Finally!!!!!!

Episode 10 of the Apprentice Africa began in a different fashion from the norm. This time round, there was no phone call. The contestants gathered in the quadrangle at Troyka Holdings where the CEO introduced them to the heads of the various companies that make up the Troyka group eg; Halogen Securities, The quadrant company, Insight Communications, Mediacom, etc

The week's task was to come up with a marketing communication strategy for emerging businesses in Nigeria. This was to be a wholesome task involving conceptualisation, a media strategy, media plan, PR strategy as well as creative output.

Matrix Corp was down to 3 members; Blessing, Regina and Nancy whereas Zulu Corp. had double that number with Nnamdi, Isaac, Dex, Kathleen, Eunice and Tunde. The CEO asked who from Zulu Corp would volunteer to join Matrix Corp as they were outnumbered and before he had finished the question, Eunice's arm shot straight into the air.

Eunice's reason for crossing back (according to her) was that Matrix needed all the help that they could get and she believed that having experienced 3 straight wins at Zulu Corp, she would be in position to help propel her team to victory since she knew how both teams operated.

Her joy and enthusiasm at returning to Matrix Corp however was very short lived. This is because Nancy appointed herself Project Manager and Eunice had hoped that it would be put to a vote. She herself was hoping to be PM and since she lacked confidence in Nancy's abilities as a leader, she predicted trouble ahead and oh, was she right!!

At Zulu Corp, Tunde volunteered to be PM and he noted that this was a precarious position to be in because if the team lost, the PM would certainly be sent packing. In the event of a loss, Kathleen was the target at Zulu Corp. This is easy to understand as her aggressive and strong character make her a formidable opponent and the strategy is to get your strongest competition out of the way. Eunice sniffed this out at Zulu Corp hence her return to Matrix Corp. There will certainly be a lot more conniving and drama as the contestants reduce in number.

There was chaos at Matrix Corp. The team was disorganised, constantly bickering and they were completely unable to agree on what direction to take. Regina was very concerned about the team's issues and hoped they would be able to work through it, alas, this was not to be....

Nancy as a leader.....well, in Blessing's words, "she is a really nice person, inside and out but she is just not a leader" In Episode 1, she led her team to a loss but this time takes the cake. She was constantly changing her mind and the team's direction which was quite disturbing especially to Blessing and the very outspoken Eunice who questioned her every move and decision to the point where am sure Nancy would have loved to fire her from the team and in a way, she did.
At some point, the team had agreed to focus on agriculture in Nigeria and the surrounding opportunities. After meeting executives from Troyka, Nancy changed focus to Power to the total bafflement of her team mates.

At Zulu Corp, everything was coming along smoothly and sanity prevailed. Team members were assigned roles and everyone did their part. Tunde was in charge of creative, Deox was handling the media plan, Nnamdi was handling PR, whereas Kathleen was in charge of the strategy.

Presentation time and Zulu Corp was in first. Their campaign was titled WIN (Wealth In Numbers) It highlighted the best opportunities in Nigeria such as tourism & hospitality, real estate, food and agro processing. They made a wholesome presentation including a media strategy and plan, a television commercial showing a foreign investor in Nigeria encouraging others to come and do the same. The part of the presentation that was questioned by the Troyka executives was Nnamdi saying they would allocate 1 quarter of the budget to PR. Nnamdi was asked how they came to this conclusion and whether they had actually costed the campaign. They had a quick lesson in media planning then and there. They were told that it isn't a must for 1 quarter of the budget to be allocated to PR but that budgetary allocations were determined by the overall strategy and the budget.

Matrix Corp's presentation left a lot to be desired. First of all, Nancy came up with a brand, EBIN (Emerging Businesses in Nigeria) which was not very creative as this was actually the topic of the task. She went on to say that their biggest medium would be print specifically in flight magazines....
Instead of a TV commercial, they presented a story board citing time constraints. Nevertheless, no one in that boardroom seemed excited about it, actually, they looked rather confused. Its rather difficult to write about it because it was so confusing and not interestingly so, i must add.
The radio commercial wasn't any better....First, it was way too loud and completely uninspired such that one of the executives from the Troyka group could hardly contain herself, she actually started laughing.

