By Charles Okogene
My love for Big Brother Naija as a TV programme dates back to 2006; 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 programme, which I doubt he would have been making as a baby lawyer by now. Anyway let us reserve that for another day.
Back to why I like the programme. That year at the beginning of the programme, though, in Nigeria; 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 Copyrights Society of Nigeria, COSON, who popularise 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 initial my initial protest, my good pal Jude Chiedozie Nwauzor, encouraged me to try my hand on it and quit murmuring; based on that, I Iset out early on the assignment. And a month later, I lost count of how many newspapers that joined the daily monitoring of the going down in the Big Brother house even though some Nigerians like my good Emeka Alex Duru, who are holier than thou, are not tired of raising their red flags against the show that has made many Nigeria ‘lazy’ youths’ multi-millionaires.
I took up the challenge, did the assignment to the satisfaction of those that sent me, that DStv supplied me so much of the Big Brother memorabilia to give out to my readers who answered, correctly, the quiz I set for them.
That done and dusted with Katungu whose father was 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 and collect the sum of N15, 00o as cash reward for a coverage well done.
Before the Nigerian edition, I had been sponsored to South Africa by Multichoice Nigeria, 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 Emeka Alex Duru, Otunba Segun Ogunbunmi, Bamidele Temitope Johnson, Edward Dibiana and Co., will know where and how my love for Big Brother started.
