PS: This Is Not A Rant


Nigerians are very funny people sha. We can vex on top every mata. The problem is that more often than not, our vex na just empty huffing and puffing on social media, which lack any sort of justification and achieve nothing at the end of the day.

So a few days ago, a picture trended on social media. It was a photo of a UNN best graduating medical student receiving a cash gift worth N10,000. The gift was awarded to her via GTBank dummy cheque.

Trust Nigerians. Plenty people begin vex. Social media went into a frenzy. A Twitter user said, “unthoughtful gifts like this is why students rather engage in social vices than study in school”. Another tweeted: “Chai, I feel like crying and big brother winner went home with 25m for nudity. Isn’t this a clear case of misplaced priority? God help us".

Many called out GTBank for donating ‘only’ N10,000 Naira to an enterprising student who graduated top of her class when winners of reality television, like the just concluded Big Brother Nigeria, walk away with millions of Naira. (Recall that Efe, BBN 2.0’s winner became N25M richer at the end of the competition. Of course that was based on logistics…lol)

Abeg, make dem shift….

Many of those vexing didn’t take the time to look closely at the dummy cheque to see the awarding party. In its response to the controversy, GTBank explained that it didn’t make the cash donation to the student. The University of Nigeria Medical Students Association used their cheque leaflet to create a dummy cheque which it presented to the student. In order words, GTBanks’s only role in the whole brouhaha was that its dummy cheque was presented to the award winner.



Nigerians who complain about the huge cash prizes winners of reality shows like BBN win do not realize they play themselves. FYI, all of you who voted for Efe paid the N25M he won. Viewers are the ones who pay the winners, not the show sponsors. You didn’t know? Wait, how did you think BBN sponsors were able to cough out the N25M to pay Efe? Na so dem generous reach? Na your money na.

Here is an excerpt from an article by www.techpoint.ng:

"At ₦30 per vote, 11 million votes amount to ₦330m in just one week out of the eleven that Big Brother Naija ran for. Usually, telcos take 70% of revenue generated on SMS short code services. That leaves about ₦99m for Multichoice, the organizers".

According to this article, in just 1 week, the prize money for BBN was sorted. It was sorted by viewers, like you, who spent their hard earned money to vote their preferred contestants. I know friends and family who spent hundreds and thousands of Naira weekly on recharge cards just to vote their favorite housemates. I am sure you know those people too. So many of them; including you, are reading this post right now.

The irony of all this is that these same viewers would be reluctant to spend this money on an educational program. Nigerians pretend like they are concerned about the lack of corporate sponsorship for educational programs.

The truth is, they are not. The evidence is seen in the things (shows) Nigerians invest their money on. Cowbell Milk sponsors the Cowbellpedia, a Secondary School Mathematics Quiz Competition. Since that competition started airing, I haven’t seen anyone talk about it on Facebook, at least. The only posts I see are sponsored content by the show organizers. I doubt if it has ever trended. Of course, there was no week Big Brother Nigeria live show did not trend at number 1 in Nigeria.

Late last month, I launched an educational fundraising campaign. That move has again shown that education isn’t really something most of us are willing to put our money on. I have had some people criticize my crowding sourcing strategy, calling it “very flawed”.

At least 5 people have berated me for fundraising for education. They said I should have lied that I had some terminal ill-health as people would have easily donated to that cause. “How you expect say people go give you N10M just to go school? But if you fake a doctor’s report saying that you have one kidney one thing one thing and need to go abroad for treatment, ehen, the money go drop”, one said to me.

I know those people do not mean me harm. What they have said is simply the truth. It’s easier to get a Nigerian to spend N1000 voting for a beauty pageant contestant (to be clear, I have nothing against beauty pageants,) than to get such a person to donate N500 to an educational cause.

Businesses are out to make a profit and will only invest in projects that will make them a huge profit. Want academically gifted Nigerians to get as much money as BBN winners? Invest that money in them. Want to see more educational reality shows on our TVs? Create one, pitch it to sponsors and rally people to invest their money the way in it.

As long as sponsors continue to rake in millions from BBN, Voice Nigeria, Project Fame and other reality shows paid for by you, they will continue to put their money there. It’s called business. Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Disclaimer: this piece is NOT in any way intended to guilt trip anyone into donating to my fund raising campaign. It is just my view on an issue. The timing of this piece is purely coincidental.

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