Entertainment
Focus On Miss Nigeria And MBGN Pageants’ Dichtomy
Beauty they say is in the eyes of the beholder, The Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary defines beauty as “the quality of being pleasing to the senses or mind”. It went further to define beauty contest as “a competition to choose the most beautiful from a group of women, while beauty is a competition for young women in which their beauty,personal qualities and skills are judged”.
In Nigeria the two major beauty pageants are the Miss Nigeria and the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN).Both contests claim to represent” the true Nigerian Womanhood”.Yet craft separate models of idealised feminity present different nationalist agenda. These differences stem from two distinct representations of gendered national identities.
The first pageant, Miss Nigeria brands itself as a Nigerian based pageant centred on a cultural nationalist ideal which is focused in vitalising and appreciating Nigerian culture to unify the nation.It is an annual event which showcases positive attributes of Nigerian women and awards university scholarships to winners who portray examplary qualities and serves as role models for young women in the country with its motto:Empowering Women beyond beauty”.The pageant discourages the wearing of swim suites and Bikini which exposes the body of contestants in order to uphold the dignity of the African woman.
In contrast, the second national pageant,the Most Beautiful Girls in Nigeria (MBGN) utilizes ‘International Standard’ to elect and send contestants to miss world and miss universe, the top pageants in the world and promotes a cosmopolitan nationalist ideal which remains concentrated in propelling and integrating Nigeria into the International arena.
The pageant organizers encourages contestants to wear swim suites and Bikinis. The bikini remains a fraught embodied symbol and aesthetic practice. Pageant affiliates, critics and fans alike strongly debate the question of whether to include bikinis in these events,but ethnographic observations of the two Nigerian national beauty contests show how various stakeholders used personal,domestic and international frames about women’s bodies and the bikini in particular to bolster respectability, women’s figurative and literal bodies were used to strategically situated propriety,social acceptance and reputability for the self and the nation.
Historically,the Miss Nigeria Pageant started in 1957 as a photo contest.Contestants posted photograph of themselves to Daily Times headquarters in Lagos where finalists were shortlisted. Those successful were invited to compete in the live final which at the time did not include a swimsuit competition and was held at the Lagos Island club.
United Africa Company (UAC)employee, Grace Oyelude won the maiden edition of Miss Nigeria and the £200(Twohundred pounds)prize money.Contrary to popular believe, Julie Coker was not the first Miss Nigeria, She was actually Miss Western Nigeria,but used the Miss Nigeria title during official engagements abroad.
It is on record that once upon a time Miss Nigeria was the official beauty pageant responsible for sending the Nigerian representatives to the Miss World Beauty Pageant. The sixties saw Miss Nigeria competing at international level, Yemi dowu who had won the contest in 1962 was a semi finalist at Miss United Nations 1963.
Her successor, Miss Edna Park was the first Nigerian at Miss Universe in 1964 and is best remembered for distrupting the show when she collapsed on stage after failing to reach the top fifteen. Park was carried away by policemen and contest officials and spent a night in a Miami hospital under sedation where she was consoled by the wife of Nigerian Ambassador, Nneka Onyegbula who reportedly stated, “All the judges are white and they aren’t really competent to judge a dark girls, beauty”. Since Park,no other Miss Nigeria has contested Miss Universe. Rosaline Balogun became the first official Miss Nigeria at Miss World in 1967. After that the contest was constantly plagued with corruption, low standard and not so smart ladies emerging as winners.critics had described the original Pageant as “ a parade of beauty without brains”.
With the gradual demise of Daily Times and rivalry with Silverbird’s MBGN, Miss Nigeria ceased to be the country’s most prominent pageant and began to lose its way,subsequently they lost their rights to send ladies to Miss World Beauty Pageant and Silverbird which started as Miss Universe Nigeria Pageant took over and rebranded to Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN).
Even though Daily Times lost out from sending pageants abroad, they still had the official name Miss Nigeria which was internationally recognised, MBGN was not recognised abroad, but they were more organised,more glamorous and more public. Ben Murray Bruce leveraging his international exposure and connections was able to deliver a Stellar Pageant contest at about the same time Daily Times was zinking.
