I know Buhari’s “lazy” youths

I’m going to share a staggering number with you: 30 million.  First, however, the background.  Sonala Olumhense wrote another interesting column last Sunday in which he questioned exactly how many youths Buhari called lazy. President Buhari had said in England: “More than 60 per cent of the population is below 30, a lot of them […]

I’m going to share a staggering number with you: 30 million.  First, however, the background. 

Sonala Olumhense wrote another interesting column last Sunday in which he questioned exactly how many youths Buhari called lazy.

President Buhari had said in England: “More than 60 per cent of the population is below 30, a lot of them haven’t been to school and they are claiming that Nigeria is an oil producing country, therefore, they should sit and do nothing, and get housing, healthcare, education free.”

Mr. Olumhense then wondered how many people Mr. President owed an apology:  “By his own account, Nigeria’s population is at least 180m, of which 60 per cent is under 30 years of age.  Sixty per cent of 180 is 108, meaning that he was speaking about 108 million people.  Somebody seems to be saying that if you dismiss “a lot” out of 108m, you are not insulting many.

“The question, is: what part of 180m young Nigerians is statistically significant enough for the leader of Nigeria to insult abroad but not at home?  Eighty per cent?  Sixty?  Keep in mind that 50 per cent of that 108 would be 54m.  Could 54m have been what drove Mr. Buhari to make his strange pronouncement abroad?  Or perhaps, going by Mr. Adesina’s advocacy, his principal was only focusing on a “much smaller number,” such as five or 10 per cent?  Still, those would be 4.5 or nine million people.”

Mr. Olumhense, I have found the answer. It is 30 million.

The same day Daily Trust published Solana Olumhense’s column on its back page, Big Brother Naija TV show ended its third season in which Miracle, a young man, won the 25 million naira prize money.

Big Brother, in case you didn’t know, is a reality TV show which recruits young people (20 of them) and put them in one house – and a Big Brother watches them to see what will happen.

 This is what happens: they fight, they gossip, they eat, they scheme and they fornicate.

It’s a sick social experiment – and a meaningless one; because it’s based on nothing. At least in football or other sports you can tell who is likely to be a champion – regardless of their personal failings. Because there is an agreed upon set of rules. Upon which players build strategies and play matches.

But what is the rule of Big Brother? What strategies can you use to win it? No one knows!

A young man wanted to use comedy as a strategy. He was evicted the first week!

Also, many thought that in terms of gender balancing a woman would win this year – because a woman hasn’t won. That did not happen this year either. Therefore, there is no discernible strategy.

So what is the point of Big Brother?  Could it be money?  Specifically: money from lazy youths? You see, viewers have the ‘power’ to vote to eliminate contestants. However, each vote will cost a viewer N30.  That is after paying for their DSTV subscription – so they are paying twice.  On the last day of the show, we were told that Big Brother received 170 million votes during the season.

Someone from one of our online forums did the calculation:  “At N30 per SMS multiplied 170m votes = N510 million.  I think they give the winner N25 million naira.”

But that calculation was wrong. In fact, Premium Times reported that the show might have earned up to 5 billion naira.

The final week of the show alone received 30 million votes.  These 30 million people (although some voted more than once) are those who “sit and do nothing.”  

I concede that it’s dangerous to generalize, because I have some friends who are hardworking but follow the show, they are the ones who have explained it to me over the years.  Yet, these friends don’t watch it the way others dedicate their time to the show.  They click on the show to update themselves on what’s happening then click back to the news or other programs.  Also, I don’t have a single friend who will pay N30 to vote Big Brother contestants.  Indeed, there’s a message trending on social media which stated that  even America’s Got Talent in the U.S. didn’t receive that number of votes.  And the United States has at least 100 million people more than Nigeria.

For someone who doesn’t sit around and do nothing, it’s difficult to find hours dedicated to watch people who sit around and do nothing. For instance, I love watching comedies, but it’s difficult for me to find 30 minutes in a day to watch one episode.

Finally, are there any lessons to learn from the show? None! Actually, the intelligent housemates, from whom viewers may learn, are usually evicted first because the other housemates think them a threat. Therefore, they nominate them for eviction.  

Indeed one of the housemates with the weakest of characters who was cantankerous and a gossip to boot made it to the last day.

Asked why she never took responsibility and blamed others   for problems. She said it is easier that way. “Why should I blame myself when things go wrong? That’s hard,” she said.

Lesson: Do not take responsibility and you can win it.

One of the consultants, Alex, said to another: “I will start beating you from here to… in fact we can’t even enter the same airplane.”

Lesson: fight

I can find only one benefit of BBNaija other than the pecuniary compensations of the producers. 

During economic difficulties, the Roman leaders organized huge games in their stadia for the common people to distract them from their troubles and to prevent their despair turning into a revolt against the leaders.  This is what BBNaija is unwittingly   doing for the Nigerian government.  

I concede that shows like this do not happen only in Nigeria. Reality TV has become a global phenomenon where unnecessarily impractical shows are beamed to viewers. But people in those constituencies already have what to eat, where to live and basic infrastructure like electricity – unlike us who are rooted to Maslow’s basement. 

Yes, we have “a lot” of Nigerians who sit and do nothing – at least we can find 30 million of them.