A couple of months ago, when I had a long conversation with one of my close friends, Big Brother, the global television franchise, he messed around very unconsciously. We had no idea that the fifth season was near the execution stage. We were talking about the COVID-19 forced blockade and how our nation’s worst colors came out, all for the basic reason that emotions and weaknesses couldn’t keep up with normality and had overflowed for the sake of the blockade. .
There is more crime right now with no consequences. Rape is becoming an epidemic. Flipping through the pages of newspapers or spending time in front of the television, you hear all kinds of bloody stories: the story of a 70-year-old man raping a two-year-old boy; parents sleeping with their daughters and, in some cases, impregnating and proposing abortions.
Pray, what kind of headline is it that says: a 70-year-old man rapes a two-year-old boy? There has to be a more ignorable way, some level of infamy and disgrace to capture that bestiality and scum of the elders. How does a two-year-old boy fight to avoid the erotic violence of a degenerate old man? Within the period, the Minister for Women’s Affairs, Ms. Pauline Tallen, revealed that a total of 3,600 cases of rape were reported across the country.
This figure may not include children and children who are also raped. There has to be convenience in the law that protects children and women from these animals on human skin, apologies to Fela, the last defender of afrobeat.
So what was Big Brother doing in a harmless conversation between friends? Our observation that day was that there have always been selective blocks to test the human resistance limit within a period. Big Brother, influenced by George Orwell’s 1984 novel, but who started a new life in the Netherlands in 1997, is paradigmatic of such proven blockades. In the franchised edition of Multichoice, a group of boys and girls are kept in a treated house, with microphones, cameras and all kinds of technological gadgets, for weeks under the close supervision of Big Brother, who always watches over them.
Progressively, the characters under the manipulation and control of the ever-present guardian begin to grow out of themselves, develop traits attributable to the survival of the fittest; there are more betrayals than you see in open society, since everyone has their eyes on the final prize; Morale is low and almost immediately, the flames of love, some very pseudo, begin to fly. All this time, Big Brother is watching you.
This is when we begin to condemn them, for being too weak in their skin and for betraying other human beings. We are more creative in writing to condemn flaws in your character. I did it once, taking one of them to the dry cleaner for going beyond that license of creativity and endurance on live television. I will do it today if that happens again.
My point of interest here is that Big Brother is a microcosm of a closed world; However, the characters on the television show have fared better than Nigerian society, which has witnessed a confinement for a few months and the beast is ruining the lives of the young and embarrassing the elderly. Girls aren’t sure before their parents and toddlers have turned into juicy toads in the toothless mouths of shameless elders. In his infamy, Big Brother waves a standard flag.
These were the thoughts that assailed my mind a few weeks ago, not the intrusion of a minister who is trying to recalibrate our lives by defining for us the meaning of standards on live television.
I am a witness to the fact that every time the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed speaks, there are more likely to be incongruous developments below the expectations of a high-level person in society. Gullibility is more likely to suffer from hyperbole, and good intentions are often clouded by rejection and the profile of jaundice.
Truthfully, I’m not watching Big Brother, season five right now. At my age, more things occupy the mind; there are more demands, and society expects some level of studied intervention from my generation on issues that affect growth and development, and such demands do not take into account frivolities and banalities.
However, I feel translated by the actions of a minister whose meddling in regulatory matters will throw mud on the face of a nation that is already swimming in the mud. I’ve been close enough to the broadcast to understand that Big Brother can’t leave pandemic season without taking the necessary precautions. I am fortunate to always have a privileged relationship with the top layer of regulatory authority since 1992, when transmission liberalization began in Nigeria, to learn about the Big Brother story and the regulator’s efforts over time to humanize and tame the program in Nigeria. Is it already perfect? Not all.
I would like to observe that in a regulated industry, the government must have a frontal relationship with the operators through the regulator, but not threatening it to make a regulatory intervention on issues such as scheduling, but must ensure that the regulator submits all its actions. to the laws. off the ground before making any decisions.
My hackneyed position on this matter is that when a minister stomps on the industry, threatening fire and brimstone and throwing away its ephemeral ministerial weight, they are engaging in actions that invalidate our nation by telling the world that we are a country that harbors disrespect for modern laws. They damage our qualification and attenuate our humanity.
I’ve seen some sort of flashback from the show’s owners detailing how much they spend on Big Brother, season 5, though you can’t directly pinpoint who’s speaking within the organization. And I feel sorry for them; The reason is that at this moment, misfortune seems to be pouring out on them. Recently a Transmission Code has been published that threatens its dominance in the market, both the House of Representatives and the Ministry are pressing the pay television operator to incorporate the pay-as-you-go subscription model, and now this: the big picture big brother.
Multichoice says he is spending around N2bn to put together Big Brother season five. To be fair, this is not what tickles me. Rather, it pains me that this figure is lost in some people because we are a nation that is moving away from reality; a people for whom statistics have little relevance. In the same way that you would see the great churches in Nigeria, for example, Redeem, Live Faith or Dunamis, among others, putting together programs, people are jumping to the side without looking at how they affect their immediate communities or economy.
I once arrived in Lagos at 8pm one night two years ago and there was an ongoing church program. My hotel reservation was a helpless victim and I couldn’t get a hotel room in Ikeja until 1:00 in the morning. I wasn’t mad. I was wondering, is anyone taking records of all this?
Still in Big Brother, some people will say, there have always been protests about content around the world. Oh, you’re right, very well. At the beginning of Big Brother’s life, all of Europe worried about this and looked for ways to avoid the impact of a program that was spreading worldwide. When Germany released its version in 2000, the country’s interior minister Otto Schily has recorded that he has called on “viewers to boycott the program if they still appreciate the sentiment for human dignity.”
Since then life has progressed. The technology has progressed even further, in fact, so exponentially that you can choose what you see despite Big Brother’s ubiquitous presence. You can freeze Big Brother off your screen just by touching the TV or the DSTV remote. This choice should be left to the subscriber and not the puritanical presence of a man who knows what everyone wants.
