I Wanted to Be a Pilot Before I Became an Actor - Saka

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Veteran actor and theatre scholar Hafiz Oyetoro, best known to Nigerians as Saka, has opened up about the unlikely path that took him from dreaming of the cockpit to becoming one of the country's most recognisable comic actors.

In a recent interview, Oyetoro traced his fascination with flight back to childhood visits to his parents' farming village, where the sight of aeroplanes cutting across the sky left a lasting impression on him.

 He recalled constantly asking his father about the aircraft overhead, only to be told in Yoruba that they were reserved for important government officials. Rather than being discouraged by that answer, the young Oyetoro decided he would not simply ride in a plane one day, he would be the one flying it.

That ambition stayed with him well into his secondary school years, during which he excelled academically in the sciences, particularly Physics, Chemistry and Biology, subjects that would have supported a path toward aviation or a related technical career. But another interest was quietly taking root alongside his academic pursuits. 

His involvement in his school's dramatic arts club, combined with growing exposure to actors appearing on television, gradually pulled his attention away from the skies and toward the stage.

After finishing secondary school, Oyetoro made the decision to pursue that budding interest more seriously, joining Akewebede Theatre, a professional theatre outfit based in Iseyin, Oyo State.

 It was through performing with the group across the town that he came to a realisation that would reshape the rest of his life: he had a genuine talent for acting and theatre, one strong enough to abandon his earlier dream of becoming a pilot.

From there, Oyetoro went on to formally study Dramatic Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University, laying the academic foundation for a career that would eventually blend performance with scholarship.

 He has since built a dual identity as both a working actor and a respected theatre academic, teaching even as he continued to take on roles across Nigerian film and television.

It was his role in the television comedy series House Apart, however, that cemented his place in Nigerian pop culture. 

The character he played, Saka, became so beloved and widely recognised that it effectively merged with his own public identity, to the point that most Nigerians know him by that name rather than his given one.

Despite the comic reputation that has followed him throughout his career, Oyetoro revealed that he has ambitions beyond humour. 

While he acknowledged that comedy has become his most reliable niche and the space where audiences most readily embrace him, he expressed a desire to stretch into more tragic and dramatic roles, drawing on the deeper theatrical training that shaped him long before Saka became a household name.

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