BY Precious Ahante
After 65 gripping days, the Big Brother Africa (BBA) Hotshots finally ended on Sunday with photographer and graphic designer, Idris Sultan from Tanzania, emerging winner of the reality show’s ninth edition.
Idris beat Nigeria’s Tayo to the $300,000 prize money for the winner. Below are five reasons why Tayo failed to claim the grand prize.
At the beginning of the show, in a diary session with Biggie, Tayo made it clear that he was not prepared to cheat on his girl with anyone in the Big Brother house. He said he was happy with his body so he would not want to swap his with anyone.
Tayo paid no attention to the female housemates all through the show. While other housemates were mingling with one another, his best friend was Mozambique’s Trezagah. This was a turn off for most female voters, as they would have loved to see elements of a ‘romantic’ Tayo. To their dismay, all what he cared about was his cigarettes and alcohol.
But young Tanzanian Idris seemed to have employed the strategy of maintaining close relationship with female housemates, evidenced by the love web he was entangled in with Uganda’s Ellah and Botswana’s Goitse. Going with past voting patterns of previous Big Brother Africa shows, one could say the voting audience always seemed to have a thing for “players” and unruly men, and Idris ranked top in this area.
He often displayed superiority in the house.
The first time was when he was in the kitchen and randomly began talking of how everyone in the house was there by default and that he was the only one that was purposed to be there and would eventually walk away with the prize.
Tayo’s second random outburst happened not so long after and it was in the bedroom in the presence of Esther, Mr. 265, Idris, Ellah and Trezagah.
As the housemates went about their business, Tayo went on a rant about how nobody could challenge him and win the battle against him. He said that he came from a people who were hunters and that he would teach ‘them’ how to hunt and kill lions.
He said that people must tremble when he spoke and ordered enemies to come and challenge him, assuring ‘them’ that he would spit fire in attack. His monologue continued on for a while as he again and again told ‘them’ that ‘they’ should go to a high school if they wanted to compete and challenge someone because ‘everyone’ was out of his league. He said that he wouldn’t try to be modest about reality as ‘they’ must know.
On the contrary, Idris showed qualities of always being humble and modest towards his fellow house mates. Even when he had a rift with Butterphly after he called her a drunk, he approached her and apologised just in case she thought he meant otherwise.
Also, in one of his diary sessions as the head of house, Idris begged Africa to save his added house mate Butterphly as he never intended to send her home. He said that his reason for adding the Zimbabwean was not to end her game but for her advantage. He said that Butterphly has been off the nomination radar for a long time and his action will help her gauge her stand with Africa.
When asked by IK how he felt about his decision, Idris said he would not panic, as his reason was genuine and quite understandable. About how he would feel should she be evicted, he said it would be bad for him, as he still wanted her in the house.
Tayo was so egocentric he didn’t miss a chance to remind fellow housemates that he wasn’t on the same level with them.
He always distinguished himself from others as highly important. Even when the exes stepped foot in the Big Brother Hotshots house, Tiny Miss P said that the ex-housemates were the “originals” and wondered what the Hotshots were in this case. This was most probably intended at hurting the unsuspecting Hotshots’ egos.
The dynamics between himself and Uti also seemed to change after the latter alleged that the former was showing Africa that he (Uti) was competition, but Tayo brushed it off saying he wasn’t scared of “old meat”.
However, Idris displayed ethical behaviour by conducting himself properly among the house mates. He kept a healthy relationship with everyone — except for the time he broke a door because Goitse made him angry and when he had an altercation with Tayo.
Tayo called him “a small boy”, claiming to be friends with most of the ladies in the house. Idris simply replied Tayo by telling him to mind his business.
Tayo had several hostile confrontations with Ms. P, Sheilla as well as JJ.
On one occasion Mr.265 and Sheilla were at the dining table busy brainstorming for their fast-approaching presentations while Tayo was at some end of the house singing on top of his voice. Mr.265 implored him to keep it low because he was disturbing them, but Tayo didn’t take it well and everything turned personal with the Nigerian blowing hot.
He started shouting at the top of his voice, telling Mr.265 not to shut him down because he had no right whatsoever and besides they weren’t age mates. Tayo continued venting that if no one liked the way he expressed himself, they should pack out of the house because he had no plans of toning down.
Mr.265 also got pissed off and told him to continue shouting, something that made things worse. JJ tried calming Tayo down but his efforts were futile. M’am and Sipe came around and convinced him to calm down and led him away to the bedroom.
But Idris always kept a smile on his face no matter the situation in the house.
Even when Biggie punished him for getting pissed off with Goitse after she turned down his advances and thus broke a door in contravention of a house rule, he still had a smile.
“For the next 48 hours you’ll be at the beck and call of the head of house and Big Brother. Your activities include cooking, cleaning, fetching, and carrying. Your duties begin immediately, you have to collect all the props and put them in the store room,” stated Big Brother.
Biggie also said that as soon as he heard a whistle from the head of house at the time, JJ, he knew he would have to rush to him and find out what he had to do. As soon as the announcement was made, the housemates found it hilarious and thus made fun of him. The Tanzanian lad did all that he was asked of in good faith, smiling as usual.
Tayo was extremely quarrelsome and fought with virtually all the house mates, even with the eventual winner, Idris.
In another instance, a hearty conversation between Uti, Vimbai, Elikem and Tayo turned sour when the Nigerian model felt offended by the “Originals”.
It all started when he expressed his dissatisfaction at the treatment he had been accorded at various auditions he had attended.
Zimbabwean Television personality Vimbai advised him not to keep up with the attitude but Tayo aggressively shut her down and said it wasn’t an attitude. He talked about a Nigerian soap series “Tinsel” whose auditions he went to and was made to stand in a long queue while having to bear with people stepping on him.
Vimbai and Uti expressed shock at his arrogance and tried advising him, but he was having none of it. Instead, he continued venting at the top of his voice about how disrespectful he had been treated at the various auditions he had gone to this year alone.
The “attitude” bit got to Tayo who shouted at Vimbai and Uti after they continued telling him to tone down; he shouted and charged at them much to their surprise.
When JJ was head of house, Tayo made it clear that he unimpressed by JJ’s leadership skills. “I know what I’m doing. I know what my ‘Medulla Obulongata’ is doing. Everyone knows what they’re doing. I don’t want to run around. It doesn’t mean that when we are sitting here, we are useless. We are getting to know each other. I don’t want anybody to order me around. Are you mad?” he angrily told JJ.
Idris was not left out of Tayo’s ambush of words. He called Idris a small boy, saying that Idris was always with different women most of the time and claiming them as friends.
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