by Tosin Ayo

Since the ongoing debate about the intellectual lessons derivable from the otherwise aimless show allegedly poised to celebrate nudity, obscenity and immorality on TV, I have been sharing nuggets on the positive lessons I gleaned from my little time of watching the reality show and I present them to you my dear friends seriatim.

1. That you were nice to a friend does not mean the friend will return the favour. That you don’t eat lions doesn’t mean lions won’t eat you when the opportunity presents itself. When Efe was Head of house with powers to substitute a nominated housemate, he substituted ThintallTony, TTT for Gifty who was put up for nomination by substitution, just this week, the same Efe, TTT’s life saver and pal was nominated by TTT for nomination. Before you make someone your friend, ask If you are the friend of your friend. It’s a game you would say? Isn’t Betrayal part of the game of life?

2. People will forget all the numerous good you did and only remember the little bad you did by mistake in the interregnum and use it to deal with you in a fist of fury. Tboss was practically inseparable from Miyonse and they lived and slept on the same bed with Miyonse always looking out for her, a little quarrel ensued, guess who nominated Miyonse for eviction, Tboss. And No, the crocodile tears on the realisation of the manifestation of her plotted malicious evil counts for nothing. Don’t ever stay distracted because of a beautiful woman. Put your eyes on the goal, even women love men who can score goals.

3. Gifty and Soma were an item. They were almost inseparable. They shared kisses, romping, groping and finger-travels under the sheets, at Soma’s exit, Gifty moved on with everyone including the thick-lipped Kemen as beneficiary of her free lips and vacant body. The world always moves on, do not die. Avoid life eviction. When you leave the stage, someone unfit will inherit your Gifty.

4. Miyonse was the unelected chef in the House. He saw himself as invaluable to the culinary survival of the house, but that strategy failed on arrival. No one is indispensable. He was evicted the second week and the housemates haven’t gone hungry till date. God is yet to create a chore only you can execute. If you leave, others will perform your duties If not more effectively. Thou were only chosen by privilege, the Kingdom of God shouldn’t even be for the leprous gentiles.

5. People will deny their very existence, marriage, identity, family, wife, children and origin for pecuniary and flesh benefits. It’s all about the Benjamins. Lie is second nature to the desperate man. Twenty five million Naira is more important and valuable than some people’s marriage and relationships. There is hardly no Nigerian love twenty five million Naira cannot defile and destroy. How deep is your love? Are you truly married? Did someone say ‘By the grace of God?’

6. Sometimes, we can be genuinely ignorant and passionately stupid because of our genuine ignorance. So many people misbehave because they are not imbued with the requisite knowledge of the very shame they shamelessly participate in. In any case, the visitor is only but a blind guest. If Bisola knew about TTT’s wife and kids, she most likely would never have openly invested emotions, heading and shameless romance on him that much on National Television.

7. We all have very dark secrets. No one wants their dark sides out there in the open. The one with our secret has the capacity to control and manipulate us. There is a reason they are called secrets, we all want them hidden desperately and would not mind devouring the plate of disgust, sleeping with the whore of debauchery and openly accepting the denigration of manipulation and molestation to avoid the unraveling of scandal. To keep our darkest secrets, we would not mind to sumptuously lick the plate of shame like TTT or teary eyedly ingesting the meal of shit like Tboss.

8. Not everyone on your journey is going your direction. Don’t ever live your life in comparison- that is exactly how to steal your joy, stultify your fulfilment and cut short your dreams. I remember how a friend back then in the University always followed his classmate and acquaintance to drink and womanize without knowing that the ‘classmate’ wasn’t a legitimate student. Expectedly, he failed and got withdrawn with a friend who was never a student.

Not everyone in your class is a student, some are just whiling away their time. When you refuse to study because your friend in the same course is not studying, who told you he has plans to graduate? Not every housemate is real. You might be classmates, you are neither grace mates nor destiny mates. Many life commuters are going nowhere fast. Hating on a Jon and an Efe who are not real housemates or playing for the money is both futile and counterproductive. You are not in competition with the one who is not competing against you. I giggled as I watched Debby-Rise waste her nomination slots on Ese and Jon who are not in the contest in the first place.

9. People might not talk, but they are watching. The megapixel of the camera lens of your neighbours and friends is 15,000 MGP. There might be 29 cameras in the Big Brother Naija house, there are over 6billion cameras in the real world watching you. The eye of the world is on you. Watch your steps.

10. The opportunity to be on TV for close to three months is an audition for greatness. You either bungle it or buy into it. If you have no real talent, no matter how long you are in the spotlight, there is nothing to showcase. Beyond the prize money, the entertainment value and the tolerant ability to live with others, what you make out of the exposure after the show is entirely up to you. Big Brother Naija is a platform, it is not a passport. It is a visa, you require real talent, effort and consistent post-show hard work to purchase the ticket. Life itself is a game, play to win…

Do you agree?