By Isaac Blessings
Lulu Hassan is a renowned Swahili news anchor who currently works for the free-to-air television channel Citizen TV. She hosts the famous Nipashe Wikendi which airs every Saturday and Sunday from 7.00pm alongside her husband Rashid Abdalla. The show has a segment that offers marital guidance and advice from Bi Mswafari and Benjamin Zulu. She is also in TV Productions owning Jiffy Pictures – a company that produced the popular Maria and Zora shows among others. Her success was not an overnight story-she has had her fair share of challenges and struggles before her breakthrough finally came. In this article, WoK brings you the story of Lulu Hassan.
Lulu Hassan Journey
In an exclusive interview with Jeff Koinange and Nick Odhiambo, that aired on Friday 11th March 2022 on Hot 96 Fm, Lulu revealed that she began her career in 2005 as a receptionist at a Mombasa-based IT company known as Techbizz limited. It was while working at the company that she developed a passion for journalism and she would channel this interest through reading newspapers to her mother every day. Her mother kept on encouraging her and insisting that she should try her luck in the highly competitive media world. She came across an advertisement for a radio presenters’ position at Radio Salaam. Without any background in journalism, she decided to give it a go and applied for the opportunity.
Also Read: Benjamin Zulu Biography, Education, Family and Career
She was called for the interview and gave her best at it. Two weeks later she got the opportunity to work as a part time News anchor since she had to go back to school to study journalism professionally. After completing her studies, she began looking for TV opportunities in order to fulfil her mother’s life-long dream. She knocked on many doors including Kenya Broadcasting (KBC) TV where she was rejected and told that she didn’t have a television voice. She however didn’t give up and continued seeking more opportunities and going for interviews.
Major Breakthrough
While at the Radio station, one of her colleagues informed her that two of KTN TV top Swahili news anchors were going for maternity leave. She applied for the opportunity, did the interview and passed, thus joining the Standard Media Group owned TV station as a Swahili news anchor. At the time she was only 20 years old. The period was quite emotional for her since it was her mother’s dream to one day see her on TV but unfortunately she wasn’t alive to see the dream come to reality. Her first stint was reading the weekday 7.00pm news together with the veteran journalist Ali Manzu. The news show became quite popular giving her the major breakthrough in the media world. She later left KTN and joined Citizen TV – a station owned by Royal Media Services, where she met her husband, Rashid Abdalla and got married in 2009. The duo became the first couple News Anchors in the country hosting the famous Nipashe Wikendi on Citizen TV.
TV Productions
During the interview, Lulu revealed that since high school she had always had a passion for acting. After clearing high school, she worked as a thespian for several companies including Mbalamwezi, Kizingo and House of Dreams in Mombasa. It is the passion that propelled her with the support from her husband Rashid Abdulla, to start Jiffy Pictures – a TV Productions company back in 2013. She raised the first 400,000 that she used to shoot the first season of a drama series titled ‘Moyo’ that aired on Citizen TV in 2015. She later did the Maria show which became a major hit in the country with Kenyans glued on their screens every Monday to Friday from 7.30 pm to 8.00pm. After the end of Maria season 1, she started the Zora series which equally became a success. The company now runs the Sultana show – a Swahili-themed series that airs every Monday to Friday from 7.30pm to 8.00pm on Citizen TV.