In 2001 after Agbani Darego won the Miss World Beauty Pageant in Sun City South Africa,the reigning Miss Nigeria Amina Ekpo attempted to drag her to court,she alleged that Miss Darego “wrongly, falsely and fraudulently presented herself as Miss Nigeria” at the Miss World Pageant. A letter from Ekpo’s lawyers to Darego said, “at no time did she consent to nor authorize the use of that title by you or anyone else in this or any other manner. The case was latter settled out of court.
The current title holder of MBGN is Rivers State born public Health student, Nyekachi Douglas and is currently Africa’s Continental queen of beauty having reached the top five at Miss World .2019 marked the first time since 2001 an MBGN representative places at both Miss World and Miss Universe top 20.
Presently MBGN winner represents Nigeria in Miss World Pageant and MBGN runners up are not left out as the first runner up represents Nigeria at Miss Universe Beauty Pageant, second runner up represent the country in Miss Tourism Beauty contest,while the third runner up represent Nigeria at the Miss ECOWAS Beauty Pageant.
The difference between Miss Nigeria and Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN) have been compared with Miss USA and Miss America. While MBGN delegates compete at international level,Miss Nigeria winners no longer have this privilege.
In 2010 Miss Nigeria was relaunched as a scholarship programme and its winners in recent years receive modelling contract as part of their prize. MBGN focuses mainly on physical beauty unlike Miss Nigeria which is expected to to promote inner beauty with a wholesome girl-next-door image as a result its swim suit competition was famously scrapped in 2010,but this feature remains popular at MBGN.
Due to the country’s conservative standards, Very few contestant competed in the early days of MBGN and competitors from Northern Nigeria are still rare as its predominantly Muslim population frown on beauty Pageants.
Today, the two national beauty pageants, Miss Nigeria and MBGN exist side by side with uneasy calm,but it is clear which has an upper hand. Miss Nigeria is at its best, an option for those who are testing the waters or were unsuccessful with their MBGN run. For instance Miss Nigeria 2018, Chidinma Aaron was formerly a contestant at MBGN 2017.
By: Jacob Obinna
The family of veteran Nollywood actor, Pete Edochie, has dismissed viral rumours circulating on social media claiming that the film icon is dead.
Reacting to the reports in a video shared on his Instagram page on Tuesday, the actor’s eldest son, Leo Edochie, described the claim as false and malicious.
“I’ve been receiving text messages and calls over the nonsense post by some people that our father, Chief Pete Edochie, is dead. It is a lie from the pit of hell,” he said.
Leo added that the actor is alive and in good health, condemning those responsible for spreading the rumour.
“Our father is alive, hale and hearty. And if you wish someone dead, two things usually happen. The person will live very long and you will die before him. Shame to all of you,” he said.
The rumour had sparked concern among fans before the family’s clarification.
Nollywood veteran actress Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde is making her directorial debut with a different and sharper focus. Speaking recently with Newsmen,, the screen icon highlighted a glaring void in the industry’s catalogue, which is the authentic reality of mother-daughter relationships.
“We don’t have too many films that explore or showcase the relationship between mothers and daughters,” Omotola said during the interview, describing the subject as something deeply personal to her.
Speaking honestly about raising her first daughter, she admitted she had only one mode at the time, which was discipline. “I didn’t do a good job,” she said plainly, explaining that she understood motherhood strictly through control, not softness or emotional openness.
At the centre of Mother’s Love is Adebisi, a sheltered young woman from a wealthy home whose life is shaped by her father’s rigid control. Her first taste of freedom comes through NYSC, where distance from home allows her to begin discovering who she is outside her family’s expectations. She forms a friendship with a young man from a more modest background, and through him, starts to see the world and herself differently.
