Big Brother Nigeria

Big Brother Nigeria launched on Sunday amidst fanfare and expectation (of what I don’t know). The US$100,000 prize money seems excessive. Things may likely turn ugly. Watching it (on DSTV channel 37) is both excessively boring and highly interesting. The conversation, when one can hear it, is tedious and banal, quite puerile/adolescent in many ways. Also, they seem to be having transmission problems – the screen had lines running down it by yesterday evening. However, what is interesting is to observe patterns of behaviour. Most of the time, everyone hangs out together in a large group. In the UK Big Brother’s (ordinary or celebrity), there tends to be more dispersed social clusterings – three or four people at most in conversation – unless ordered to be together by Big Brother. Also, there is a tactility amongst the Nigerians one would never see at this early stage amongst Northern Europeans - which is already reaping consequences as the men set their sights on specific girls. There is also a conservatism at work. For example, last night a Jacuzzi/hot tub scene was set up. Only two women dared put on their cozzies to join the men (there was about 5 or 6 men in the water). These things wouldn’t be an issue elsewhere. Earlier in the day, the group started to play music on the lawn. It was quite astonishing that a random group of people could make such interesting sounds, telling stories spontaneously through song and dance. Here we see the creativity hard-wired into Nigerian youth that goes largely untapped by the culture (or by the culture industry).

Most interesting of all at this stage is the set design. Elsewhere, Endermol (the company behind the stunt) like to go for futuristic/hyper contemporary looking interiors – all Ligne Roset and aluminium surfaces. In the Ikeja BB House, we have instead a drab looking space Africanised by the odd leather pouf or rattan chair. It reveals a total lack of imagination on the part of the set designers.