Miss Earth contestants in a dance practice in Port Harcourt

Beauty pageants in Nige
ria precedes the birth of the country in 1960. Daily Times Newspaper started beauty pageant in Nigeria with Miss Nigeria, thus owned the franchise. Miss Nigeria started as a photo contest in 1957. Contestants posted their photographs to the Daily Times headquarters in Lagos where finalists were shortlisted.
Successful candidates were invited to compete in the live finals which at the time did not include the swimsuit sequent at the Lagos Island Club. UAC employee, Grace Oyehide won the maiden edition of Miss Nigeria, she was succeeded by secretarial student, Helen Anyamaeluna, while former seamstress, Nene Etule remains the only non Nigerian to have won the contest.
She was eligible as Southern Cameroon was under the Nigerian constitution in 1959. The following year, the contest was briefly renamed miss independence to commensurate the country’s independence from Britain and the winner, Rosemary Anieze was crowned.
The 1960s saw Miss Nigeria competing at international level, Yemi Idowu who won the contest in 1962, was a semi finalist at the Miss United States in 1963. Her successor sales girl Edna Park was the first Nigerian at Miss Universe in 1964. She is best remembered for disrupting the event by collapsing after failing to reach the first 15 spot. After park, no other Miss Nigeria competed in Miss Universe. Rose Balogun became the first official Miss Nigeria at Miss World in 1967.
MBGN Pageant
The Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria, also known as MBGN is a beauty pageant organised by the Silverbird group with the aim of sending representatives to international competition originally known as Miss Universe, Nigeria. It was renamed most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria after Daily Times lost its license to send delegates from rival contests, Miss Nigeria, to Miss World and Miss Universe.
Silverbird boss, Senator Ben Murray Bruce promoted a new pageant known as Miss Universe in 1983, after it changed it’s name to most Beautiful Girl In Nigeria (MBGN) in 1986, its maiden winner was model Lynda Chuba. In 2007 Silverbird announced that the pageant would produce four more representatives besides the winner.
The original titles were Miss MBGN Universe, (to represent Miss Universe), MBGN Tourism (for Miss Tourism International) and MBGN ECOWAS (for Miss ECOWAS pageant). A fifth title MBGN Model which allowed its holder to compete in modeling contests at the international level was dropped, and replaced with MBGN Ambassador, with its winner performing ceremonial functions in the country.
Miss Agbani Derego became the winner of the MBGN crown in 2011 and later went on to win the Miss World pageant in 2011.
She became the first black African to wear the coveted crown.
Miss Earth Pageant
Miss earth-Nigeria is an annual beauty pageant in Nigeria to select its representatives to the international Miss Earch pageant with the theme “Beauties for a course” it is orgnaised by AMC productions and began sending representatives to Miss Earth, a year after the international pageant was established in 2001. The National Director for Nigeria to Miss Earth is Ibinabo Fiberesima.
Miss ECOWAS PEACE PAGEANT
The Miss ECOWAS Nigeria pageant is a wholly intellectual pageant that produces two delegates who will move on to represent Nigeria alongside delegates from other ECOWAS member states at the international ECOWAS peace pageant endorsed by the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja, among several other pageants.
A recent report has revealed that there are over 1000 beauty pageants in Nigeria and they have been keeping lots of Nigerian Youths busy with monetary gains for both the winners and the organizers through the sale of forms, endorsements and sponsorships by corporate organizations.
Meanwhile Nigeria’s humour merchant, Basketmouth who is one celebrity that is not known for holding his tongue has criticized the high number of beauty pageants in Nigeria. He recently slammed the ridiculous beauty pageants in the country.
He said: “it started with Miss Nigeria and MBGN, now we have the following Miss Comely Queen Nigeria, Face of Unity Nigeria, Miss Heritage Beauty pageants, Miss Tourism Nigeria, Miss Ideal Face of the Globe, Miss Teen World Super Model, Miss Dazzle Nigeria, Queen of Aso Rock and Miss Grand Nigeria.”
Others are: “Miss VIP Nigeria, Miss Ambassador for Peace Nigeria, Queen of Trust beauty Nigeria, Face of Nigeria, Miss Global beauty pageant, Sisi Oge beauty pageant, Miss Esquisite, Miss Olokun, etc.”
He noted that “very soon you will hear of Miss Pretty Feet Nigeria, Miss Long Neck pageant, Miss High Heels Nigeria, Miss Fresh Lap pageant, Miss No Hair for leg Nigeria pageant, Miss pointed Boobs Nigeria, Miss No Stretch Marks for Body etc, just watch,” he posted in his instagram.
A showbiz personality in Port Harcourt Prince William Atari has called on stake holders and the relevant authorities to check the proliferation of beauty pageants in the country and to regulate the activities of the organizers so as to bring sanity to the sector and maintain the high standards of which beauty pageants are known for.