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Comic actor, Saheed Mohammed popularly known as Funky Mallam, tells an online magazine what led to the collapse of his marriage
A chance encounter the magazine had
with actor Saheed Abubakar a.k.a Funky Mallam turned out to be an
interesting one. This is because the otherwise reserved entertainer
opened up for the first time about his failed marriage and the
circumstances that led to his divorcing his wife in 2012.
While not many of his fans are aware of
the fact that he was once married, how much more a divorcee, the Aminu
Kano University, Mass Communication graduate tells the magazine that he is currently taking things in his stride.
Narrating what transpired between his
former wife and himself, he says, “ I was married for three years before
the divorce and I think maybe we were not compatible. We have a son who
is presently with my grand mum because of my busy schedules. I am
looking forward to re-marrying very soon because I still believe in the institution of marriage. I think I have found love with someone else
and we are looking to see how things will go on so we don’t make the
same costly mistake. I think my acting career may have been partly
responsible for the collapse of my marriage because my wife is very
sensitive of my every movement and got so involved in my job.
“She understood the nature of my job yet
it got to the extent that she got loose and couldn’t control her
emotions. I never wronged or cheated on her, but she got so suspicious
that even if I was close to my phone while it rang and she was
fifty-metres away, she would rush to pick my call.
She met me as an actor but I was
surprised the day she told me she didn’t know what I really do for a
living and it was a big shocker to me. My new lover totally understands
my job and she says it is a man’s world.”
Since his sojourn into the world of make-believe in 2000, after he starred in the now rested TV series, Paradise Park, he appeared to have been stereotyped to peculiar and predictable roles like that of a n uneducated Hausa man.
Unhappy with the trend and itching to
take up more challenging roles, Funky Mallam has since broken the ‘jinx’
by playing fresh roles like that of a detective, an armed robber and
career professional, in his recent works.
However, in making a case for fellow
northern actors who play the same roles over and over again, he says, “
It all boils down to giving everyone an equal opportunity at the end of
the day. As long as producers want their cast to play believable roles,
some people will remain stuck characters. The same way you can’t cast an
Igbo man to play the role of a Hausa man, you can’t also cast a Yoruba
man to play a Calabar man. Besides the differences in intonation, the
audience will detect it. So, I don’t think there is an injustice being
carried out on Hausa actors in this regard.”
Widely travelled, he is a native of Kano/
Adamawa states as he puts it. Born in Auchi, Edo State, he had his
primary education in Delta, Abia and Plateau states.
Not a fan of the activities of the
Actors’ Guild of Nigeria, the one-time transport worker says, “I only
identify with the guild because I am a Nigerian actor but I shy away and
distance myself from its politics. For the time being, I see that a lot
of them vying for political positions in the guild do so for selfish
interests. The guild is full of stupidity so that’s why I can never be a
part of it.”
Having spent over a decade in the
Nigerian entertainment scene, the funny man is looking to conquer new
frontiers, saying, “This is a new chapter in my career and I am delving
into other chapters as a talk show host and film maker all in due
course.”
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