Nigerians, on social media, have blasted the organisers of the just concluded Reality TV Show ‘The Labour Room’ describing them as bunch of scammers and fraudsters in disguise while warning fellow Nigerians not to be deceived as preparation for ‘the Labour Room Reality TV Show, ‘season 2’ is ongoing.’
The reactions came after announcing the four (4) winners of the show on the Labour Room official Facebook page on September 18, 2017. In dissatisfaction over non-following laid down criteria as published by the officials on their site and also failure to publish the scores of the contestants before and after announcing the winners, family and friends of the contestants have resorted to calling the organisers names on their social media handles.
In his comment on the page, a Facebook user, Tunde Olayiwola posted “THE LABOUR ROOM REALITY TV SHOW IS A SCAM! THEY ARE FRAUDSTERS! FELLOW NIGERIANS. DO NOT BE DECEIVED!” Besides, other Nigerians also stormed the Labour Room Facebook Page and rained insult on the organisers for manipulating the final result against Cross River and in favour of Bauchi and Oyo.
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The result, according to them, was allegedly manipulated by the organisers as they said the third (3rd) and the fourth (4) winners with 2% and 0% respectively were manipulated to be among the winners while contestants from Cross River with 13% and Ebonyi with 2% respectively were denied 3rd and 4th position among the 4 winners.
Speaking with a family member of Cross River Labour Room Governor, Mrs Eda Eze on why Her Execellency, Ewary Besho-Ateh was not announced as shown by her scores published on their site as the 3rd winner, she pleaded for more time to explain what actually happened from the beginning of the programme to the end.
Her words: My sister, Ewarey Besho-Ateh was a contestant representing Cross Rivers State in the Labour Room Reality TV Show. They call them ‘the Labour Room Governors, so Ewarey was the Labour Room Cross River State Governor. They were thirty-seven governors from the 36 states of Nigeria, then a representative of the FCT making the contestants 37 governors. However, in the course of the show, Jigawa State governor did not make it to the show.
“The show started on September 17, 2017 and ended November 16, 2017. While they were in the Mansion, they were given various tasks. They presented debates, dramas and sometimes given group tasks. The governors were grouped into six houses and Ewarey was in the house of Ginger and they were six of them representing six geo-political zones.
“The House of Ginger comprised of governors representing Cross River, Ebony, Oyo, Bauchi, Sokoto and Plateau States respectively. During the course of the show, the first time she was up for eviction, according to the Labour Room officials, was on poor performance ground. They said she did not do her presentation well for that week. On this note, we voted massively to save her in the Mansion via SMS and bank Vouchers. Luckily for us, we got Four Hundred Thousand Naira (N400,000) worth of vouchers at Union Bank in Federal Civil Service Commission, Abuja. We did all we could and exhausted all the vouchers within the specified timeline. (See evidence in screenshots). But unfortunately, my Mother who watched it live call me and said Cross River was evicted. At first, we accepted it in good fate but within me I knew it’s not possible except something went wrong somewhere.
“Eventually, when they published the voting results, it showed that Ewarey had 299 in SMS but via Vouchers she had zero (0). That was when we were convinced that something went wrong. The question was ‘what happened to the N400,000 vouchers which we voted? We went back to the Union bank to ask question on what happened to our votes via vouchers purchased from them and they confirmed that we used the vouchers in the right way and that we should go back to the Labour Room. Hence, from there we started complaining in the Labour Room Facebook page. I uploaded the proofs of our voting via voucher and asked to know why it did not count. They replied saying they were going to do something about it immediately.
“Eventually, she was returned back to the Mansion when the officials saw the way we were going about it being that the manipulation was too obvious. Several evictions came and gone but she was not up for any in the Mansion after her return.
“Later, houses were up for eviction before the final eviction but her house, house of Ginger was saved with a cumulative vote of 43% and followed by house of Palm while the house of Groudnut was evicted.
“The next eviction which was the final one, the officials came up with criteria that it would take three dimensions: first, voting carried 30%; secondly, green century code (implementation marshal) carried 35%; while thirdly, intellect and character carried 35%. All of these were not without conditions to go about it. The green century code was done by voters/supporters as it had to do with massive campaign as well as the voting and both would earn the contestant 65%. The remaining 35% which was allocated to the intellect and character was judged by the officials based on their presentations in the Mansion.
