Nigeria Content Online

Between playing
‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ as a Stingerweb Internet Development
software installed on my laptop and as a game show presented by Frank
Edoho on Nigeria’s NTA (Nigerian Television Authority) one learns to
differentiate between illusion and reality in using what one knows to
get what one wants.

In a country where
there is an increasing tendency for citizens to plug for easy ways of
becoming wealthy, ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ could be viewed as a
performance on the “minding” of money, where what separates one from
wealth and poverty is implicitly theorized as developing a more
accommodating attitude to risk-taking.

The name of the game with its interrogative sentence, implicitly suggests that becoming a millionaire is a personal choice.

Like the
irredeemable weekly pools players on Nigeria’s Poverty Street, someone
playing ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ as a computer game is already
in another world where it remains “just a little extra effort” for them
to strike it big. Theorized implicitly as a gamble, becoming a
millionaire engages a different kind of thinking for those who believe
that there is always an element of chance or luck in escaping from
poverty in this world.

Presenter Frank
Edoho’s show on NTA exposes the player who makes desperate efforts to
surmount the obstacle of questions and the questioner’s tactics to get
to the reward. It is not easy to be on Edoho’s “hot seat” defending
one’s integrity as a “knower”.

The “hot seat”
perhaps reflects the mental state of the guest on trial before a
television studio audience and the millions of viewers that include
professional colleagues, relatives, friends, and even enemies. By
extension, this “hot seat” is shared by those whom the guest elects to
phone for assistance in providing the required answer. To furnish the
wrong answer is not just to reduce the chances of winning but also to
ruin one’s reputation as an informed “helper.” The contestants and
their friends thus share the experience of hypertension on the “hot
seat”.

Frank Edoho,
frankly speaking, is not always “Mr. Hypertension,” not when he is
acting as a sympathetic host, sometimes calling for cold water for the
guest, or granting the guest a lifeline. Commercial breaks are
inevitable in this kind of TV game show, forthe sponsors, MTN, must
sell. But the timing of the breaks very clearly signifies that they are
also the means through which Frank plays his part of the game of
“helping” his guests and his audience on behalf of the sponsors.

When anticipation
is very high for the gatekeeper to reveal or confirm the answer,
especially when the guest’s answer is correct, he helps us to enjoy it,
creating and heightening the suspense by deferring the announcement of
the answer till after the commercial break. Frank is frankly a player
who knows on which side to play, how to play, and when to play.

When Frank comes
suddenly to confirm the answer as correct, does he not sometimes
mischievously announce the wrong answer as correct and then quickly
corrects himself? Frank’s tactical error and tactical self-repair is
someone’s terror and great despair! Some players sometimes do confess
that they are petrified. Yet, the presenter’s friendliness and
remarkable sense of humour also help in trying to repair his guests’
nerves in this quest for mega bucks.

Frank indeed plays
two roles at the same time: he is the sympathetic reward giver and the
reluctant gatekeeper who has to hold on tight to the reward and do
everything possible to dribble the guest. Part of the test for the
guest is the demonstration of an ability to avoid deception and
maintain confidence. The game is not just about money but about
confidence building and psychological maturity in the pursuit of one’s
material needs.

Isn’t it telling
that, in the set in the studio, the “hot seat” is built in such a way
that the legs of the guests (as well as those of the host) do not touch
the ground, conveying the precariousness of the situation? One that
sits with legs not touching the ground while looking for big money
needs to be on guard, symbolically.

At a time when the
assumption that one does not need brains to become a millionaire has
almost ruined the attention to education and the pursuit of the culture
of industry. ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ ought to be viewed as a
symbolic statement about getting rich through acquisition of knowledge
and psychological stability.

Playing ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ from a Stingerweb software
on a computer and living the illusion of winning in US dollars are
obviously not as attractive as being Frank Edoho’s petrified guest. The
truth is that some thousands of naira in hand are worth millions of US
dollars in the imaginary computer bush. Even if the naira has become
local wallpaper that lacks power compared to the US dollar, its real
game value rises for Nigerian players looking out for the secret to
survival.