Ali’s Acclaimed Ambassadorial Pact With Samsung

The world of Ali Nuhu is quite amazing; it keeps unfolding dribs and drabs. His foray into Nollywood started from Kannywood (the Hausa movie industry). Whenever you ask the high spirited actor why he preferred acting as a career, after studying Geography at the university, he would simply say: “I have always wanted to act; I knew I would act someday, but how it would start was unknown to me.”

His career got started when he read a copy of an advertisement. “It was about an audition and they needed a cast for a film. That was after my graduation. However, the film that shot me to limelight was a Hausa movie called ‘Dijangala’, which bagged the award for Best Hausa Film at the nation’s biennial film business, the Zuma Film Festival in Abuja, in 2008.
Though it was a re-make of the old ‘Dijangala,’ it was what I needed to be hot in the Hausa film market. Since then, I have been in the Hausa genre of Nollywood before Wetin Dey?” Ali said, while answering questions put on to him.

The TV-soap opera, Wetin Dey? also propelled the acting career of Nuhu, who is simply known as ‘Sarki’ or ‘Master of the Game’ by his colleagues. Getting the role of Ibrahim in the drama series, according to him was a stroke of luck. “I came in late,” he revealed. “By then they had already taken the pilot copy to London for selection but they needed to make changes. I was invited for an audition in Kano and was told that it was a BBC-sponsored stuff. There were four directors on set and, after my audition, I was chosen to play the role of Ibrahim and we were on set for a year and three months.” Ali Nuhu played the role so well you would think he suffered from the deadly virus.

Ironically, he confessed: “I didn’t know about HIV/AIDS or even the stigmatisation of victims until I got on the set. I got to meet people living with HIV and we learnt from them in interpreting our roles. The role of Ibrahim was a true life story of a man who knew he had AIDS and, to cover up, he quickly married his cousin. He was afraid of stigmatisation and discrimination. So he continued covering up his illness until he met his waterloo. I believe the society made Ibrahim who he was and not because he was callous or wicked.” Said Ali Nuhu.

This Best of Nollywood (BON) actor of the year, last Saturday struck yet another ‘Midas touch,’ as top phone brand Samsung has signed a year endorsement deal with him worth millions of naira. The actor, who is equally a Glo Ambassador got this approval which confirmed him as one of the most celebrated icons in the motion picture industry in Nigeria both in Kannywood and Nollywood.

The inexhaustible and prolific actor got his groove back and remains the most outstanding highly celebrated actor and appears to be heebie-jeebies to most of his contemporaries. Ali is actually leading the field!