Fati S.U. Garba, who hails from Niger state, holds a Higher National Diploma certificate from the Federal Polytechnic, Bida, but did her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Kaduna, where she lives. Fati, still single and searching, tells ALIYU ASKIRA in this interview that any man that marries her will be the happiest person because she will give him her best.
You’ve already completed the mandatory one-year NYSC programme and are now seeking job opportunities and, of course, searching for the man of your dreams. Which one do we expect to come first?
Yes, I finished from Federal Polytechnic, Bida, and I read Business Administration and also I am indigene of Niger state. Like you rightly pointed out, I am now ready to face the world. I am looking for a very good job and on the other hand, a nice and God-fearing man to marry, not only God-fearing, my man must be loving and caring and, if possible, be tall and handsome; somebody I can hold and present to any audience as my husband.
Can you marry a man that has more than one wife?
Why not? The truth is that a woman will not mind to stay with other women and share her husband, it’s very painful to say the least, seeing your husband going into another women’s room and you fully know what will actually happen. But we are in a polygamous society, our religion Islam also allows that. So, who is Fati S. U. to change that which has been decreed by the Creator? But I will prefer to be the first one before the man would bring in three more women so that at least before them I would have studied him very well to be very much aware of his weaknesses. Similarly, one might have had enough good time with the man before the other women join him; so I will definitely stay with a man who is polygamous in nature and he will continue to have the best of me because I don’t believe in separation after marriage.
Has a man ever broken your heart?
Yes, I’ve witnessed some, but honestly, it has made me stronger, I mean I now know real love and fake love if I face any in the future. I will know how to find my way out of it, no woman will want her heart to be broken by any lover, but if a man comes to you with all the promises in the world, that he will give you paradise on earth, there is no way you will easily understand that he is real or fake. Some will behave and show you that they are holier than the Pope, very loving and caring, but along the line, he will find excuses and jump out of the relationship especially if you are not lucky and have severally zipped down for him.
In This Is The Way, an English film produced by Kabiru Musa Jammaje, you featured as a daughter to a successful lawyer, Ali Nuhu, and later fell in love with another lawyer, Nuhu Abdullahi. If the film turns out to be a true life story, will you marry Nuhu Abdullahi?
That film, I can tell you, is one of my best. You have the likes of Ali Nuhu, Nuhu Abdullahi, Abba El-Mustapha, Momoh, Alhaji Malumfashi, Babale Hayatu, Sani Mu’azu from Jos and other brilliant actors and actresses to mention a few. In real life, if Nuhu Abdullahi proposes to me, I will marry him; why not? He is educated and a brilliant young man and also a fine actor. So, yes, but this does not mean I am making the move already because we are only colleagues and very good friends – nothing more than that.
Your father in the film, Ali Nuhu, was upset on many occasions because of the way you dressed up – exposing your boobs and hips; this was also the reason Nuhu Abdullahi did not accept you at first instance before you changed for the better and the chemistry clicked. Tell us more about that.
Well, thank God, I am fortunate to be created a beautiful lady. I have the boobs, yes, I have the hips, yes and at times, I feel like flaunting them, but unfortunately, Nuhu Abdullahi who was my boyfriend in the film thought I was going too far and frowned on my way of dressing on many occasions. I want people to know that our life on stage is different from our real life, we are only interpreting a script given to us, and in that case, I was asked to play the exact role I played in the film including my manner of dressing. In real life, as a Muslim woman, I dress properly, but I hardly cover everything so that my beauty and endowment will not be hidden. After all nature is kind to me, so why should I hide my beauty which was given to me free by God.
Tell us about your saddest moments?
Honestly, they are not many. One, I am a graduate, secondly, I cannot pass in a crowd without men looking at me twice; thirdly, I am Muslim, so I don’t have many regrets, but whenever I was given a script by a director and later he changed my role and gave to another actress, may be it clashed with some of my other activities, I used to feel bitter. If you are to feature me in your film, go ahead and feature me, don’t create excuses and drop me.
If I understand you very well, are you saying if a director did not get what he wanted from an actress, he would drop her and give the role to another person that is ready to compromise her body?
I didn’t say that, and that has never happened to me. People have different impressions about us or our ways of life, it is not like that. In all professions, marriages crash, in all professions, you have bad eggs, banks at times send out beautiful ladies to go and scout for customers. You know the meaning of that, in universities, you see ladies dressing half-naked to attract the attention of lecturers so that they will pass their exams through randy lecturers. So, it is the way you behave that the society will judge you by.
Who are your best actor and actress in Kannywood?
About actress, Fati S.U. Garba; that is my humble self. Or do you want me to tell you I admire this and I hate that so that you will create enmity between me and my colleagues? They are all my friends and I admire them, but my closest friend is Teema Yola, not Teema Makamashi; they are not the same, Teema Yola is my closest female friend.
