We all watched the Underdog story yesterday. Trust that we were just as shocked as you when Boss Nation released a video detailing TBoss’ journey on the show with emotive text that ended with gratitude to voters. Nice play!

But how can we tell the Big Brother Naija underdog story without talking about Debie-Rise?! Just how can we forget the character that perfects that underdog narrative.

Really, think about it. It’s nowhere near absurd to say that Debie-Rise is the actual underdog and not even TBoss. Debie-Rise is the housemate that set herself up for failure and maybe even hate the moment she walked fell through the house door and almost everything she’s done since that day have had rolling our eyes.

Since she seemed like the type to put up acts, Biggie made her act the joker in her first week. It became her daily task to entertain the housemates and she had to wear that hideous costume the whole week. See, we could bet she would not last another week in the house but week in, week out she shocked us with her fighting power. For a long time, we wondered what the attraction was. Beyond her music renditions and ridiculous dance moves, Debie-Rise was just another housemate that apparently had no place in the finals, or so we thought.

When Debie-Rise managed to stir conversations, it was either because she was been bullied by the other housemates or she was wearing one of those unattractive outfits she got from PayPorte (she got the worst ones). Apart from her thirst for Bassey’s attention and her lopsided friendship with TBoss, Debie-Rise has nothing going on for her in the house. The popular opinion about her up until the point where she passed the “y’all better be afraid of me” message across was that Debie-Rise is feeble, servile and eager to please.

The narrative changed when for three weeks in a row, she was nominated alongside housemates we adjudged strong and each week, she soared above the others with her votes. Then the question arose. Who are Debie-Rise’s voters? Till date, we cannot answer this question with certainty but one thing we know for sure is, they are not on social media. True that we’ve seen a few tweets sounding off allegiance to Debie but they are not loud enough. They don’t make Twitter noise, there’s no visible movement but they’re lurking somewhere moving mountains.

And this is why we’re reiterating the fact that you all, we all need to be afraid, very afraid of Debie-Rise. Take the recent voting percentages for example:

Debie-Rise’ ghost voters came through for her and we see them coming out with full force again this final week. With these ones, “ariwo ko ni music” and that’s very alright, a low-key winning strategy always works.

Tolu

Your pop culture/entertainment go-to. Music head. Wallflower. I do not like to write. On a mission to decipher covfefe.