Fati Nayo: Spotlight is on beloved Kannywood actress

You would keep a lot of people guessing who you really want to see if you ask to see Fati Nayo. But just mention Kyauta Dillaliya and fingers would point to the delectable screen actress, Fati, who is popularly known by that stage name. From just playing the role of a villain in the popular Hausa television series, Dadin Kowa Sabon Salo, the mother of two, who yearned for a career in the military, has become a household name. Fans cheer at her and call her by her Kyauta whenever they run into her.

Even Fati agreed that she has literarily lost her real names to her screen name, saying: “I can’t remember when last I heard them call me by real name. That one has become obsolete; people prefer to call me Kyauta, which is the role I played in Dadin Kowa Sabon Salo.

“The name has stuck. It is okay. I mean, it comes with the terrain, especially if you were able to impress the fans. I am not complaining at all.” Said to be discipline, committed to a good cause, easy-going and unpretentiously friendly, Fati’s career choice as child was to join the Army. Although she grew up with a healthy appetite for watching films and a knack for reenacting roles played by popular screen actors, it was being a ‘soldier or a nurse’ that appealed to her most as career choices.

“I like their dressing and their job, which makes them take risk, save lives and help humanity. So, I really looked forward to becoming either a nurse or to join the Army. “But as fate will have it, none of those my choices came through. Acting found me.”

Indeed, it was acting that took a hold on her and made her give up her childhood career choices. And as if the industry reserved a space for her, Fati’s career as an actress picked up as soon she joined the acting divide of the vibrant movie industry up North, dubbed Kannywood. Her only qualification being those skits she performed before her sisters whilst growing up, Fati recalled that each time she performed the skits before her sisters, they would commend her and also grade her performance.

“They normally grade every performance and each time, they would tell me that I would do well as an actress,” she recalled. So, when the opportunity came, Fati grabbed it, believing that her childhood had prepared her well enough for the industry. An actress of a few notable credits, Fati has found herself being cast to play the role of a villain in most movies. “Maybe because they like my interpretation. I have played a couple of other roles, but it may just be that they feel I play the villain well. But there is really no role I cannot interpret,” she explained.

Currently working at the side as a marriage counsellor, Fati explained that she was inspired to go into marriage counselling because of the rampant cases of divorce among couples in the north. As she put it: “There are so any cases of immature breakdown of family ties and many cases of divorce among young couples. “I have heard of marriages that turn out so bad after two to three weeks of wedlock. Even people that have lived for over two decades or more with children suddenly ask for divorce.

How do they want the children to cope?
“It is situations like that that inspired my having to counsel young people, particularly intending couples, on how not to consider divorce as an option when they get married.” Asked her career ambition, Fati, who said one of the pains of acting is the negative perception that actresses have been subjected to by society, disclosed her ambition to continue to serve humanity through her work as an actress and as a marriage counsellor.

She said about the negative perception of actresses: “There is so much negative perception that people have about us, entertainers. First, they think we live the roles we play on screen. They also judge us by our physical appearances. Our attempt to look smart is misconstrued for being wayward. “I have also heard them say that we don’t marry early. But all these are misconceptions, which people have held to our disadvantage. I mean, there are some people who will be scared, for instance, to ask for the hand of an actress in marriage because of such misconception of being over-exposed and living the life you live on screen off screen. “That is not true. I am not a villain offset. You can only find me doing that in movies. “I am hoping that we will engage in some more advocacy to change these negative narratives about us.”