Then it was Regina's turn to take them through the website they had created, only there was actually no website but print outs of what it should look like. Regina did her best to explain everything in this area but she was soon lost for words at question time.
First, they were put to task about the absence of an actual media plan whereupon Regina said they had a schedule and a budget amounting to 1 million dollars for a year which led to more and more questions and when asked to break down the numbers, the whole team was speechless for a while till Regina tried again to redeem the team. Some of the Troyka executives were really amused by the way they were squirming.

To the Boardroom: The CEO noted Tunde's nervousness then went on to introduce his associates from Troyka who would deliver the verdict on the task. The Troyka executives said the Matrix presentation was really lacking specifically because they did not adequately define who they were targeting with the campaign and he also cited deficiencies in their choice of media.
Zulu Corp was praised for the WIN idea. However, they were criticised for not following through with this brilliant idea in all of their communications. On the plus side, Zulu was praised for having a very coherent strong team. It was a tense moment when the Troyka executives were asked who had won the task but team Zulu breathed a sigh of relief when they were announced as the winners and there were no looks of shock at Matrix Corp.

Zulu's reward was lunch at La Scala restaurant with the president of the Nigerian stock exchange. They were also given plagues and certificates of achievement from the Troyka group. For team Matrix, it was time for war.

The CEO was so disappointed with Matrix Corp and when he asked Blessing what had gone wrong, she cited lack of focus as the reason for their loss and then went on to blame Nancy without actually mentioning her name. Regina cited lack of team cohesion. When it was Nancy's turn to speak, she went through who was responsible for what and then went on to defend the "focus". She also said that she had been advised by the media executives to change from agriculture to power but that nothing else had changed. which is quite ridiculous if you ask me...She said some people had just failed to understand the focus of the task.

Eunice's turn and she blamed the loss on Nancy's leadership. She went onto detail all of Nancy's errors during the task. At this point, it was clear that there was a personal war between Eunice and Nancy.
The CEO questioned Blessing's dormancy at the presentation and she defended herself and Eunice brilliantly, putting more nails in Nancy's coffin. Nancy refused Eunice to participate in the presentation but took her along only as a story board holder, Blessing refused to participate because she knew the presentation lacked depth and that if she was put to task by the executives to explain certain aspects, she knew that she would be lost for words.

The CEO asked Nancy how come they had delivered so little whereas they had the same time as Zulu Corp and they had managed to make a full presentation. He was puzzled by the absence of a TV Commercial and the web page whereupon the girls started bickering and Regina said that Nancy kept changing the direction.

When asked who she would be bringing back to the boardroom, Nancy excused Regina and the remaining three started to fight for their lives, literally. Nancy said she brought back the two of them because Blessing had a defeatist attitude whereas Eunice had a self righteous attitude. Blessing accused Nancy of lying and having problems with understanding English. At this point, i felt like screaming cat fight!!! because this was actually what was going on albeit with a little subtlety.
At the end of it all, The CEO stated that he was usually amazed whenever people clamor for leadership roles without first assessing themselves and their capacity to deliver as leaders. He went on to tear apart their presentation and cited lack of coordination and proper leadership. On this basis, Nancy was fired.
No surprises there. It was only a matter of time before Nancy self destructed and appointing herself PM for this time was a terrible mistake. She has been responsible for quite a few of Matrix's losses most notably in episode 1, 7,9 and 10 where she did not survive.

Many viewers have constantly been amazed whenever Nancy survives being fired and in a society that loves drama......unsurprisingly, there has been a theory going around that the CEO has a thing for Nancy or that there is something going on between the two. This i believe is completely untrue and it was just a matter of time so this time round, the bell had tolled for Nancy and i doubt that she will be missed.