Few days ago, BBNaija’s former housemate, Rebecca Hampson otherwise known as Nengi, got a surprise 23rd birthday gift from her fans. It was a Range Rover SUV worth about N9 million.
As seen in a video that captured the gift presentation where she moved about excitedly in appreciation of the show of love by her Royal Ninja, as her fans call themselves, the car already has a customised plate number, Nengi Pengi.
With the gift, the BBNaija Lockdown housemate joined the list stars of the show who have been gifted with cars on their birthdays and other special occasions.
Other Past BBNaija Beneficiaries
Amongst Nigerian reality TV stars on the list is Dorathy Bachor, also a Lockdown housemate. It would be recalled that when she turned 25 last November, her fans surprised her with a 2016 Mercedes Benz CLA 250 valued at N11 million.
A few days after Dorathy’s birthday, Olamilekan Agbeleshe popularly known as Laycon, who won the last edition of the reality TV show, celebrated his birthday. His fans who are referred to as Icons surprised him with a 2015 Mercedes Benz E350, which was reportedly worth N12 million.
Also, on this list is Tacha, a season four housemate of BBNaija, who is also referred to as Port Harcourt First Daughter. Tacha, whose full name is Anita Natacha Akide got a Mercedes Benz gift from her fans when she celebrated her 24th birthday anniversary in 2019.
Prior to Tacha’s birthday, Oluwabamike Olawunmi also known as BamBam, a 2018 participant, got a Honda Crosstour from her fans when she turned 30 in 2019.
From Khloe to Princess and Nina, housemates of the BBNaija reality TV show have all gotten car gifts after their exit from the programme, which holds yearly.
However, like BBNaija’s former housemate, Dee-One, a Double Wahala housemate, who in 2019, expressed skepticism over the gifts from fans to his colleagues, many Nigerians are of the opinion that the fans who are often credited for such luxurious donations are fabrications usually staged for promotional purposes.
eelive.ng investigations during the week,however revealed that fans really put money and other resources together to make their favourite BBNaija stars happy.
How the Big Brother fans converge
Fans who spoke to eelive.ng explained that they met their collaborators on social media. While explaining that they start their movements on social media before the commencement of the show editions, they revealed that social media serves as the forum where deliberations hold on how to endear their BBNaija favourites to the public.
According to Josephine Emmanuels, a beauty exper and fan of the show: “Usually before they start the reality show, housemates would have informed their friends and families. For instance, if I’m going for the show, I will tell like five people who have their own chains of friends. These people that I’ve informed about my intention to go for the show, will add themselves to a social media group, and they will also add their chain of friends to the group. From a friend to a friend, that’s how the chain grows. Having created the social media group, immediately housemates are being introduced to viewers, we start sharing the group links to their fans to join. With that, you will see that the fan base is expanding.”
Priceless, a Lagos based events planner also offered that fans’ donations to BBNaija stars are genuine. She explained that fans meet on social media and advance their course from there. “As someone who has participated in these contributions, I can tell you that social media is where we all met and know each other. WhatsApp groups are formed from the beginning of the show, which makes it very easy to coordinate. There are some of us who connect with the family of the housemates through social media, and from there, we become close-trusted allies,” she informed.
An account manager with a Lagos based marketing communications firm, which has worked with the reality show for years, confirmed that fans actually give their stars gifts. The personnel who requested to remain anonymous explained that people genuinely love the BBNaija stars, such that they would commit their resources to anything that boosts their personalities and ego. His words: “From what I’ve come to realise, these fans are real. They meet themselves on social media, and from there, they planning to help the housemates that they like. These people would shoulder themselves with the responsibility of portraying their favourites as the ones leading the Big Brother park by all means. They are very intentional, and interestingly, the stars don’t take them for granted.”
eelive.ng attempted to reach out to some of the past beneficiaries of this largesse without success. Calls and messages put across to Nengi’s manager were not returned. Efforts were also made to reach the management of Tacha, Dorathy ,Tobi Bakre and Uriel Oputa without response as at press time.
How the donations are coordinated and made
eelive.ng learnt that in most cases, the donations are coordinated by family members and close allies of the BBNaija stars.
Emmanuels elucidated as follows: “the group admins are mostly family members and close friends of the reality stars. The housemates pull a lot of crowds when it comes to fans and as funny as it may sound, they are very toxic. Some fans also help in this aspect because of their expertise in influencing people. They can influence people’s interest in a course, you can also refer to them as social media influencers.”
“I have been in a WhatsApp group with about 200 people. And at that time, we raised N1 million for a housemate. We have a fan base that only one person can raise N5 million, N1 million, N500,000, and so on. The contribution I made was during Tobi Bakre’s time, I made a lot of contributions then anytime Tobi was up. I remember how I was always sending N50,000 even after he was evicted. At that time, we even went as far as raising N10 million for him…” she added.
Babatunde also claimed to have been part of the fans who met each other on social media and contributed for the N11 million Mercedes Benz gift for Dorathy. . She said: I remember making donations alongside some fans I met on social media. While I contributed to Tobi’s drone, which we believed will help his passion for photography, I also committed my money to help Dorathy’s car gift purchase.“
What do the Big Brother Fans Gain?
The question then arises as to what is in it for the fans who go all the way to contribute to the housemates of reality shows. This question becomes more pertinent one considers the level of poverty in the country as against the fact that most of these housemates come out of the show with several doors of opportunity opening for them. Those who spoke to eelive.ng explain that there is nothing beyond the joy of “contributing to the success of the stars that we love. It is not much different from not having so much money on me but going to watch Funke Akindele’s film just because I want to support her. Personally, I derive a lot of satisfaction seeing that stars that give me joy are doing well. And I think that is it for most of us…” one of our respondents concluded.