BBN 2022: The year of Edo women

Last week when I wrote about Big Brother Naija, (formerly Big Brother Nigeria), BBN, reality show, I could’ve sworn that was going to be the last I’d talk about it. I didn’t know I was going to return so soon to BBN season 7, dubbed ‘Level Up.’ I knew there was a chance I could be swayed when the winner was announced but I wasn’t holding out any hope. And somehow, I was sure even that wasn’t going to bother me. How wrong I was. On Sunday, October 2, 2022, at the grand finale of Big Brother Naija, after 72 days in the Big Brother House, 25-year-old Phyna (Ijeoma Josephina Otabor) was declared the winner with Bryann (Brian Chukwuebuka Chiji) coming in as runner up. This is huge! As BBN winner, Phyna gets N100m (N50m in cash and N50m in prizes). Quite significantly, in winning, Phyna became only the second woman in 7 seasons to win Big Brother Naija. The only other female winner was Mercy Eke from Season 4, 2019.

Before Sunday’s finale, I did have one moment where I thought that the only good thing that could come out of BBN season 7 was for Phyna to win. It was just a stray thought even though with my very limited following of BBN 7, I had the feeling Phyna was a strong player and she seemed to be one of the more interesting people in the House. Then again, her popularity had been tested with at least four nominations for possible eviction where the public had to vote for their favourite housemates. So, Phyna winning was the best possible outcome for BBN Season 7 for me.

To top it all off, Phyna is from Edo State which just happens to be my state of origin. This brings me to something I’d noticed in the first couple of days of BBN season 7, that there were at least two female housemates from Edo State: Phyna and Diana Isoken Edobor (33 years old). It was impossible not to notice Diana. Dressed in a figure-hugging dress that gave an illusion of being transparent (G-string and all) Diana was selling voluptuous sexiness. And when she was asked what she was bringing to the house, she told the host Ebuka Obi-Uchendu and the live audience to ‘just take a look’ at her, asking if that wasn’t enough or words to that effect. At that point, I didn’t want to draw too much attention to the Edo women in the House as I was bracing myself for the inevitable bashing and backlash. As an Edo woman myself, I’m very sensitive to the way Edo women are perceived.

There are other stereotypes of Edo people generally, one of which is about witchcraft and flying. You may have heard the jokes about people from Edo State not needing airplanes to travel à la Edo ‘Airlines’ and everybody from Edo State being ‘pilots’ but that’s a different story altogether. Already, there’s the perception of Edo women being more promiscuous than other Nigerian women. I remember reading comments under a story about actress Mercy Aigbe (who’s from Edo State) with one commenter saying something to the effect: ‘Don’t you know where she’s from?’ It was in connection with Mercy Aigbe’s remarriage to Kazim Adeoti who had made her his second wife. Apparently, whatever the truth was, Mercy Aigbe being from Edo State makes her guilty without any proof. Incidentally, there’s a story about Mercy’s sister accusing their mother of things that bother on witchcraft or some crazy stuff like that. Again, I digress but you can now see why Diana’s display was a little uncomfortable for me.

However, I’ve since discovered that there were more female housemates from Edo State in the just concluded BBN 7 which is the reason for the headline above. Instead of two Edo women as I initially thought, there were at least 5 out of the total of 14 female housemates: Phyna, Diana, Chichi (Chinenyenwa Desire Okoebor), Rachel Eghonghon Akowe, Osy Allysyn Audu. And there are other housemates whose names sound Edo, like Ilebaye Odiniya (from Kogi State) and Daniella Utangbe Peters (Lagos State). Looks like I’m now stretching this, but you do get my drift. If 5 out of 14 female housemates are from Edo State (which is close to 50 %), that’s a big deal.

The biggest icing for sure was Phyna winning it for Edo State, and Nigerian women. Let’s hear it for Edo women!