Forget Rahama, save Kannywood recruits

  It came in like any ordinary WhatsApp message I ever received,  through a mild text alert. But the photo of a young, dark-skinned, pretty lady accompanying the audio message immediately made my heart sink. More often than not, beautiful pictures attached to WhatsApp messages are either those of the dead or the kidnapped. Needless […]

It came in like any ordinary WhatsApp message I ever received,  through a mild text alert. But the photo of a young, dark-skinned, pretty lady accompanying the audio message immediately made my heart sink. More often than not, beautiful pictures attached to WhatsApp messages are either those of the dead or the kidnapped.

Needless to say, I started listening to the recording with trepidation.

But, I soon found out that it wasnt announcing a death or an abduction. Yet, by the time I was through listening to it, I felt crushed, like the victim of a shell-shock. It was apparently an interview with a young Kannywood actress, who somehow got arrested and taken to the Kano Hisbah office.

As you listen to the recording, it will become clear that the young lady is in the custody of the Sharia police. Her interviewer began by asking the actress to identify herself and she replied that her name was Aisha Muhammad Ibrahim. She said she was a resident of Rijiyar Zaki, a ward in the outskirts of the city, and that she was arrested at Dorayi quarters the day before.

Though she didn’t disclose the reason for her arrest, Aisha however explained that she was a Hausa film actress and had acted in movie called ‘Harsashe.’ Her interviewer asked her to say more about the film industry and Aisha’s disclosures were as shocking as they were repulsive.

According to the young actress, in order to land a role in a Hausa movie, you have to spend a week with the director of the film. When asked to say what she meant, Aisha explained that a young lady must be  a lover to the director for a whole week before she can get a role, and she admitted to having gone through that illicit union herself. She went further by naming the director, who apparently is a man called Ibrahim from Bauchi state.

After successfully scaling this first  hurdle and landing a role, then a young actress must settle accounts with some established Kannywood actresses before getting accepted.

And how does one do this? By being their lover as well. In other words as part of Kannywood’s initiation, an actress has to appease certain screen goddesses by being in a lesbian relationship with them. Here, Aisha also mentioned three well-known actresses whom she claimed she had an affair with.

When her interviewer asked why she gave in to them, she simply replied that it was a process one has to go through and in any case the established actresses do promise recruits like her cars and houses, so they are easily tempted. Aisha was further asked who got her pregnant because, according to the man interviewing her, she looked obviously pregnant. She responded that it was another producer named Ibrahim but this time from Kano, who was responsible for her pregnancy.

Aisha concluded by advising fellow young women to fight their Kannywood aspirations because they lead to nothing but the kind of moral decadence she experienced.

Now here, I am not saying that everything this young actress said about Kannywood is true. All I am saying is that since she sounded a warning, let us investigate her claims, with a view to sanitizing the industry. Two years ago when I wrote on the possibility of such immorality in the Hausa film industry, it was in the wake of a scandal involving one of the popular actresses in Kannywood. My former neighbour on this page, the American Carmen McCain, who is a renown Kannywood enthusiast, quickly rose to their defence in a rejoinder published the following week. Yet two years later we are talking about another scandal, this time caused by Rahama Sadau, due to her role in a musical video.

What needs to be done is to dig up the root of the immoral episodes involving Hausa film actresses in order to fight it. Are they getting bold and shameless because their initiation rites into the industry involve the episodes Aisha Muhammad Ibrahim mentioned in her Hisba- taped interview? Is Rahama Sadau the product of a system that makes immoral women out of innocent aspiring actresses?

Here I would like to call on acclaimed Kannywood greats like Ali Nuhu, whom I never heard mentioned in a movie industry scandal, and MOPPAN executives like Sani Muazu to form a committee that will try to find out if there are indeed directors who insist on a week-long illicit honeymoon before they cast young actresses in film roles. They should attempt to confirm if the three popular actresses mentioned by Aisha really initiate aspiring actresses into the world of lesbianism before they are accepted.

If they do this, it will be a step towards sanitising the industry and fighting the immorality associated with it. For sure it is time to forget Rahama’s escapades and concentrate on making the industry safe for young women wishing to make a career in acting. Rahama is a matured lady who has taken the path she feels is right for herself, but since there is no wishing the industry away, the least Ali Nuhu and Co should do is to make Kannywood morally-sound for their teeming recruits.