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December 22, 2017: The outgoing Miss Nigeria, Chioma Obiadi, from Anambra state on Friday crowned her successor, Miss Mildred Peace Ehiguese, from Adamawa as the 41st Miss Nigeria.<\/p>\n
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All the finalists at Miss Nigeria Pageant<\/p>\n
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Mildred Peace Ehiguese in her Adamawa attire<\/p>\n
The ceremony was the peak of the 60th anniversary of Miss Nigeria beauty pageant grand finale in Lagos.<\/p>\n
The pageant\u2019s organiser and publisher of The Daily Times of Nigeria, Mr Fidelis Anosike, had said that he is using the show to define the Nigerian woman.<\/p>\n
Miss Nigeria, formed in 1957 with the Motto, \u201cEmpowering Women Beyond Beauty\u2019\u2019, is an annual beauty pageant show which showcases positive attributes of Nigerian women and awards university scholarships.<\/p>\n
The winner portrays exemplary qualities and serves as a role model for young women in the country. The pageant is organised by Daily Times Nigeria (DTN).<\/p>\n
The 2016\u00a0 holder is a Geology student of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, and former Miss Earth Nigeria Chioma Stephanie Obiadi, who represented Anambra.<\/p>\n
The journey to this year\u2019s finale started in November when auditions were held in three cities of Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Lagos within over a one-week period.<\/p>\n
From personal photography sessions from Studio 24, using cool photo props, there were also monopoly games and passion project activities to keep the ladies entertained with refreshments.<\/p>\n
The auditions started at the Transcorp Hilton Hotel in Abuja on Nov. 7 with an impressive turnout of contestants from the Northern region who showed up for a chance to become the next queen.<\/p>\n
The contestants were judged by George Okoro (Photographer and Lifestyle Magazine Publisher), Adama Indimi (CEO Reign by Adama Lashes), Ogugua Okonkwo (CEO Style Temple) and Andy Ogbechei (Creative Director, A-Squared Network).<\/p>\n
They served as the guest judges at this phase of the auditions, accompanied by Enyinne Owunwanne (CEO, Times Multimedia \u2013 organisers of the Miss Nigeria pageant).<\/p>\n
The team moved to Port Harcourt on Nov. 9 to receive contestants from the South-South\/South-East region at the Echelon Heights Hotel, before heading to Lagos where the audition was held at the Times Multimedia, Lagos Headquarters.<\/p>\n
From there, the 37 semi-finalists were announced in a special Instagram Live Session, setting the stage for Thursday\u2019s grand finale.<\/p>\n
The boot-camp ended on December 18, after which the girls went to Ilorin to meet the first ever Miss Nigeria, 86-year-old Mama Grace Oyelude.<\/p>\n
NAN reports that in 2005, Anosike, young and bustling, took over a depressed Daily Times and set out to revamp the legacy of the publication.<\/p>\n
He has since set his sights on rewriting the story of Miss Nigeria and graft in new chapters filled with hope, dignity, and value.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, Daily Times, Miss Nigeria is one and the same,\u2019\u2019 Anosike said on Tuesday, shedding light on what Nigerians should expect,\u201d he said on Tuesday in Lagos.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe show is going to be the premier platform that the company\u2019s products, services, and different people can use to connect to every woman.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery woman is a queen. What we\u2019ve been doing over the past 10 years is to get the Pageant to metamorphose into what it should be.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, we are going from strength to strength. Every state has got its own representative. And it\u2019s also important to note that Miss Nigeria is 60 years old having been founded in 1957.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, we are also able to do a proper boot-camp; all the semi-finalists met with several prominent Nigerians, including the Director-General of The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), who is the purpose-partner for this year\u2019s pageant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year\u2019s Miss Nigeria will be crowned as the ambassador for Human Trafficking, and she will spend her time and energy working with NAPTIP to raise awareness about the ills of human trafficking and try as much as possible to contribute her quota to ending the illicit trade.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe also had a couple of top women personalities who went into the boot-camp to talk to the girls.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Anosike said that Miss Nigeria had been fully restored to its original intent, which is to be a platform for young female empowerment in Nigeria,<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to use it to raise the voices of women. We believe that every Miss Nigeria will also take on these issues, raising the voices of women, especially as it relates to issues around the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very solid partnerships with over 30 media houses and everybody has now come to understand that this is a national pageant and not a beauty pageant,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
On plans to balance the moral debauchery associated with beauty pageants, Anosike said about the content of Miss Nigeria that \u201cit\u2019s all about communication, about purpose; it is about people understanding that this is a platform for female empowerment.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery woman is a queen \u2014 mothers are queens, sisters are queens. This epitomises \u2018queenship\u2019. Miss Nigeria is supposed to be a role model for young women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we are doing is building a purpose into the show, so, it is beauty and brains. The idea is to be able to inspire young women.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t do all those beauty pageant stuff where they go onstage and take off their clothes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t commoditise women. Miss Nigeria has stopped that a long time ago. And that\u2019s one of the reasons why we don\u2019t send anybody to Miss World or Miss Universe because they go there and do all these kind of things.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss Nigeria focuses on issues that affect Nigerian women; she is an ambassador of culture, of purpose, of the environment. We want her to focus on the Nigerian people,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
The publisher of The Daily Times of Nigeria said that Miss Nigeria did not need any validation from anywhere, adding that she did not need to go outside to win anything. It\u2019s a national brand, not a beauty brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe girls have their calendars planned and we have partners that will keep them busy because we want them to have a purpose. Going for international beauty contest is a colonial mentality.<\/p>\n
\u201cQueens don\u2019t compete, they reign. You can\u2019t say you are Nigeria\u2019s Queen and go outside and be competing with other people.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
On the challenge in organising the event, Anosike said it was the struggle to recreate the show\u2019s purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe basic challenge we had was to be able to recreate the purpose for which this pageant was founded in 1957,\u2019\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow, we have got it right; and we know this because of the responses we are receiving. We have people entering from Zamfara; from Kano.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be a beautiful show. We are trying to make the show like the Oscars, so it will be a fusion of fashion, beauty and everything good about Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe contestants have to know about the states they are representing. We also want to use this to help to promote our history and heritage. We must be proud of who we are.<\/p>\n
\u201cNigeria has come of age; we\u2019ve seen what people have done in the music industry. That\u2019s the kind of inspiration that we want to draw on.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n
Anosike also said that when the pageant started, then, contestants were required to post their photographs to the Times headquarters in Lagos, before the finalists were shortlisted and invited to compete at the Lagos Island Club.<\/p>\n
He said it was the premier pageant in the country, and was a powerful medium which empowered several young Nigerian women, and inspired the country as a whole.<\/p>\n
The pageant was hosted by Bovi, Ebuka, Olive Emodi and Lala Akindoju; with 2face Idibia performing.<\/p>\n
NAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
December 22, 2017: The outgoing Miss Nigeria, Chioma Obiadi, from Anambra state on Friday crowned her successor, Miss Mildred Peace Ehiguese, from Adamawa as the 41st Miss Nigeria. All the finalists at Miss Nigeria Pageant Mildred Peace Ehiguese in her Adamawa attire The ceremony was the peak of the 60th anniversary of Miss Nigeria beauty […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n