A 200-level Chemical Engineering student just lost his life for partaking in a bet in an attempt to swim across a river. the condition is that if he is able to swim across the river, he gets about $0.3 which is equivalent to about 300 naira. as a typical Ijaw man, i understand how this works and usually, during swimming in the creek for fun, a lot of bets goes on ranging from bets on who can last longer under the water to who can swim across certain rivers even with zero safety measures in place.
A river is not a place to bet because it is very risky. During swimming anything can happen and if one wants to bet in swimming exercise it should be in the swimming pool, if any emergency happens it will be easy to rescue. Swimming on it own is risky, it is not like every other sports. In swimming people needs energy and good swimming skills and sometimes one can have a god swimming skills but not having good energy at the moment.
Bet on swimming in river is as if one is just gambling with life not only money. Their is no perfect swimmer, no matter how good you may think you are in swimming anything can happen.