Why Kyle and Jannette are Uganda's best so far

Behold, folks! As you read this, one of Uganda’s Big Brother StarGame contestants, Urban TV’s Kyle Duncan Kushaba, is bracing himself to walk off this Sunday evening with the hit reality TV show’s staked jackpot of $300,000 (sh750m). 

 

Well, it’s not already cast in stone, but if the past voting patterns are anything to go by, then the 25-year-old son of a reverend might just make a first for Uganda in the history of Big Brother Africa’s seven seasons. 

 

Already, Kyle has come to a level in the game only reached by just two of Uganda’s past seven contestants – Gaetano Juuko Kaggwa from Season One and Sharon Salmon from Season Six. But even then, it’s only the first time Uganda is getting the feeling that their contestant has a real chance at bringing home the jackpot. In the previous three times Kyle has been saved from eviction, he has had the highest country votes and unparalleled margins in two of them. 

 

Kyle’s StarGame partner, the feisty Jannette Georgina Lutaaya, left the show only last Sunday, just seven days to its finale, a level only reached previously by Maureen Namatovu from Season Two in 2007. Was Jannette a weak contestant? Definitely not. On the contrary, Jannette was arguably the most entertaining and evasive contestant on the show, seeing as she had never been nominated for possible eviction until the week preceding her eviction. 

 

But since her first time on the guillotine had her on with her countrymate Kyle, voters had to choose who to save of the two. Naturally, they had to save Kyle, who had tested the waters twice before and survived on both occasions, instead of Jannette, whose survival chances they were not sure of. Had she been the only Ugandan on the list, she would definitely have been saved landslide style. 

 

Nonetheless, it takes no rocket scientist to select this season as one of Uganda’s best stubs at the dime, with records set here and there. We are talking records like Jannette and Kyle being the last surviving couple on the show after all the other 13 couples had either been broken in half or evicted as a whole, among other records. 

 

What exactly happened right in the corner of these initially underdog contestants that eventually turned them into real contenders for the jackpot? Nothing extraordinary that wasn’t their playing the game. Knowing Kyle and Jannette on a more personal level than the chap watching them on TV, I knew the judges could not have made a better choice. 

 

This game, contrary to popular belief, is not about being some loud chap with songs to prove it, and is definitely not about how well-endowed one is via physique. 

 

Clearly, Kyle and Jannette, despite being so young, ended up beating a slew of celebrities via amassing a little bit everything – a bit of noise, a bit of an acting streak, some general knowledge of stuff in the world, socialisation skills and of course, some brains. 

And now they are celebrities too. Partly, we have the random nomination machine to thank, for it didn’t pick their ball, thereby taking them further into the game for more than a month, without them having to do anything special.

 

But clearly, the same forces acted for every other couple. As in, every couple had the same chances of their ball getting picked or not picked. Those who lost; sorry. As for Kyle and Jannette, they gained. There had to be a drastic way of cutting down the 35 contestants that graced the show. Gamblers would understand this random nomination thing better. 

 

And so, with the numbers cut down both in Upville and Downville (thanks in part to the voluntary exit by Nigeria’s Ola and Chris; Angola’s Seydou and Esperanca; plus, of course, the disqualification of Siera Leone’s Zainab, Ghana’s DKB, and Zimbabwe’s Maneta and Roki), there were few housemates left for viewers to pay attention to. Just like that, our contestants, who had been suffocating in the crowd, became favourites. 

 

Kyle, after graduating from a swearing crisis, became the poster boy of level-headedness, sanity, decency, and on many occasions the voice of reason, especially when it came to advising his StarGame partner Jannette and his diary room sessions. His good general knowledge, especially when it came to pop culture, always came in handy. 

 

Jannette became the entertainer of the house, her professional dance skills and mastery of music lyrics and the entertainment industry unparalleled; her flirting with the boys a perfected game that kept the girls interested in those boys on tenterhooks. 

 

Plus, she had her moments of vulnerability, especially when drunk. Sometimes she smiled and laughed all the way, other times she cried when attacked by forces beyond her comprehension. She brought to the house that girl coming from a real place – no pretence, no sugar-coating things.

 

I remember a time when Biggie asked her what she would change if she had the powers to. “I would get my parents back together,” she told Biggie, adding that their separation has hurt her for a long time. Then we had text messages speculating that it’s probably that separation that traumatised her so much that she dropped out of school in Senior Five, resorting to drinking a lot like she has done in the house. Who knows?

 

Her dropping out of school became an issue of interest to housemates and viewers alike. In all this, we saw a real person coming from a real place, with things bothering her just like all of us. Basically, she didn’t hold back, she gave us her all. Which is why she was arguably the most entertaining housemate. And even though she didn’t win the money, Kyle just might win it for her, after all, they promised to share it.