They have come again with this big evil, which belittles humanity instead of living up to its hyped name, Big Brother Naija. I have also come again to speak truth to conscience.
Only little minds indulge in public display of lewdness. The saying has it that it is difficult to cure a madman who has entered the market square. Such is the state of depravity we have got to. That a young woman, hoping to be married someday, would cohabit with a man or men in full public glare is madness in the market square; who can tame it?
I’m worried that we are fast losing our tomorrow. I’m worried that the devil has detained the conscience of many. So, I refuse to shut up even if others do. How can I, when the glory is fast departing from the country where parenting has gone on holiday?
I know they will come for my head. I have put on my helmet already, primed to receive the looming brickbats and cudgels. How could I keep quiet when we import deprecating strange cultures to our land to desecrate our sensibilities? Why should I keep quiet when they ravage the minds of our youth and garnish them with ephemeral stardom, then hang them out there as poster models for celebrity? Big Brother Naija my foot!
Of course, they will accuse me of being old-fashioned; I don’t deny it. And that is because common sense does not age. They will accuse me of being a religious fanatic. Again, yes; because old-time religion is good enough for me. If being reasonable is old-fashioned or fanatic, then I am. If having common sense is to be old-fashioned or fanatic, then I am chief. If bemoaning the plight of our society going down dreg-way, then I proclaim it from mountain top: I’m both old fashioned and fanatic.
It hurts when long lost South Africans come here to recruit our sons and daughters for satan, quarantine them for months, not because of COVID-19 but for something more sinister. And, alas, parents and relations spend sleepless nights, watching the destruction of their sons and daughters, now housemates in the house of sin that satan built. This stinks!
This reality (sorry, fantasy) TV show was supposedly meant to experiment how human beings would relate to one another if isolated for a reasonable length of time, with negligible contact with the outside world. We need no more experiment than the COVID-19 scourge, which brought to the fore a rape pandemic that should attract castration as minimum restraint. And now, we have quarantined some virile youths in unbridled debauchery in the surreal entertainment of the damned, which over the years, has tumbled from hilarity to the outright scandalous.
This unseemly setup has morphed into a citadel of all that the devil represents. It is now nothing but gathering a few seemingly daring youths and inducing them to indulge in brazen immoral acts before an equally tasteless society, and then load whoever emerges winner of this notorious humdrum with cash and other goodies. That is the reason the housemates unabashedly exhibit the most atrocious acts to outdo one another.
It is nothing more than a mere gamblers’ den, depicting nothing but a gathering of, perhaps, easily deluded dumb and dense or harebrained youthful fortune hunters ever ready to trade honour for a few coins, instead of working hard. This is what you get in a country where corruption is a profitable vocation.
Sadly, in Nigeria, one is corrupt only when he is caught stealing from the common till. But what is going on in the BBN house is corruption. It is an offshoot of what is happening around the corridors of power and society where money is lord. So, our youths want to get it anyhow. They have embraced laziness and resorted to gambling with their dignity, if only to get some money and be rated among the nouveau riche.
It is even insulting to Nigeria that South Africa could boldly dump this madcap on the country, rip-off our huge market and then give out miserly prizes, which we lap on and celebrate as a big kill while our broadcast authorities, instead of banning the show, would rather penalise a media outfit for airing an interview the interviewee has not disclaimed or renounced as doctored.
There is the insipid argument that the putrid broadcast is for 18+ viewers and that whoever doesn’t like it should switch channels, and that parents should exercise parental control. However, it does not factor that even at 18+, most young adults are still easily vulnerable. Moreover, they should be in school and beyond parental supervision.
Some even liken the show to Nollywood films, as if anybody is encouraging such nonsense even if on Nollywood. Nonetheless, the Nigerian Film Censors Board has had cause to ban some musical or cinematographic videos before. Why its hands seem tied over the unabashed display of BBN is surprisingly shocking.
It is tactless of the participants in this crazy show to throw away their future for a mere pittance. They have bought the dummy that the show confers stardom status on them. For the discerning, the tag is notoriety, not stardom; who needs a star sinner? I pity the blokes, but particularly the ladies, because, at the end of the day, none of them is fit to be taken home to mama as wife material after being bonked on live television. This is Africa, Nigeria, for that matter, and you know what that means.
In fact, even the idea that opponents of the sordid drama should go float their own shows and promote entrepreneurship, education or other socially relevant endeavours they accuse the show of not promoting validates the view that it offers no real value to society. Of course, this is self-evident; as the promoters only lure our youths astray with tantalising monetary offers, big cars and palatial mansions but rob their brains of every semblance of industry, hard work, vision and uprightness. That is why Yahoo Boys, ritual killers, occultists and gambling joints litter our landscape, trying hard, albeit negatively, to hit it big.
This flagrant display is dangerous for society. It is a pesky, immoral cancer that must be excised before its cells metastasise and consume the land irreparably. Those hailing the participants are not known to have made any attempt to get into the house or encouraged any of their children or relations to try. Rather, they would give the sin house a wide berth while egging other people’s wards on, on the journey to perdition.
A word of caution to my beloved brothers and sisters in the house and those salivating for it; note that whatever is gained is like the devil, giving something with the right hand and taking it back with the left. I believe you have the potential to excel, if you concentrate and allow the satanic wind to blow past you. Regardless of the mess Nigeria is in, if you factor God into your affairs, you can still make it.
Nevertheless, perhaps, this is wakeup call to our government to do something to address the parlous conditions that make our youths desperate. It is certain that, if youths are gainfully engaged, they would never demean themselves by taking part in this public ridicule.
Nigeria is actually in dire need of deliverance from aping whatever fancy the West throws up out there. That is also how some people are now advocating gay rights, which is abominable conduct before God and man. The overly libertine inclination of today’s generation forebodes nothing but disaster. This BBN depravity has no single tangible gain. Rather it has set our youths on a downward slide to moral decay.
It’s quite a pity too that even ‘men of God’ approve of this lecherous drama. Nevertheless, let us pray that, from the pulpit to the pew, from the political soapbox to the ordinary folk, our conscience and our land be cleansed. We need permanent deodorant to drive away the odour of moral putrescence, which is foul and offensively revolting.