On Saturday night, I walked into the Eko Hotel and Suites to spend the night with the most beautiful women in Nigeria and it was all shades of colour, glamour and fashion but then it ended up not being what I expected.
At the beginning of the night, everyone was anxious to know who will be crowned Miss Universe Nigeria 2024.
The preparation for this year’s pageant had been in the works for weeks but it wasn’t getting much buzz…at least not until the whole Chidimma Adetshina saga came in, which is a story for another day.
With Chidimma, came more spotlight for the Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 pageant and everyone was anxious to know who will snatch the crown.
I got there quite early and shout out to Team Enchanteur for offering a space to keep my things and sit while waiting for the show to start.
The evening started out alright with the red carpet seeing beautiful faces such as Victory Wilson, Anthony Abraham (the hosts), Ben-Murray Bruce and the judges for tonight’s show.
On the red carpet, some notable interviews stood out. One of the pageant’s organisers, a former Member of Senate and founder of the Silverbird Group, Ben Murray-Bruce was asked why they reached out to Chidimma Asetshina to join the pageant.
His response, “Any Nigerian woman that aspires to be great, will be given that opportunity.”
Murray-Bruce also expressed his excitement for the night’s activities and listed some other girls who had benefited greatly from the platform.
The very pretty Miss Universe Nigeria 2023 arrived shortly after this and expressed her hope that the best girl wins.
“To the next queen, enjoy the process because time flies really fast, take the time to absorb all of this as much as you can,” she says.
Before the Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 pageant officially kicked off, there was the lush hair parade that featured models dressed with hair.
All of which built up the excitement for tonight’s actual pageant and I just couldn’t want to get in…not knowing this will turn out way differently than I expected.
The pageant officially began with the opening remarks and the usual introductions by the hosts.
Then the moment we were all waiting for began – it was time for the 25 beautiful contestants to come show us what we came here for.
It was quite important to state that the first thing I noticed was that these girls are absolutely stunning – every single one of them.
I am stating this clearly because there had been this notion that the delegates in this year’s Miss Universe Nigeria pageant were not good looking, which is understandable because did you guys see their official pictures on the Miss Universe Nigeria website?
Unlike those pictures, the Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 pageant delegates were every bit beautiful and social media definitely do not do them justice.
As the 25 delegates trooped out, guess who was out there in front and also ushered in one of the hosts for the night? Yes, the beloved former South African contestant – Chidimma Adetshina.
The Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 pageant ladies’ first dance was all good and a little bit effortless but they had some really incredible looking costumes that had a touch of each state that they were representing.
Some of them that really stood out were;
Miss Plateau
Miss Rivers
Miss Taraba
Miss Ondo
Miss Osun
Miss Oyo
The 25 delegates also came out looking elegant in their stunning evening gowns and Miss Kwara definitely did it for me with her silver ensemble that came with a floor length cape.
Next, prizes of N500,000 each were given to Miss Abuja and Miss Anambra for their business pitches while they were in camp.
Then, the top three fast-tracked delegates from the voting were called out – Miss Kwara, Miss Taraba (for obvious reasons) and Miss Edo.
Then other seven delegates were called out to join them.
All this time, it is worth mentioning that the camera was quite biased towards Miss Taraba and her face was literally all over our faces if you were watching from the screens.
Then there was the performance from Qing Madi and the five top delegates were called out before the winner of the pageant – Chidimma Adetshina was announced to the shock of some people.
Her win means she would go on to represent Nigeria at the Miss Universe grand finale in Mexico this November.
This announcement would go on to spark a debate on if she actually deserved this crown or not.
Which is quite interesting because it seems Chidimma, although a very beautiful damsel, might not be well equipped to represent the nation on the international stage, especially since she doesn’t even know a single word from any Nigerian language as of Saturday.
If you have read this far or just skimmed through…Here are my key takeaways from this event.
– All the girls were way more beautiful in person than their pictures that went viral on social media
– It seemed like the whole pageant was centered around the Chidimma drama especially since the hosts made several references to South Africa during the course of the pageant, and the camera was biased towards her.
– Chidimma is actually a very impressive young lady being able to go through so much and still keep it together.
– If the goal of the pageant was empowering the girl-child, then more girls must have left hurt than those that were actually empowered…But then, it is a competition and a winner had to emerge, one way or the other….
