Sadiya Mohammed Gyale is one actress that avoids scandal like a plaque. Many stakeholders and followers of the Kannywood industry had taken it for granted that the beautiful Fulani actress would settle down with Abubakar Hayatu (Baballe) but she married outside the industry. However, her marriage to the successful Kaduna-based lawyer, Barr Abubakar, lasted only eight months. Sadiya has since been off the scene. ALIYU ASKIRA recently caught up with her and she speaks on her relationship with Baballe, marriage, business, and plans for the future.
You have been off the scene for a while, in fact, the speculation is that you got married secretly to avoid the embarrassment of your first marriage. How true is this?
You never bothered to check up on me because you know where I live and you can also tell with authority, my movements.
The truth is it has been long that I featured in a movie, as such I am always at home or travelling for one business or the other.
As a lady, especially with the embarrassing episode of my first marriage which crashed after only eight months, I find it pretty difficult to associate freely with my fans so that they will not ask why my marriage crashed, but as you can see, I have put on weight and I am looking prettier than the last time we met.
The first interview I had with you was brokered by Baballe Hayatu and the impression was that you were planning to get married only for you to settle down with the Kaduna based lawyer, Barrister Abubakar. What went wrong?
Go back to the text of that interview that you had with me and you would see that I told you clearly then that Baballe Hayatu was never my boyfriend. The rumour of my relationship with him has been there for a very long time, but the truth is we are not lovers, he may have been interested in me or responsible for telling people that we are in love and will get married, but honestly speaking, there was nothing between us except respect and the fact that we are colleagues.
I even read in several media publications that Ali Nuhu did all he could to convince me to marry BaballeHayatu but I refused. It is not true but if God destined that I will still be his wife, so be it.
You were heart broken when your marriage collapsed but I can see you are looking prettier and in happy mood, are you in another relationship now?
First, I will insist that I will not to tell you how I met my former husband, Barrister Abubakar. However, when our marriage broke up I read many things about him. Some people said he was a 419ner, others said whenever he tried to take a lady to bed, and she refused, he would marry her, and when he has had enough of her he sacks her.
There are some things I will prefer to keep to myself, you are one of those who were at my marriage including when I hosted kauyawa day. I spent a lot of money to celebrate the marriage.
I started noticing funny developments when Barrister Abubakar started giving me different dates when I will pack to his house in Kaduna. He will always visit me in Kano and I will get a decent place for us, cook for him, do all necessary errands for him to make him comfortable in Kano including submitting my entire body to him because we were properly married. However, I started hearing that his family in Kaduna were putting pressure on him to divorce me because as an Hausa Actress I am not good enough to be his wife.
According to reliable family sources, he was not was not a good manager of family problems and that was why when I insisted that I would not mind even paying for an accommodation in Kaduna so that I could create the impression that I have fully relocated to be with my husband he started behaving funny.
I became worried. My close friends also were not happy that he was treating me that way because they know me as somebody that would never cause trouble as a married woman.
Bottom line is that after eight months the marriage packed up. He sacked me after having me fully as a woman. I also exhausted substantial part of my resources because I was of the belief that once I got married, I will stay put and bye-bye to the industry.
…But some people who knew your former husband’s background had advice you against the marriage but you refused to listen to them because you preferred the man who is said to be rich. Is that so?
I am sure you know that my former husband is dead. According to what I was told, he travelled out of Nigeria for business and died in a hotel. So, like I said earlier, there are some things I will not like to say. However, for him to marry me pretending that he was seriously in love with me and he had me the way and manner he wanted and ended up sacking me without even giving me the opportunity to properly move into his house, is not only painful but very embarrassing.
He could have rented a house for me even in Kano and I could have moved in. The rest of his family could stay in Kaduna, I could have even rent an apartment for myself and stayed in Kano as his wife, but all these did not happen. So, I can tell you that no matter what I was really pained, especially given the notion society has about Hausa actresses not only cheap but that when we get married, we don’t stay in marriage.
I did not marry Late Barrister Abubakar because of money and I did not reject Baballe Hayatu because he is poor. Baballe is comfortable and the issue of whether he is poor or not does not arise.
If you could turn back the hands of time would you still be an actress?
You are asking the impossible and it’s like you want me to challenge my present position as destined by God. One thing I am always happy about in life is that God created me a Muslim, but let’s assume there is the chance for me to come back, I will be an academic with specialisation in Islamic Jurisprudence or I will be a Human rights activist.
Honestly, I may not necessarily be an actress but I can be a producer so that I can produce films on issues that have to do with early marriages and broken marriages in Hausa society. However, being in Kannywood has opened my eyes to many things. I now know the good, the bad, and the ugly about life. I now know that no matter how decent a lady is, once you are an actress then the society will look at you in the same manner that society looks at prostitutes.
I am a decent lady by all standard, I have performed Hajj and Umrah severally and I can swear whether that at the time I got married, I was as pure as holy water, name it the way you want but I am sure you understand what I mean.
We joined Kannywood at a time there was discipline and respect but today it has become an all comers business. My prayer now is for God to give me somebody who is deeply sincere that I can settle down with.
Through Kannywood I got assistance, I mean financial packages from Federal Ministry of Finance through the assistance of the Secretary General of Kano MOPPAN, Salisu Muhammad Officer. I doing fine but the truth is that you will not be seeing much of me on the streets of Kano. I am not the type that hassle for money by all means or sleep around with directors or producers for role in their movie.
It’s unfortunate that my marriage collapsed, but even if it did not collapse the guy is dead. So, I have to move on with my life.