“We campaigned massively, did the green century code posts accordingly and we believed my sister would be able to earn some marks out of the 35% allocated to intellectual and character. In the results, we had 13% votes. The results were seen through a link made available to the public and that was where we saw the details. In the result published on their site, Plateau State had 14%, Sokoto State had 13%, Cross River State had 13%, Oyo State had 2%, Ebonyi State had 2% while Bauchi had 0% respectively. The first person that had 16% was Katsina State governor but was in the house of Palm which did not make it.
“Now the only house remaining was the house of Ginger where the four (4) winners were expected to emerge through voting and other performances. Going by the above result, we knew that my sister, Ewarey made, at least, the fourth position with equal 13% with Sokoto knowing that Labour Room Reality TV Show is top 4 winners from one house.
“In the green century code (implementation marshal), Cross River scored 116 and was also the best in intellectual/character test which attracted 35% as attested by governors of Abia, Bayelsa, Gombe, Taraba and Anambra States respectively, Eda added.
“It is quite beyond me and other viewers that the winners are being manipulated instead of it to be how everybody has seen it and how it was clearly stated in the published voting result. They now brought out a different result. According to the manipulated final result list, Plateau made 1st. Yes, everybody knows Plateau came first, Sokoto made 2nd. They earned the positions. But Cross River that should be 3rd position for sharing 13% with Sokoto was denied, instead, the Labour Room officials brought in Bauchi with zero (0%) vote as the 3rd and Oyo with two (2%) vote as the fourth (4) winners respectively in the N200m Show.
“Cross River and Ebony that had 13% and 1% respectively but were nowhere among the winners gave us reason to get worried about the development. From this point, everybody started posting on the Labour Room Facebook page expressing shock and surprise at the announced winners without publishing result of their intellect and character test which carried 35%. As Nigerians reactions trailed the page, the officials came up to defend their actions saying that they did not use only voting result. Meanwhile, in the green century code (implementation marshal), which is accessible to all, we saw that Cross River had over 100 points.
“A source closed to the Labour Room also revealed to us that Cross River even took second and followed by Zamfara. We also took our time to check it and we discovered that Cross River had the highest points. But till now, they have not come up with the breakdown of the result or statistics showing how they arrived at the top 4 in the house of Ginger. They were expected to publish the result as they earlier spelt out; Bauchi had 0% in voting, green century code – no result, intellect and character – no result to show. What are their percentages in all of these that determined the emergence of the winners? Instead of answering the question, they directed us to a link and in the link too, they did not bring out any statistics. When we asked further question, they only replied “we did the right thing.”
“In the course of the programme, the officials said bringing a representative from contestant’s state would give an edge to the contestant in the final result. We contacted our state and when the representative was ready to visit the mansion, he called the Labour Room and one of its officials (name withheld) allegedly told our state representative that he should not come with anything less than N1.5m to present to the Labour Room and was also quoted as saying that other states government were even bringing more than that. That was what discouraged the Cross River State representative from visiting the Labour Room because the government could not afford the N1.5m as they later tagged it a fraudulent show by fraudsters. Demanding such money was never our agreement with them before contacting our state government. Could that be the reason why a contestant with 13%, who contributed much in the emergence of the house of Ginger as the winning house with a cumulative score of N43% be denied her rightful winning position?
“I am appealing to the organisers of the Labour Room Reality TV Show not to completely disappoint Nigerians base on the vision of the programme to unite the country. As it is now, the organisers seems to be bias. If not, nothing on earth would make Bauchi come even fifth (5th) position in the show based on the published results. They should please place the right winners. Nigerians know that the 1st and 2nd winners deserved it but my sister is the 3rd winner. That is very clear! What is going on now is completely opposite of the aims and objectives of the show but we are not going to give up until justice is done to Cross River. All the stakeholders must be informed of the strange development.”
However, as at the time of filing this report, all efforts to reach the Labour Room coordinator, Isaac Balami on his cell phone to confirm the report proved abortive as his line was constantly switched off.