On the Big Brother Naija live eviction show Sunday, Big Brother made a move to have just five finalists make it to the finale week of the Shine Ya Eyes season. Of the nine housemates remaining, and the six housemates up, he evicted three leaving six. However, in an attempt to make things a bit more interesting, Big Brother made the obvious blunder of fake evicting two of the nominated housemates, Angel and Pere.

This twist would have not been as bad as it turned out if the circumstances surrounding the voting polls was different. Big Brother decided that it would be interesting if he had two of the nominated housemates fight for the last spot in the top five. His idea was a game of trucks to decide who stays and who goes.

Naturally, this would have made for good TV, except that when the voting poll was revealed, it showed that Pere’s fans far outvoted Angel’s, which raised the question of how relevant or irrelevant are the fan votes.

Following an online outrage that quickly turned to a physical protest, Big Brother decided to correct his mistake with a rather fair compromise. He decided to make the finale a top 6 rather than a top five, which meant that the performance of Pere and Angel in the game of trucks don’t matter, they both make it to the final week.

This was a rather savvy compromise by Big Brother as no result from the game of trucks would have salvaged the situation. If Pere lost, it goes without saying that fan outrage may get to the point of boycotting. And if Angel loses, there would still be that lingering annoyance of having Pere participate in a game of chance, when he clearly doesn’t deserve to.

Chinedu Okafor

For Chinedu Okafor, its all about making an impact with words,  creating a profound impression on the audience with the intended narrative.