Rare drama in BBA Stargame

The biggest reality TV show on African television, Big Brother Africa (BBA, kicked off on May 5 to find the next winner who will walk away with US$300 000 (about K81 million) prize money.

Dubbed Stargame, season seven of the reality series returned on the silver screen with a promise: ‘Double the action, double the drama’. So, this time, contestants from 14 participating countries headed into the Big Brother House in pairs.

This year, Sierra Leone and Liberia made their maiden appearance on the show while Mozambique and Ethiopia’s role will be known as the game progresses. It remains to be seen what new role these two nations will undertake with less than three weeks to go before the grand finale.

However, seven countries were lucky as they had three representatives; a pair residing in the Downville diner and a celebrity in the posh Upville house. Cousins Wati and Nafe Kulemeka were Malawi’s flag carriers. Nafe was evicted after staying in the house for 55 days.

So, when the ads were busy promoting the seventh season of Big Brother now showing on DStv, the organisers were sure to tell us that this year, it would be double the action and double the fun. But they themselves may not have envisioned all the drama the selected 35 housemates would bring to the house. Not only are they widely entertaining, they are also intriguing, conniving, talented and highly emotional.

First off was the Esparanca and Seydou drama. These two Angolans, from the moment they got into the house, had one issue or another with each other. They had come into the house as a pair because of their close friendship. So, one could not fathom why that friendship seemed to fizzle out before the end of their run for the prize money.

By day three, Esparanca had made her intentions known to Big Brother that it was time for her to exit the show. It was only after Big Brother explained the rules to her that her exit would mean the automatic disqualification of her partner, that she decided to hang on for his sake, a decision she would soon go back on.

After a rollercoaster ride on whether to stay or go, Esparanca finally dragged Seydou to the diary room after demanding an audience with Big Brother and told him that for her health’s sake and for her sanity, she could no longer be a part of the game.

This time no amount of pleading or cursing from her partner or fellow housemates could make Esparanca change her mind and that marked the end of the Angolans in the Big Brother game.

Another couple left the house voluntarily during the course of the show which is the Nigerian duo. Nigerians generally had high hopes for the guys since after a mere two weeks in the game, they were already getting a lot of positive buzz from viewers from across the continent and fellow housemates.

Ola was a ladies’ man, who although giant-sized, had a way of melting his way into the hearts of the female folk, while Chris was a man’s man.

The house was visibly thrown off balance when Ola announced to his fellow housemates that he would need to exit the show due to his blood pressure which had shot off the roof and had refused to normalise.

The in-house doctors had explained to Ola that his high blood pressure was life-threatening and he would need to exit the house to get appropriate care and rest.

Of course, this only meant that his partner Chris would need to leave with him in accordance with the rules of the game. It was a sad day in Downville as the Nigerians said their goodbyes, leaving in their wake tears and heartbreaks.

These untimely exists notwithstanding, the drama in the Downville house has, however, been non-existent in comparison to the unending excitement of the Upville ‘celebrity’ house.

From the growing fatal attractions to the down and dirty fights, the house has been steaming with surprises from various housemates, leaving Big Brother with no other option but to disqualify housemates contravening the law.

The first fist fight was between Ghanaian comedian DKB and Sierra Leone’s up and coming model Zainab. After DKB confronted her about waltzing into the bathroom while he was taking a shower, the Sierra-Leonean beauty flared up and began to throw verbal tirades at him. This made DKB slap her.

The two Zimbabwean housemates, Maneta and Roki, had on several occasions been engaged in verbal conflicts and it was ascertained that the two could not stand one another.

They had at times tried to call a truce but their feeble attempts at peace between them always ended up in more disagreements and more threats until they were finally thrown out of the house.