Help! I’m going blind – Samanja
Weekly Trust: There are reports that you are ill. What are you suffering from? Usman Baba Pategi: Glaucoma. I cannot see properly again. I have been to India twice and I still need to go back again. Initially, it was ordinary glaucoma but because I don’t have the means to complete the treatment, it has […]
Weekly Trust: There are reports that you are ill. What are you suffering from?
Usman Baba Pategi: Glaucoma. I cannot see properly again. I have been to India twice and I still need to go back again. Initially, it was ordinary glaucoma but because I don’t have the means to complete the treatment, it has become advanced. I don’t have the means to go back to conclude the treatment because of my present economic situation.
I need about a million and a half naira to travel for the treatment. This is what I need and anybody you approach will tell you that he has his own problems to contend with. I’m appealing to my fans, ordinary Nigerians, anyone with a heart: Please save my sight. I’m almost blind. It’s so bad that I need a guide to move around.
WT: There was a time you participated in Who Wants To Be A Millionaire Celebrity Edition. What did use your prize money for?
Pategi: That’s what I used to travel to India the first and second time, for the surgery. I got about one million naira then.
WT: How did you come about the idea of your then-hit TV show ‘Samanja’?
Pategi: I was into drama since my early school days and after graduation, I continued. We started ‘Samanja’ in 1973. The idea was an off-shoot of my experiences when I served in the army during the war. You know the word ‘Samanja’ is born from the rank ‘Sargeant-Major’.
I only served with the Nigerian Army as Special Recruit Personnel during the civil war. I left the army at the end of the civil war for my job at Radio Television Kaduna (RTK), now known as Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN). I was in the programme division. I started with the production of selective programmes in Nupe. Later, I was moved to another division under the leadership of Alhaji Yusuf Ladan who was head of programmes. He introduced me to the drama production.
WT: What advice do you have for the current crop of actors and actresses in the field?
Pategi: They need to struggle to know what they are doing very well and they have to be determined to do it very well. They should never believe in failure. They should be hard working. If you are very lazy, you will never excel in acting. I will like to advice Nigerian youths roaming around the streets to take to acting, it pays.