BBNaija Reunion: How Chichi’s Truth Sparked Conversation About Support For Emotionally Abused Women

At every reunion of the Big Brother Naija (BBNaija) show, there is always that one housemate that chooses to show how unbothered they are about the impact of the show on their career and immediately starts demeaning others directly or indirectly because they feel they have a better platform. And this year, Deji appears to be showing early signs that he’s just the housemate stepping into that space, while Chichi was at the receiving end of the brute of his words.

When the show was ongoing in 2022, everyone else but Chichi could see that her relationship with Deji was a sham as he took every opportunity to bash her in her absence, especially during conversations with his friends, Eloswag and Dotun.

It was no surprise that the relationship did not last. What was shocking was the manner in which Deji spoke to her, and the housemates’ response to the emotional trauma Chichi was put through. In her words, ‘he made me feel like I had a problem,’ and in an almost smug and playful manner with the confidence that most of the housemates were in support of him, he berated her with his words.

After purposely refusing to call her by her name in the beginning, he used her childhood trauma as an excuse for why he decided to play games with her and went on to record her when she was hysterical after she made it clear she wanted to be left alone. According to Deji, because people believe women without evidence, he wanted evidence – even when he told Ebuka that she did not physically abuse him.

However, Chichi was unashamed as she revealed that she indeed loved him at that point. Still, other housemates showed signs of support for Deji. Whether it’s coming from a place of hatred or something else, some thought it was cool and mature to laugh at someone else’s trauma, while some even went the extra mile to defend, and water down the gravity of the issue with memes and posts on social media.

Dotun, Deji’s friend, during the show tweeted, ‘You are a bad boy,’ Eloswag did the same thing, and Giddyfia even went on to basically type a thread.
“In a show like Big Brother explain wetin you one explain tire, they will always take the ladies’ side, Nothing you say as a man will ever make sense to them. It’s not only the Deji situation I’m referring to here,” he said.

From this season alone, anyone who followed the show knows that the narrative is untrue as ladies like Beauty Tukura, Phyna, Bella, and more were bashed on multiple occasions for their actions. While there were support groups for their men and people hailing them for being the ‘men of the season.’

At the end of the day, there are very few times when women get support when they go through emotional trauma in a relationship. Liquorose from the BBNaija Shine Ya Eye Season faced the same thing, and people still went on to bash her for thinking the housemate, Emmanuel, could ever like her.

Big Brother stanship aside, there is no reason for someone to use their love interests’ trauma to hold them in a relationship they do not intend to keep. It is bad enough that that is exactly what Deji did, and it is worse that Chichi was made to look like the Devil that doesn’t deserve to be respected.