Big Brother jinxed?

First there were rumours about who will represent which country and some names were bandied about as those who were likely to represent this country. That rumour was quashed sooner than it would ordinarily have been.

Then the heart-wrenching news came that the Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean shortlisted candidates to go for the psychometric test in South Africa to choose the final housemates could not make it because they could not fulfill the visa requirements.

Ghanaians did cry foul over the incident, and some claimed they thought we were being victimised because of the Ebola scare and that the explanation about visa issues were just diversionary to cover the main reason for which we were denied.

The next news that came out of SA was that there were no housemates for Sierra Leone and Rwanda as they could not find the best candidates in South Africa to step in for those countries as they had been fortunate to find for Ghana when our candidates couldn’t make it.

Consider that Rwanda had been replaced with Angola for the season 9 and that would have been the first time that country would have entered the Big Brother Africa reality show if they had made it to the house.

All was set for the show to be launched this Sunday. The house was in perfect condition. The season had been themed “Hotshots” and back home in Ghana we had received invitations to attend the launch at Cahaya Bar and Grill at Adjiriganor (I had been dreaming about what I will nibble on) and the bad news came on Tuesday.

The Big Brother Africa house had been burnt to the ground. This in effect means that all the effort that was put in this show has been thwarted.

Endemol and MNet issued a statement that the launch had been postponed. The cause of the fire was not known at press time.

A statement by the two companies said they were making efforts to get the show back.

“At this stage, M-Net and Endemol are urgently looking for an alternative Big Brother house in which to film the production, however as this production has highly technical infrastructure, camera and edit requirements, an alternative is not immediately available. Every effort will be made to find a solution as quickly as possible to ensure that Africa’s biggest reality show will continue."

At this point, we are not too sure if the much talked about BBA 9 will come on this year or not. In the coming days, avid watchers of the show may be lucky to have it come back and maybe in time enough so it won’t enter into the Yuletide.

We are thankful that the housemates had not been ushered into the Big Brother house when this happened as we would have had a major disaster on our hands.

Also, thankful that no one got hurt when that happened.

Some aggrieved Ghanaians think it serves the organisers right for the manner in which the country’s housemates issue was handled.

That, in my humble view, is unnecessary Schadenfreude that shouldn’t have a place in the matter, and I hope they come back soon with the show!