Hauwa Gambo: The temptations of Big Brother’s Sister Beverly

 And wait a bloody minute, Beverly has disgraced Nigeria? The same country whose Senators this week agreed it is perfectly normal for an adult male to have séx with a 5-year-old, as long as she is called his wife?

There are a few things that confound one about the world, and here is one of them – when one hears about a reality television show where the cast is supposed to present behaviours that are normal to everyday human beings – putting on display for the world to see, the péculiarities of every day human behavior, what should one expect from such a show?

I have an answer: How about one should expect behaviours that are normal to everyday human beings?

Imagine my irritation therefore with the predictable fingér-pointing – all puns duly intended – that followed the release of a now viral video showing Nigerian contestant in the Big Brother Africa house Beverly Osu having some form of séxual congress with Angelo, the housemate from South Africa.

It’s a bit confusing – what exactly did this young woman do wrong? She had ‘séx’. Okay, she didn’t have séx. She kissed and had her privates touched by a South African male.

But I thought that, as per statistics from everyone – the United Nations’ agencies, the Africa Union, the Society for Family Health, Action Health Incorporated, USAID, PEPFAR, Gallup and every other organization that tracks the séxual behaviour of young people across the world – it has been concluded that Nigeria and Pakistan, two of the planet’s most anti-gay countries, top the list of countries where gay terms are most searched globally. That young people around the age of Beverly, the world over (and I might add, even in religious countries, where, according to yet another research) are séxuality active, many going even further than Ms. Osu who stood up and left when the handshake was reaching the elbow.

So, why are people making noise?

Some have said hypocrisy. But one doubts that hypocrisy is the propelling factor for the mass hysteria that has pushed some to call for her removal from the house for, amongst other inanities, ‘disgracing Nigeria’. It looks more like an inability to think.

How does a young woman having séx on camera disgrace Nigeria? Does it make the world suddenly think that all of us are raging nymphoniacs ready to hop on, er, a fingér, once a dread-locked guy approaches? Does it make the world believe that Nigeria is a place where young people everywhere put up cameras in their rooms and begin to have séx?

Or maybe the world was of the opinion that Nigeria – the Nigeria of Cossy Orjiakor, Afrocandy, Ahmed Yerima, ‘the koko’, Fela’s dancers, and other assorted personals – was a morally upright nation and this opinion has suddenly changed because they beheld a young 20-something year old having ‘séx’ and have now consigned us to the hell fire of séxual offénders?

If a young woman is assumed – at least as far as the statistics show – to have an active séxual life in this part of the world, why is it suddenly the source of such shock across social media for a young woman to do that when she is stuck in a house for 3 months? She is allowed to eat, to bathe, to smile, to kiss, to hug, to laugh, to get upset, to sleep – but have séx, a perfectly normal, human function, and she is suddenly scum of the earth?

No, it’s not hypocrisy. It’s a failure to think – and then a propensity to pontificate loudly even with illogical arguments.

Arguments like speaking about her lack of ‘morality’. Arguments that beg the question – since when did having foreplay in secluded bedrooms suddenly become the line of séxual impropriety that Nigerians – including religious Nigerians – do not cross on a daily basis?

What is immoral in a young woman behaving in a séxually responsible fashion by eschewing unprotected séx, and having the kind of séxual activity that ensures she gets neither prégnant nor diséased – and with just one partner? How is that in any way morally reprehensible, especially since Big Brother Africa is not a religious show?

And wait a bloody minute, Beverly has disgraced Nigeria? The same country whose Senators this week agreed it is perfectly normal for an adult male to have séx with a 5-year-old, as long as she is called his wife?

We must be talking about the wrong country.