Despite BBNaija season 7, Nigerians still focus on presidential elections

Within the first week of Big Brother Naija season 7, the expected shift of audience attention from matters concerning the 2023 general elections to the most viewed reality show in Nigeria has been met with a let-down.

As the anticipation of the show grew, Nigerians raised concerns about the ability to focus on the agenda for the right leadership change in 2023.

The popularity of Big Brother Naija can only be underestimated. When BBNaija season 6 closed off in October 2021, Abeg Technologies, the headline sponsor for that year, said the user-population of its app hiked by 7000% following its sponsorship of the reality TV show.

According to Patricia Adoga, the Chief Operating Officer of Abeg Technologies, the popularity of the BBNaija show had an advantage on the business. Users of the Abeg app increased from 20,000 before BBNaija season 6 to 1.8 million users during the show. Again, the popularity of the show can only be underestimated, as it is believed that many more watchers did not proceed to download the app

In past seasons, the show takes over all Twitter trends on daily basis. However, with an eye on the presidential elections in 2023, trends have been a balanced mix of news stories on politics and society, and news stories on BBNaija season 7.

Twitter trends monitored by Pulse place the #BBNaija tweets at about 56k as at the time of this report, However, the most tweeted about housemate is Bella with over 131k tweets. The most viewed house (arguably), popularly called 'trenches' has also had over 20k tweets.

However 'Buhari' has over 89k tweets, 'Abuja' has over 97k tweets, while a story relating to Tinubu ('He's 86') has over 40k tweets.

Nonetheless, many other big brother stars like Phyna, Beauty, and Bryann, have trended a few times this week, but have not earned a lengthy trend time. News stories like 'He's 86' have lasted over 24 hours on the charts.

It is, however, important to note that Peter Obi has not trended since the first set of BBNaija season 7 housemates got in. Since his declaration, Obi had consistently enjoyed various places on the trend chart, weekly.

Also, the audience has tried to find political themes in the show, to reinforce campaign messages. For instance, the week's Head of House, Eloswag is trending on Twitter for his Thursday's outfit which carried a suspected political message.

In viral clips making the round, the housemate spots a sweatshirt with the inscription 'Be Obedient and Useful,' a term popular among supporters of Labour Party's presidential candidate Peter Obi and his running mate Yusuf Baba-Ahmed.

While the show's organisers are yet to comment on the viral reaction, the show prohibits the housemates from making political commentary or campaigns.