I don’t know how the organisers of Big Brother
Africa (BBA) have to redeem their image, but a
greater number of their audience who are
mostly West Africans believe the show has been
tainted with bias and prejudice, to the detriment
of West Africa.
And their submissions are not far-fetched.
First, we are in Africa, a continent of diversity
where there are as many tribes as there are
different people. Everything in Africa is tainted
and painted in the shade of tribalism, ethnicity,
nationalism or regionalism. For this reason, a
contest like Big Brother Africa which brings out
nationals of various countries to compete ought
to create a balance in representation because
there are deep-seated regional ties which
ultimately influence voting patterns and
determine who wins the contest.
East Africans traditionally see themselves as
one unit. They all belong to the East African
Community (EAC), which comprises Burundi,
Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. The
motto of the EAC is “One People One Destiny”.
In this year’s BBA, East Africa has four
representatives: Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and
Uganda.
Southern Africa has never been hegemonic of
sort. It’s basically acepalous in form and
shape. That is why even though there is the
Southern Africa Development Commission,
(SADC) which has 14 member-states including
South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana,
Malawi, Mozambique and Tanzania, the people
here cannot be termed as a unit, unlike the East
Africans. By the way, Tanzania from East Africa
is also a member of the SADC. That is how
fragmented, diluted and watered down the
SADC is! In this year’s BBA, SADC produced
seven representatives: Zambia, Zimbabwe,
Malawi, Botswana, Namibia, Mozambique and
South Africa.
West Africa has ECOWAS, and they are a very
strong and compact unit like the EAC. Nigeria,
Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia and Gambia are the
Anglophone arm of ECOWAS. ”. In this year’s
BBA, West Africa has only two representatives:
Nigeria and Ghana.
The other member-states of ECOWAS are
French and Portuguese-speaking. Save for the
Anglophone parts, the other ECOWAS states
have never been involved in BBA.
May be due to the language barrier. But Angola
and Mozambique, two Portuguese speaking
nations in the SADC often make it to BBA. Why
can’t Portuguese Guinea Bissau situated in West
Africa come to the BBA party too or even
Anglophone Gambia, after all Multi-Choice also
operates in these countries?
Or why can’t we get the French-speaking West
African nations of Benin, Togo, Ivory Coast,
Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, or even Cameroun,
- where Multi-Choice also operates - to
participate in the BBA party, after all more than
60% of the educated young population in these
countries write and speak English language?
This year’s BBA did not give a fair
representation to West Africa even though
Multi-Choice has more customers in West Africa
than any other region in Africa. With only two
slots (Nigeria and Ghana) allocated to it, the
odds were stacked against it as it slugged it
out with East Africa, four slots, and SADC - a
whopping seven slots!
Since voting was now tended towards regional
blocks, it was almost always going to be
seemingly impossible nay very difficult for a
country like Ghana or Nigeria to win the BBA
contest. And it showed clearly in this year’s
contest because West Africa was seriously
under-represented. And it will continue to be so:
no West African nation can win BBA contest
again!
Geographical, the SADC states are contiguous
to the East African states, and are often
blended as one. For instance, a Zambian or
Botswanese has closer ties to Kenya and
Tanzania than to Nigeria or Ghana. To these
SADC and EAC folks, West Africans are like
aliens! This is not surprising because West
Africa is thousands of miles away and
separated from SADC and East Africa.
And given the regional divide and awareness
the BBA programme created this year, where
citizens of particular regions gravitate towards
each other, it was no surprise that the whole of
East Africa voted for the East African candidate
left in the fray, Idris. The youngster was lucky
that Ugandan beauty, Ella was sent home
before the finals, paving way for him as the
sole East African candidate.
West Africa had two slots – and unfortunately
two contestants in the finals, Tayo and
Mam’bea. Therefore, the vote was split. If West
Africa has had four slots, like East Africa, Tayo
or Mam’bea would have easily won over Sierra
Leone and Liberia. And if BBA has included
neutrals like Ethiopia in this year’s game, may
be Tayo may have won there. That would have
given him 5 country votes as well. Or may be
less. But it would have been a keenly and
closely contested race, rather than this lopsided
race that favoured East Africa and SADC right
from Day 1, to the detriment of West Africa.
SADC did not utilise or enjoy their numerical
strength, as they did last year when Namibian
beauty, Dillish won. This year they have 5
contestants in the finals – Sipe (Malawi),
Macky 2 (Zambia), JJ and Butterfly (Zimbabwe)
and Nkhlakhla (South Africa). The stage for
self-destruct was therefore set. And at the end,
the 5 contestants battled for the 7 country
votes of the SADC. Macky 2 got the rest of
Africa plus Zambia, Nklakhla got SA and
Botswana, JJ piped Butterfly to clinch the
Zimbabwe slot and Sipe won her Malawi slot.
Namibia opted out of the SADC, and voted East
Africa’s Idris.
In all of these, it is clear BBA needs to be
retooled and reshaped to make it look like a
fair, balanced and equitable contest. Truly, if
the programme wants to enjoy credibility and
good rating in West Africa, it must tread the
path of inclusiveness and give more slots to
West Africa. We want to see more participants
from this region. My suggestion is, rather than
two per country, let each country produce only
one candidate. For West Africa, let’s give
representation to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Gambia,
Ivory Coast, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Nigeria and
Cameroun. The French countries here are all
bilingual now.
This way, Multi-Choice will be freeing itself
from the pangs of bias and favouritism
currently chocking its neck in West Arica. It will
also be saving its business interests too
because most of the advertisers and sponsors
of BBA are from West Africa.

Here in France, this is none of my business!

Who gives 0.5 fu-cks about BBA??

Who still watches BBA??

Nigerians reside in all these countries u just mentioned so nigeria shld be winning season after season but because d bba wants to maintain balance in d competition they have to rig for other participants to win. Idris winning this year own is not bad because he really deserves to win it, he played his game well.

like I care


DUMB SHOW

Hummmmm



Nice observation by OP

what is BBA ? we don't watch it here in Gibraltar

seriously for once I hv never watched dat show, a bunch of ppl living in a house n f-ing dem selves in other to win $300,000