Is the Big Brother Naija reunion a welcome distraction?

Yes, it’s almost time for another edition of Big Brother Naija (and Big Brother Canada for that matter. I’ll compare the two shows at some point, hopefully). However, before a new season of Big Brother Naija starts, even though I know you may not be among those waiting expectantly for the return of the reality TV series, there’s usually a reunion of the housemates from the season just ended, the Lockdown edition. And this year is no different as news about the reunion has been everywhere for a few weeks now. I’ve somehow managed not to have watched previous BBN reunions. For one, reunions usually happen months and months after the end of the preceding season by which time moving on is usually what’s on my mind. Plus, with how toxic and do-or-die Big Brother Naija fandom has become, I’m always more than ready to see a Big Brother Naija season come to an end.

This time around, there was an even more pressing reason to fight not to be distracted by BBN antics. So, I made conscious efforts to avoid the reunion of the BBN Lockdown housemates. It wasn’t so much about them but the fact that I thought this reunion and the impending new season of BBN was capable of throwing us all off and shifting our focus from the many issues currently plaguing Nigeria: insecurity, skyrocketing food prices, suspension of Twitter amid what looks set to be a massive gagging of people’s freedom of expression and all that goes with that. Why not marinate in our sorry state of affairs?

Anyhow, perhaps hiding from or ignoring the BBN reunion wasn’t so realistic. In fact, I have now decided that a little escape is good for the soul. How could I successfully ignore the BBN reunion anyway? I’d need to disconnect from almost all my social media accounts, disable notifications from platforms like Youtube where I follow people who talk about this sort of thing. Even if I wasn’t interested, I can’t stop them from discussing the reunion. Just as I imagine that there may be people enduring hearing about BBN because of this column. If you’re one of those people, I apologise in advance.

So, unable to hide from the BBN reunion or news about it, I was finally drawn in via a short clip posted on the Big Brother Naija Youtube channel. It was the highlights from the events of Day 2, I think. That clip can be titled ‘Vee vs. Tolanibaj’ or ‘How unschooled Vee schooled Tolanibaj.’ There’s no shortage of titles. The short of it is that Tolanibaj wanted to use the reunion to make a splash, perhaps she wanted to trend, and thought the best way was to tackle Vee about her lack of university education. These two used to be friends in the Lockdown house. Or so everyone thought. So, what changed? The story changed shortly after Tolanibaj was evicted and told host Ebuka that she wouldn’t mind dating Neo outside the house. Neo was Vee’s man in the house but here was her ‘friend’ announcing her intentions to the world.

However, on this episode of the reunion, Tolanibaj was trying very hard, some would say too hard, to justify her actions. All of a sudden, she said she didn’t fancy Neo ‘that way.’ On one hand, she claimed she was only trying to make Prince, the man she was trying to be in a relationship with, jealous. But still insisted she didn’t find Neo sexually attractive. At the same time, she also wanted to convince everyone she hadn’t been desperate to be in a relationship with Prince, bla, bla, bla… Except that wasn’t how it looked to discerning viewers.

I imagine if you didn’t follow the drama in the Lockdown house as it unfolded, you may find it difficult to understand all the reunion aggro. So, don’t blame yourself if this is all sounding like some pointless drama. Even for someone who followed most of the show, I struggled to appreciate Tolanibaj’s contrived anger. To the extent that she got up and lobbed a throw pillow at Vee (giving a new meaning to throw pillow) but Vee was mistress of poise as she sat back and gave great comeback quips even to insults Tolanibaj aimed below the belt like her not having university education and that she had three degrees. And Vee replied something to the effect: ‘You that have three degrees, and here you are shouting on BBN.’

The next episode of the BBN Lockdown Reunion took a cringy turn. There was Wathoni tackling Dorathy. And there was Ka3na who insinuated Dorathy and Brighto had a sexual encounter courtesy of stains on the bedsheets Ka3na changed from Brighto’s bed. I was expecting a big denial from Dorathy but to my surprise (and I’m sure many of her fellow ex-housemates), Dorathy owned up with her full chest– BBN watchers can identify the unintended pun. She then accused Brighto of ignoring her the morning after and that dragged on a bit with host Ebuka trying to get some real answers from Brighto.

There was a whole lot of cursing that had to be bleeped out. Which makes me ask what the purpose of the reunion is. Or rather, what do these ex-housemates hope to gain from this reunion? Why do they think that they need this kind of vulgarity in order to trend? On the surface, everyone’s supposedly doing well: Dorathy is running her lingerie business, Ka3na is into her own business, Vee is acting and also recording new music, Tolanibaj has a podcast and also some kind of delivery service. I mean from their introductions, we were made to see how they are all thriving. So, why can’t they be entertaining without the ‘ratchet’ behaviour? I’m thinking shows like ‘The Real Housewives…’ should take most of the blame. It has become almost for reunion shows to be ugly, people fighting and throwing tantrums just so they can trend online.

Ebuka, perfect host for the reunion

We already know Ebuka Obi-Uchendu from his hosting the BBN show itself. But as the reunion host, he really puts himself out as a viewer and not that much as its host. His reaction to the drama mirrors many-a-viewer. Placing himself in their midst as a viewer also allows him to ask the kind of questions a typical viewer would like answered. For instance, he was trying to get Nengi to see how viewers could’ve thought she was using Ozo and Prince.

On one hand, she claimed she stopped being friends with Prince because he wasn’t loyal. But she’s the one who told anyone who cared to listen that she had a boyfriend outside the house, how she wasn’t going to get into any relationship in the house. So Ebuka asked how she could’ve asked for loyalty from any man in the house seeing that her loyalty was to someone outside the house. Although she refused to agree that she may have been using Ozo and Prince, BBN Lockdown viewers can agree that Ozo’s loyalty to Nengi throughout the show definitely didn’t win him many fans. That loyalty which many saw as him being a mugu or mumu, arguably hurt his game.

Was the reunion scripted?

This is always my least concern. I mean, it’s become fairly obvious that reality TV is as real as its producers want it to be. But for what’s it’s worth, certain aspects of the reunion, would of a necessity, need to be arranged. The producers already know the backstory and most of what went on in the BBN house. So, it only makes sense for them to play up these areas of conflict. Scripted or not, I’m more concerned with how the ex-housemates are portraying themselves.

Onoshe Nwabuikwu, AIRTIME columnist, is a renowned TV/film critic and film scholar. She also has experience in advertising as a senior copywriter and corporate communications as communications consultant