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The voting pattern for the last five housemates in the grande finale of the just-ended M-Net reality TV show Big Brother Africa in which Zambian Cherise won the US$100,000, exposes lines along which Africa is divided, revealing which countries align to each other and which ones could be adversaries.
This is how people voted for the five:
1. Cherise (6 votes: Ghana, Namibia, Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Zambia)
2. Mwisho (2 votes: Malawi, Tanzania)
3. Tapuwa (2 votes: Zimbabwe, Angola)
4. Warona (2 votes: Botswana and 13th vote)
5. Gaetano (1 vote: Uganda)
Malawi had two close neighbours in the house: Zambia (Cherise) and Tanzania (Mwisho) but Malawians chose to vote for a Tanzanian.
For a long time, Zambia is a country that has had closer ties with Malawi as compared to Tanzania. The two countries are more common in languages and tribes, therefore, it was strange that Malawi ignored Zambia. Can this explain something? Perhaps football where Zambia seem to have an upper hand over Malawi?
The voting pattern also revealed that West and East African countries could be two regions of the continent which do not look at each other eye-to-eye. Neither Ghana nor Nigeria gave a vote to Gaetano or Mwisho.
In fact, Gaetano finished miserably with just a single vote from his own country. He had started well in the house but he was overconfident after hooking up Abby, making love to her and flying out to Big Brother UK.
He was also too argumentative, expected of a lawyer, anyway. But not many Africans like a young person who wants to appear to be wiser than old people themselves. That’s why nobody except his own people favoured him.
The East African voting also showed that countries in that region have a long way to integration. One expected Kenya to give a vote to either Uganda or Tanzania which are its neighbours. But Kenyans bypassed Gaetano and Mwisho and decided to give their vote to Cherise for whatever reason.
One may also conclude that South Africa and Botswana, which are neighbours, envy each other. Of course, South Africa is rich but Botswana too has a robust economy.
But in all fairness, South Africans should have given their vote to their closest neighbour Botswana instead of Zambia (Cherise).
But one positive revelation from the voting in the finale is that African countries are so patriotic to their countries that they throw their weights behind their countrymen. Each of the five housemates got a vote from their people.
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