Faaji Production’s “GRIT” Challenges Format Norms in African Reality TV

Faaji Productions gave Lagos a first look at GRIT at the screening of the opening episode of the new Pan-African reality competition series before its public debut on YouTube on July 3rd.

The private screening, held on Saturday, June 27, at Ebony Life Place, pulled in a mix of industry executives, media, and creatives eager to see what a show like this looks like when it’s shot in Africa, for African audiences, at this scale. Unscripted formats built around physical and mental competition are common elsewhere, but rare in African television, and that novelty was part of the draw.

GRIT was filmed in Kenya and is hosted by Ini Dima-Okojie. The premise: a group of contestants living together in what the show calls the GRIT Residence, competing through physical and mental challenges while navigating the strategy and interpersonal friction that comes with close quarters and high stakes.

The first episode, which is what guests watched at the screening, introduces ten contestants as they move into the Residence and hear from Dima-Okojie about what’s ahead. From there, it moves into the season’s opening challenge, then into the first “Who Has the GRIT?” game, a chance-based twist that shakes up life inside the house early. An eleventh contestant arrives late in the episode, unsettling the group dynamic, and the hour closes on the season’s first elimination vote.

Attendees at the screening included premiere host Jay Onair, Snapchat’s Janine Anthony, former TikTok Sub-Saharan Africa content operations lead Ekikere Udofia, Elozonam, and Gbenga Kayode, who directed both Big Brother Africa and GRIT.

Oyinkansola Owoyemi, who founded Faaji Productions, spoke briefly at the event about what the show is meant to represent: “GRIT is resilience. It’s about pushing forward and achieving something despite the odds. That’s the spirit we’ve poured into this show. We’ve created something truly incredible, and I can’t wait for people to experience it.

GRIT is Faaji Productions’ first series. Owoyemi started the company with the goal of building reality formats that hold up against international competition rather than getting boxed in as regional content, betting that African unscripted TV can carry the same production value and emotional stakes as anything coming out of other markets.

The show debuted on Faaji Productions’ YouTube channel on July 3rd, with new episodes rolling out from there.

The debut episode opens by welcoming ten contestants as they cross the threshold into the Residence for the first time. Cameras linger on their initial reactions to the space and their various introductions to one another.

Once inside, the group settles into the Residence and begins the process of bonding — sizing each other up, forming early friendships, and feeling out who they can trust. This early bonding period matters more than it might seem, since these relationships will shape how contestants nominate and vote against each other later on.

The contestants then settle down with Dima-Okojie, who lays out what the season has in store and sets the tone for the competition ahead.

GRIT is a refreshing departure from the reality shows we are used to in this part of the world. So far, Dima-Okojie does not dominate the screen the way hosts on similar shows tend to; she comes and goes more as a guide for the contestants than a central figure, letting the group’s own dynamics drive the story.

The casting deserves credit too. The ten contestants introduced already feel like a thoughtfully assembled mix. That fits with comments from the show’s director, who has suggested that bringing a group of people together and casting them properly turns the show into something of a mirror held up to society.

Its producer has argued that while African TV has done well with music, talent, and relationship-based reality shows, challenge-based competition formats remain relatively unexplored territory. The show’s director echoed this point, noting that many reality shows made across the continent are really adaptations of European or American formats that still carry the identity and limitations of wherever they originated. That makes a locally rooted, original format like this one feel notably different.

The premiere’s first “Who Has the GRIT?” follows soon after, and it’s worth explaining in detail because it becomes the show’s central twist.

At the end of each episode, one contestant is secretly given “the grit.” That person must keep their status hidden from everyone else in the house. If the contestant holding the grit gets voted out by the other players, they get to steal all the money the house has gathered so far from the games and challenges, and take it home for themselves.

At the end of the process, the players nominate who they’d like to see eliminated. From that pool of nominees, a vote is held to decide who actually leaves the Residence.

The show itself feels like part of a reality TV revolution happening in Africa. GRIT proves that there is room for more homegrown formats beyond fly-on-the-wall shows and Real Housewives that could become African-owned intellectual property.