Big Brother Naija: Of crying and quarrelling housemates

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My first encounter with Nigerians was through the music of the late Fela Anikulapo Kuti. A special favourite of mine is the song Shakara, in which Fela decries the world of pretence that many Nigerians live in. In what we considered very funny English, he sings of a Shakara man who swears he is going to beat somebody so badly they ‘… be like you get accident’. That used to crack us up big time, and it still does.

But I had never actually met a Nigerian Shakara man, till last week in the Big Brother Naija 10/10 show. Kuture, all big and bad of him, took issues about a missing lighter. And in an instant, threatened to do all kind of things bad things to fellow housemate Faith (but, how is a guy named faith? These Nigerians, also). It was funny, because he would wait till another housemate as between them and then resume threatening thunder and lightning on Faith’s head.

Would he actually have done it? No idea, but Big Brother took a dim view of his shakara antics and gave him a final warning. Any more shakara madness and he was out. That was probably the most interesting bit about last week, with Zita also threatening to beat another female housemate. But it wasn’t to her face, so she got away with it.

It might be taken as a sexist thing to say, but it is generally accepted that women tend to quarrel a lot more than men. But in the BB Naija house his year, the men are quarrelling over every little thing. Any disagreement quickly turns into a quarrel, complete with comments on the other guy’s anatomy, or lack of it. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

And when they are not quarrelling, they are crying. This new breed of Nigerian men is ‘weaky’, as they themselves put it. Diary Room sessions are all soapy with crying men who can’t deal with the pressure of being shut up in a house with 20 other go getters.

Last Sunday, two more housemates, Otega and Kayikunmi, got evicted, and still, we had not seen much of them. We had seen a bit of Kayikunmi when Isabella was breastfeeding him in a short-lived ‘ship’, but who was Otega? Glad he left, already.

In other news, I’m beginning to like Sultana. Of all the housemates, she does not seem to be trying too hard to either be in a relationship or get noticed. She’s just playing it as it comes. Don’t be surprised when she is still standing when all the loudmouths have left.

But Ivatar is something of a disappointment, with all her tattooed body. She came in the house all sassy and determined to shake things up, but that has largely disappeared. And when we saw her, she was crying. Sure, can’t trust these folks.