Is Big Brother Naija Losing its Popularity?

Like many people who didn’t care for the reality show and wondered why people were so invested in the lives of a group of people huddled in a house, Ojeleye says she tried muting keywords and hashtags related to the show, but she eventually let up and just paid mild attention to whatever gist popped up on her timeline. The ubiquity of the show badgered her into begrudging acceptance, and she even went on to avidly follow several seasons afterward.

In late July, the ninth season of the show, themed “No Loose Guard” – which can be loosely translated to “staying alert” in Nigerian Pidgin – started off with a unique twist. This year’s housemates came into the house in pairs. There are romantic partners, two sets of twins, best friends, a married couple cosplaying as friends only, a niece and her aunt and more. On paper, the idea of 14 pairs of people in a house might sound intriguing, clearly different from the previous seasons, but it hasn’t exactly delivered the level of excited chatter Big Brother Naija was once consistently known for.

“I honestly cannot pick one thing that has been exciting,” Lagos-based business owner Lit, who preferred to use an abbreviation of her first name for this story, says. Although Lit still posts her thoughts on this year’s show on her X page fairly frequently, she admits that she’s not “actively watching this one like previous ones” because the season has been boring.

While there are multiple moving parts to Big Brother, it’s arguable that what makes the show, as with all reality shows, are the personalities of the housemates and how they commingle within the spontaneous nature of a setting that toggles between scripted and unscripted moments. The drama, conversations, banter, tasks, romantic entanglements, partying, and generally remarkable moments happen because the housemates let the show happen to them.

A common complaint among the three people we talked to for this story is that this year’s housemates seem to be calculating their every move. “All of them are just kinda stiff,” says U.K.-based Kay Kay, who asked to be referred to by her nickname. “It’s like they all planned to come and sell themselves because Big Brother Naija has shown that it can make you big, and some of them are already big on the outside, so this is just another route to more fame. It doesn’t look like it’s mainly about the experience.”

A handful of this year’s housemates already had a significant following before coming on the show – the twin DJ duo Wanni x Handi, and the Mbadiwe Twins, known in nightlife circles. While Big Brother Naija is known for elevating the visibility of winners and contesting housemates, the last few years have seen viewers criticize what they believe to be an emphasis on bringing in individuals who already have a following on social media.

Some viewers have pointed to housemates seemingly hiring handlers and PR firms to run their social media accounts while they’re in the show. That sort of positioning plays into the idea that housemates have become even more calculated with each passing year.

“From the theme of the season being ‘No Loose Guard,’ when other housemates see one person misbehaving, they will tell [them], ‘you don dey lose guard’ (you’re letting your guard down) and that draws [the person] back into themselves,” Lit says. “They don't allow themselves to just be, and then a lot of them are putting up a show. It's obvious because it’s very forceful and very fake.”

Lit adds that this year’s production hasn’t been great, as it’s featured boring tasks that haven’t shown how creative the housemates can be, if they even are at all.

Also, the fatigue with Big Brother Naija has been accumulating over the years, with Ojeleye saying that the show started to lose steam after the sixth season in 2021 couldn’t match the hype of the “Lockdown” season that captivated millions of viewers during the COVID-19 pandemic. “Even last year’s all-stars edition wasn’t a big event,” she says.

In a wider context, the fatigue is now underlined by high inflation and a cost of living crisis in Nigeria. For many, there are more pressing things to deal with than paying any mind to a Big Brother Naija season that failed to turn out any viral moment within its first week. Even if they wanted to, severe fuel scarcity, hikes in transportation fares, and other issues are choking out any attempts at being interested.

“Some of these housemates will be shocked when they come out to hear that fuel is selling for double the price it was when they were going into the house,” Ojeleye says. “Maybe they will even be more shocked when they realize that they didn’t get all that famous, which is not something we usually hear about recent Big Brother housemates.”