The odds are against Reggie and Bollie: in a reasonable gamble, it’s highly probable they would not win the X-Factor—taking into considering the history of the competition and the fact that a UK Christmas number is always on the minds of the organizers.
But everything is possible and voters are capable of derailing the train if they are obsessed enough with a particular group or person: meaning, as long as Reggie and Bollie are in the competition, there’s hope—even if it’s highly infinitesimal on the measuring rod.
However, there seems to be an increasing unnecessary sense of patriotism being championed by certain Ghanaians on and offline. Every Ghanaian in the UK is being rallied on the back of Ghana’s national flag to support Reggie and Bollie—as if this is a football match where patriotism dictates the line of support.
My problem with this manner of rallying support is that; it cuts out those who are not Ghanaians—and of course, these are the people in the majority.
For instance, a popular Ghanaian figure in the UK-Dentaa of GUBA Awards fame and some people have organised a bus to go out there and support Reggie and Bollie at Farnborough today—a brilliant idea, but in front of this bus is a Ghana flag, making a bold national statement.
So what will happen to Reggie and Bollie if all the British people in UK (and they are in the high millions) decide to be patriotic and vote for a British contestant—irrespective of the person’s performance on the final day?
We should not set a harming precedent; we are in the minority and we should rather fight for a broad support across the spectrum—not divide it into some pockets of nationalism. This is the sort of thing Donald Trump will do and every reasonable person should be able to see the weakness.
It’s a losing fight if we want to play the patriotism card: therefore, the “Ghana this and Ghana that” should be taken out of the conversation. We should rather focus on the story of the two young men, their performances and determination—and use that to pull people of every background in to support them.
Clothing X-Factor in national colours defeats the purpose of the TV show: it’s about who would put up a thrilling performance, the person or group capable of pulling in that Christmas number one single—and it’s not a matter of supporting blindly or supporting a person because he or she is from your country.
If that’s the sort of card and advocacy Ghanaians want to throw into the air, then tough luck because the last time I checked, there were approximately 96,000 Ghanaians in the UK—a country of about 65 million people.
We have to be reasonable with what support tactics we employ. There is a reason why the voting lines are opened only after performances—they want you to vote based on what you see and not because the person holding the mic is a Ghanaian or British.
But if we think that’s unnecessary and we would rather vote or support purely on association or patriotism grounds, then let’s see how far that will take us…
This not England Vrs. Ghana football match; and if you cheaply calculate it so, then you are already in the minus before the game even starts.
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