Controversy
In 1989, shortly after winning the Nigerian version of Miss Intercontinental, Bianca Onoh was forced to resign after it emerged that she was in a relationship with former Biafran leader and Ikemba of Nnewi Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, a political associate of her father who was over thirty years her senior - one tabloid falsely reported that she was pregnant. Although the couple never confirmed or denied the affair until their wedding in 1994, pageant organisers Silverbird were furious as MBGN title-holders are said to be discouraged from having high-profile relationships during their tenure. Onoh later stated that the pressure of performing her duties as a pageant queen were unbearable, which explained her decision to hand over her crown to second-place winner Regina Askia. To date, Silverbird does not acknowledge Onoh's 1988 win on the MBGN website, and do not mention her at MBGN live shows.
In 2011, a day after the grand finale, pageant judges of MBGN complained that the name announced as the winner was not the one they had picked. Sylvia Nduka, who most believed was an undeserving winner, was asked by an interviewer why she had failed to promptly respond to a question during the interview stage, and she replied that she was unprepared, as MBGN was her first pageant. However video evidence has revealed that Accountancy student Nduka had been a contestant in Miss Nigeria 2010 where she received coaching in etiquette and media, and participated in the competition's reality show, but failed to make the final ten at the grand finale in Abuja - reports claim that an enraged Nduka, who had represented Kaduna, refused to return to the stage during eventual winner Damilola Agbajor's coronation and even smashed her 'Miss Kaduna' plaque. Silverbird later defended Nduka by stating, "Everybody will always have something to say when someone wins. Even when Agbani Darego won in 2001, people talked. We should understand that people who supported other contestants that didn’t win won’t be necessarily happy with the results. And as for goofing her questions, it’s just a case of her being nervous, I spoke with her at the after-party of the pageant and she was quite eloquent."
2012 winner Isabella Ayuk claimed to be twenty-six when she competed, until reports suggested that she had forged her age, thus giving the impression that she was younger than her actual years (she was said to be thirty). Despite a public outcry, pageant director Guy Murray-Bruce stated that Ayuk would not be dethroned and will continue to serve as the reigning queen. However, due to undisclosed reasons, she did not represent Nigeria at Miss World that year.
Read more about this topic: Most Beautiful Girl In Nigeria (Pageant)
Famous quotes containing the word controversy:
“Ours was a highly activist administration, with a lot of controversy involved ... but I’m not sure that it would be inconsistent with my own political nature to do it differently if I had it to do all over again.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“And therefore, as when there is a controversy in an account, the parties must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence, they will both stand, or their controversy must either come to blows, or be undecided, for want of a right Reason constituted by Nature; so is it also in all debates of what kind soever.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)