South Africa:
Let’s talk about my travels; in 2006 I went to South Africa and Ghana with my fellow Big Brother Housemates for the first time. I was still very ignorant of the way things worked but I had some raw talent for show business. I wanted to share with the world which was why I signed up for the Big Brother Nigeria reality show. It was an eye opener; nothing anyone had said prior to my participation could have prepared me for what came after. I was robbed; people everywhere knew my face and name. I was used, abused and for some reason only attracted the worst sort of women. It was all sorts of things to each contestant; I am only speaking for myself. Every dark cloud has a silver lining though; I had always wanted to be in media and prepped for it half my life. I eventually got a leg up and built a career out of it; thanks in part to the exposure I got from the show.
We were to be gone for a week; to visit the cable network’s main offices and to be hosted by certain clubs. It was in the middle of South Africa’s winter and it was minus 3 degrees. We immediately asked our chaperones to take us shopping for warmer attire. Then we went to the Sandton City Mall and got lost in its maze of shops; taking in the sights and having our pictures taken with fans of the show. We told them what club we were attending that evening and some of them showed up.
During the entirety of that trip to South Africa my companions and I met some really nice people. Some who took the time to show us around and to host us to dinner at their homes and treat us to local delicacies! One Johannesburg based Nigerian bought me a designer suit and took me for a fitting. He said he admired my character from simply watching me on television for three weeks. “My guy I like your humility, you are Yoruba and I am Ibo but you were real. Johann didn’t I tell you I liked this guy?” The tailor who was adjusting my trousers concurred. I was very appreciative of the gesture and thanked him profusely.
At one of the clubs I met two sisters from Gabon who were in South Africa to study English and they claimed to be big fans of the show. One in particular had a little daughter Celia who she said adored me. I met the darling little girl the next afternoon at my hotel. The sisters treated me to lunch at the Northgate Mall and took me to a salon to have my hair restyled. I remained in contact with them for several years after, till my phones got stolen.
As a group my companions and I visited the Nigerian High Commission in Pretoria and then we went to Soweto (South West Town) where we were shown former President Nelson Mandela/ Madiba’s old house. We had a hearty meal at a popular restaurant called Wandies Place in the middle of the “township” in the suburb of Dube some 15km from the Jo’burg city center. On our way back to our hotel we spotted some colorfully dressed kids dancing on the street and we stopped to talk with them and take pictures. Some ruffians (who were smoking marijuana openly) also wanted us to include them in the photos and we obliged. Purely by coincidence we saw a car that belonged to a CCTV dealer with Big Brother written on the side and we all took pictures with it.
Our trip was almost cut short when we were told after two days that it was time to go. We all decided to spend the rest of the week paying our own way. Thanks to the suddenly tight budget we ended up staying in a total of three different hotels (City Lodge Hotel, Sandton, Morningside, The Don Suites, Sandton and I forget the third) as we hadn’t been booked for a whole week. My sister and her family were residing in Durban but I didn’t have enough funds to go see them.
To be absolutely frank, in the first draft of my South African adventures I failed to include our ride through the infamous Hillbrow neighborhood in Johannesburg – which had once been hailed as the New York of Africa. I marveled at the way men huddled in groups of four and five along the road and in the alleys; around barrels of burning wood and discarded cardboard boxes. As I stated earlier it was a cold period. Our guides told us that this was one of the most dangerous places to be in South Africa, murder, car-jackings and rape were synonymous with that part of Jo’burg.
I guess that’s why every fifteen yards or so along the street we passed, there were armed uniformed police in tiny kiosks. The girls wanted to stop and shop at the few boutiques that remained open; the guys objected fervently and we continued driving till we put the menace behind us. I spotted a hotel that had been abandoned with chained front doors. And I would later read online that there were many such closed establishments in the neighborhood none quite as popular as the hijacked high-rise Ponte City (Vodacom tower) in the 90’s, like many other buildings, it got hijacked by gangs and has become a symbol for the troubled history of Hillbrow.
One article said…”Under the apartheid regime Johannesburg’s Hillbrow was a ‘bustling, cosmopolitan neighborhood of artists and intellectuals where cafes and bookshops stayed open late and where, even under the tight rule of apartheid, interracial mixing was common’, but with the end of the regime in the 1990’s, that all changed.”
Indiscriminate sightseeing was now out of the question, thanks to our dwindling funds; so we collectively went to the Gold Reef City where I only went on one ride as I was too tall for the rest.
Ghana:
We kept meeting people who were eager to know us and made the rest of our stay enjoyable but eventually we said goodbye to Thabo Mbeki’s South Africa and were back on a plane to Nigeria. In fact we had been invited to Ghana for the following weekend by the publisher of Ovation Magazine, Chief Dele Momodu and he pulled out all the stops. There was a comedy show happening that weekend and the Big Brother Nigeria Housemates were a star attraction. We went round Accra on a radio tour just to assure people we were in town. At some point we visited the popular Labadi Beach and had some of the treats being sold there. Then we had an early dinner at the chief’s house. It was a grand affair with other remarkable personalities in attendance.
Arriving at the Kotoka International Airport, Accra – Ghana
Back to the hotel to get ready for the comedy show aptly named “Night of a 1001 Laughs”. The venue was the Conference Center; which was packed from floor to ceiling with well-dressed members of Ghana’s glitterati and the general public. We sat in the front row and had a great time right up to the time we the Big Brother Nigeria housemates were called on stage for a Q and A session. It was a fun experience one which apparently went straight to DVD and which I was reminded of in 2014 on my trip to Kenya.
The after party was at Aphrodisiac a popular night club in Accra and it was also packed to standing room only. We had two blissful days and nights in Ghana and then we departed for home after a filling lunch at the home of Senator Tokunbo Afikuyomi. At the time I wondered if all the generosity we enjoyed was simply because we had all taken part in an internationally recognized reality TV show. I would discover on my other trips that people are usually nice to visitors from out of town.
I so enjoyed my trip to Ghana I returned little over a year later to perform at a show in Kumasi and stayed for a nearly a month after.
If you wish to find out more about getting a visa South Africa click here.
If you want to learn more about Ghana click here.
And for affordable flights to South Africa, Ghana and anywhere in the world click here.
Photos taken with – Nokia 6630
