By Charles Okogene
My love for Big Brother as a programme dates back to 2010; the year of the first edition of the Nigerian version of the TV content, which was won by Katung.
It was also the programme that made Ebuka, the celebrity he is today with the mega bucks he gets from every of his television programmes, which I doubt, he would have been making as a baby lawyer. Anyway let us reserve that for another day.
Back to why I like the programme. That year at the start of the programme, my then managing director at the Independent Newspapers, Ted Iwere, had instructed the then editor of Saturday Independent newspaper who is now the Information Commissioner of Osun State , Mrs. Funke Egbemode, to direct me to cover the programme minute by minute, day by day (in short wall to wall apologises to Chief Tony Okoroji of CONSON who popularize the word).
I must also not forget the speed of lighting at, which my then editor, Ikechukwu Amaechi, now the managing director of TheNiche Newspapers, allocated a page to me to express myself.
After what looked like initial protest, my good pal Jude Chiedozie Nwauzor, ( now of AMCON), encouraged me to try my hands on the tall order and quit murmuring, I set out early on the assignment. And a month later, I lost count of how newspapers that joined the daily monitoring of the going down in the Big Brother house even though some Nigerians like my good friend, Nze Emeka Alex Duru, who are holier than thou, are not tired of raising their red flags against the show that has made many Nigerian ‘lazy’ youths’ multi-millionaires. If in doubt ask Lycon, the winner of last edition.
I took up the challenge, did the assignment so well that DStv supplied me much of the Big Brother memorabilia to ‘ do’ give away to my readers who answered correctly, the quiz I set for them.
That done and dusted with Katung whose father was then part of the media crew of former President Goodluck Jonathan government, declared the winner.
In appreciation of what it called a job well done, Iwere instructed the then INL human resources manager, to issue me a letter of commendation and days after the accountant of INL Mr. Eugene Onyegi, followed it up with a memo inviting me to come forward to collect the sum of N15, 000 as cash reward for a job well done.
Before then, I had flew to South Africa on the wings of Big Brother Africa to cover the final edition of BBA in 2008. For the five days I spent in Madiba’s country, I was accommodated in a hotel in Sadition area of SA, opposite the very popular Madela Square. It afforded me the opportunity of exploring the square, ate fish at a popular fish market inside the square, visited some nightclubs in SA that had some loud Nigerians, mainly of Igbo extraction, as security men . After the SA trip, Multichoice Nigeria, through my good friend, Segun Fayose, rewarded me with $1000 Cash, free decoder that came with a one year subscription.
I have taken my time to narrate the above so that people like my good friends Emeka Alex Duru, Otunba Segun Ogunbunmi, Nze Bamidele Temitope Johnson, Edward Dibiana, Otitochukwu Iwuala alias nwa boi, can know how, where my love for Big Brother started.
