1st, 2022 as a 2-Part Novel under the title, HORROR OF AN AFRICAN WOMAN 1 & 2, dedicated to Prof Joseph Ogbonnaya Irukwu, for his iconic role in the development of the insurance industry in Nigeria and Africa, and Mrs. Funmi Babington-Ashaye, for her Advocacy for Insurance Education and Enlightenment and Women Inclusiveness in the Risk Management Business.
Again, it was Shivank Joshi who wrote, “Reviewers are the unsung heroes of the Publishing Industry, they are responsible for providing critical feedbacks and valuable insights that help authors and publishers to refine the content.”
So many thanks to his friends and colleagues both within and outside the industry who critiqued the books and rightly advised that the books be further broken down to fewer pages and retitled for better connectivity of the content with the audience. It was an advice the author received with gratitude and went back to work and today, the When Life Happens Fictional Series, the first Literary Novels that tell the true story of then modern day African Insurance Industry that is anchored in the principle of utmost good faith, innovativeness and customer focused, is here for every Insurance Company in Nigeria and Africa to leverage on to reach a wider population and together entrench a new insurance culture.
Historically, Africans communicate effectively through storytelling. The Concept of these Fictional Novels is based on the urgent need for Insurance Operators to deploy the art of storytelling to take back their industry from the lips of those who spread falsehood about what the present-day insurance industry in Nigeria and Africa is not.
The Epic Novels aim to bring to the fore the bitter tales of men and women including young girls some of whom are left without an Economic Cover by their Breadwinners, as well as enlightening the readers on the danger of going through life unprepared.
Review of the books
When Life Happens: This is beginning of the story of the rise and fall of the illustrious son of the Agabus dynasty Engr Smith Agabus, who was highly revered among his people including the ancestors for his enviable business success and exceptional values and leaning on the backbone of Insurance, until his foray into the terrain where even angels feared to thread, and in a sudden twist of fate his business empire crashed like packs of cards leaving him with only one option.
Not convinced if it were a suicide or calculated murder, Mr. Musa the uncompromising Actuarist and Head of Claims and Reinsurance insisted on viewing the dark nights before the inferno at the Easybuy Supermarket with the lens of his actuarial crystal ball against the Company’s Service Level Agreement SLA policy, which pitched him against the lioness of the Ashanti born CEO, Mrs. Serwa Tawiah and consequently a fire of rebellion and sabotage was ignited within the establishment – a situation made worse by the sudden appearance of Mr. ExCom, the silent executioner of the Brotherhood of the Black Knight to compel Michael, former capon turned saintly workaholic underwriter to undo his boss, Musa or pay the ultimate price of losing his certificate of integrity and as well as his fiancé, Unoma the daughter of the Permanent Secretary who is about to retire into unprecedented wealth accrued from his many years of investment in the Life Assurance Pool.
Running through to the second in the Series, The Treasure Box; then Amara; The Final Summation and ending in the fifth, Won’t You Cover Me?
Exhausted and frustrated by the handwriting of Esau in the Letter of Assignee concerning the 350 million Life Insurance Claim, Sylvia the beautiful young widow laid still in her own pool of discharge amid the trauma and confusion arising from the most horrendous revelation of her life and not even the convergence of the apparitions of the ancestors could rescue her.
It is indeed an intriguing series of love, romance, betrayal, blackmail, horror, deceit, heartbreaks, professionalism and as well as a detective’s ingenuity, as the author takes the reader into the dark secrets of men ever to be revealed.
Goddess of Ensuranx: If story telling is a talent, the author no doubt brought his gift to full glare, and if it’s an art, he absolutely have shown the mastery in this fictional novel beginning with its captivating title, “Goddess of Ensuranx,” as well as the eye-catching Cover Design.
The Insurance based Novel is the story of Genevieve, a rare gem and classic breed with a heart as pure as gold, her oscillating dimples with ripples of irresistible temptation, her dewy eyes constantly emitting rays of charming amber, her swift slender legs competing restlessly with her brilliant mind to penetrate the impregnable African Insurance Market with a will as strong as steel to break the age-long stereotype against the feminine gender in the promise industry, but got entangled in a romantic affair with a handsome rednose short tempered medical doctor, Dr. Pedro who frequently injects her soul with a ‘suspicious virus.’
Genevieve is to later discover that her greatest foe is Thelma, a very high-spirted, extremely energetic, and sophisticated ebony-skinned 6-foot blonde with fiery eyes and blood stained lips, and a battle of the goddess ensued over the best marketer’s plaque, which culminated on the doctor’s exam table as Thelma drew a surgical blade to slit the throat of her sworn arch-rival inside the consulting room and Dr. Pedro is left in the cold as there is no Professional Indemnity for unregistered procedure in the theater and none of the women is aware there’s Obamacare to ameliorate the pain of a broken heart for every woman who desires to love both her job and her man even in the midst of storms.
Here, the author x-rayed the competitive spirit among the marketing team and the friction encountered in their romantic relationship due to job exigencies and diverse interpretation of clients call by their partner.
He garnished the book with many deep artistic writings and poems even as he pictures the doggedness and champion in every woman in the Risk Management Business, helping the ordinary people to appreciate the goodness in the Insurance products in ways not readily explained in the regular textbooks or classroom lectures.
I strongly recommend these classic epic Novels to everyone and every family.
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