The founder of Kaduna International Film Festival and Vice Chairman Nigerian Film Festival Association, Audu Kashim Israel received with sadness in the earlier hours of Sunday 12th, November 2023 the death of a veteran actor, Usman Baba Pategi, popularly known as Samanja Mazan Fama, who died at the age of 84.
Late Usman Baba Pategi, known mostly as Samanja Mazan Fama is a retired Nigerian Army. Together with Yusuf Ladan, Mamman Ladan and Idi Jibril an NTA staff introduced the Hausa comedy known now as Kannywood, Northern Nigerian films or Hausa films in the 80s to the Northern audience.
Late Mallam Usman Baba Pategi (Samanja) is also a popular Hausa writer and actor from Northern Nigeria. Pategi, a prince of Pategi in Niger State was popular for living the lead role of Samanja in the long rested national television series, Samanja.
After starring in Yusuf’s Ladan’s ‘Zaman Duniya Iyawa Ne’, Pategi went on to have a starring vehicle in Samanja which means Sergeant-major. The play center’s around his character’s antics and mixes comedy and drama to entertain the audience.
The show’s setting is a barrack and illustrates various situations and escapes of Pategi’s character in the barracks. The show gained popularity and Pategi’s character’s verbal style changed from Hausa and ‘soldier speak’, a mixed English and Hausa language to pidgin.
“We have lost one of the founding fathers of the Hausa film industry in Nigeria, we will miss you” May the Almighty grant him jannah fiddausi and may God be with the family he has left behind”
Audu said.
