Pageants: What Manner of Beauty? 1

By Msonter Anzaa

I have read somewhere that if anything can go wrong, then it will certainly go wrong. In Nigeria, we abuse every little invention of mankind. We are our own problem, but that’s not our biggest problem. The greatest problem is that we do not know that we are our own problem. And it is said that he who does not know and does not know that he does not know is a dangerous individual. That’s what we are: we are a dangerous people! A recent strain of madness ravaging our campuses nationwide is otherwise called beauty pageant. This series laments its prevalence and points out that in many instances, it is inspired by corruption and an aberration of national values.

You hear loud indistinguishable noise from afar. The sun is quite hot and you are already sweating along one of the many campus paths, angry at your lecturer for always waiting till the exam timetable is out to give assignments. Then this noise comes again. Loud speakers; giant megaphones packed on an open pick-up van with a little weary Yamaha generator forced to cough out power. Gangly boys, themselves sweating under the heat of the sun; trousers sagged, two separate layers of underwear clearly visible. A lady or two, their trousers sagged too, dancing to the noise and trying to win the most attention, sitting on the roof of the driver’s cabin. If you have ever been to a Nigerian university campus, then this scene is familiar to you. You wonder what’s going on. Then you see one of the boys waving a large print containing the photo of a lady with a sort of crown on her head. She may have the superior part of her breasts revealed or her thighs carelessly open to eye scrutiny, depending on the boldness of the organizers. The entourage continues its journey across the campus, permeating every little corner where students can be found, announcing the latest beauty pageant organized by one of the numerous campus associations.

Now, is there anything wrong with beauty or organizing a beauty contest? Not quite. I am not going to philosophise over what beauty actually is. The emphasis I’m making here is on the rampant occurrence of this “thing”. On every average campus weekend, you may find two beauty contests holding. Now this of course excludes all those held off-campus even though their bulk of participants are drawn from the university. The trend is so common that every little girl you meet on the campus is either a “queen” of some kind, has contested for one or will contest for one before she graduates! First, it is ridiculous, the energy put into it. As I write this article on Monday morning, Miss Tarka was crowned on Saturday. Mass Communication students also had their week and crowned their “queen”. In the week itself on Thursday, I bumped into a gentleman who pushed a poster into my hand. The History students were going to have their pageant soon: I didn’t read it, so I can’t say the date. The Benue State University is going to celebrate its twentieth anniversary and there is a contest for the most beautiful girl in BSU. These are just the few I am aware of this weekend. I have seen vehicles labelled “Miss BSU”, “Most Beautiful Girl in Benue”, “Miss NUBESS”. In addition, I have seen a poster for Miss North Central, and I shouldn’t remind you of course that there is a Miss Nigeria and Miss Universe. On the other side, there are departmental associations, each organizing its own beauty pageant yearly. Then we also have micro-community associations coming under the umbrella of local governments, clans etc, where there could be Vandeikya Students’ Association, an association that can organise a pageant for its own members. In the same institution, you could have Kunav Students Association, even though Kunav actually is a sub-unit of Vandeikya LGA. They too would organize their own day and crown a “queen”. Please remember that there is a Community of Tiv Students, national and local chapters, each organizing the Kumashe pageant. Their Idoma, Igede and Igala siblings are not left out either.

As a further demonstration of how madly this madness is, we have during departmental elections, candidates running for leadership positions whose manifesto consists of nothing other than a vision to organise the most popular and most campus-rocking departmental beauty pageant! So an entire, one-year tenure is spent on organizing a beauty pageant and fighting over the proceeds of the event. Meanwhile, more important national issues requiring attention from Nigerian youth are neglected because we exhaust our energy on fun-making. You look at these things and ask yourself whether we are sure what we want as a people.

To be continued

Read also Pageant: What Manner of Beauty? 2

                 Pageants: What Manner of Beauty? 3