But the emotional core of the film isn’t Adebisi’s rebellion. It’s her mother. Long after being presented as quiet and compliant, she slowly reveals a resolve when her daughter’s safety and future are threatened. As secrets surface and buried grief comes into view, Mother’s Love becomes less about youthful independence and more about maternal sacrifice, unspoken trauma, and the emotional costs of survival inside a patriarchal home.
The Tide Entertainment reports that the film doesn’t shy away from weighty themes by including PTSD, unresolved grief, and social inequality at the centre of the story. It is far removed from the soft-focus sentimentality that often defines Mother’s Day-style narratives.
It also marks Omotola’s directorial debut, a significant moment considering how long she has shaped Nollywood from the front of the camera. She stars in the film alongside a mix of familiar faces and newer talent, including Ifeanyi Kalu, Olumide Oworu, and Noray Nehita.
Beyond the film itself, Omotola’s interview touched on a tension that has been simmering in Nollywood for a while now: how movies are marketed in the age of TikTok. Addressing the growing expectation for actors and filmmakers to create viral dance content to promote their work, she didn’t mince words. The pressure, she said, is exhausting and unnatural.
For her, the industry wasn’t meant to function this way. Still, she was careful not to judge anyone else’s approach. Everyone invests differently, carries different risks, and should be allowed to promote their films however they see fit.
“Do whatever you can do. It’s exhausting, it’s not natural. For me, the film industry is not supposed to be like that. We are encouraging nonsense if we are doing that. It doesn’t mean that whoever is doing it is wrong.”
Her comments arrive not long after the public back-and-forth between Kunle Afolayan and Funke Akindele over marketing styles, a debate that quickly turned into a proxy war between prestige storytelling and viral strategy. Omotola’s stance sits somewhere calmer. She understands the shift social media has brought, but she’s also clear about her own boundaries.
Omotola’s critique about the lack of mother-daughter stories isn’t unfounded. In Nollywood, mothers often exist as symbols rather than people. They’re either saintly figures who pray endlessly for their children or villains whose cruelty drives the plot forward. What’s missing is intimacy, the negotiations, and the regrets. The love that exists alongside resentment and misunderstanding.
Films rarely sit with the emotional complexity of women raising daughters in systems that also failed them. There’s little room for mothers who made mistakes but are still trying, or daughters who love their mothers while questioning the damage they inherited. Mother’s Love attempts to occupy that space, offering a more grounded portrayal that reflects lived experience rather than archetypes.
That’s where the film’s potential impact lies, in the decision to centre a relationship that Nollywood has largely flattened. If it works, it could open the door for more stories that treat motherhood as a lived, evolving reality rather than a fixed moral position.
Mother’s Love, directed by and starring Omotola Jalade Ekeinde, had its world premiere at the 50th Toronto International Film Festival on September 6, 2025. The film is set for a nationwide cinema release in Nigeria on March 6, 2026.
Funke Akindele’s Behind The Scenes becomes Nollywood’s highest-grossing film of 2025, earning ?1.77bn in under four weeks.
Multi-award-winning actress and producer Funke Akindele has done it again, and this time, the numbers speak louder than applause.
Her latest film, Behind The Scenes, has officially emerged as the highest-grossing Nollywood film of 2025, pulling in an astonishing ?1.767 billion in less than four weeks.
The Tide Entertainment reports that Funke Akindele Makes Box Office History as Behind The Scenes Crosses ?1.77bn
Earlier in its release cycle, the film’s distributor, FilmOne Entertainment, revealed that Behind The Scenes smashed five opening-weekend records, including the highest single-day gross ever recorded on Boxing Day, with ?129.5 million in one day. That announcement already hinted that something unusual was unfolding.
Reacting to the milestone, FilmOne described the moment as both surreal and communal, crediting audience loyalty for pushing the film to the top spot once again as the number-one movie of the weekend. And that sentiment feels accurate. This wasn’t just ticket sales; it was momentum.
What makes this achievement even more striking is that Behind The Scenes is Funke Akindele’s third film to cross the ?1 billion mark. Before now, there was A Tribe Called Judah, and then Everybody Loves Jenifa, a film that didn’t just open big, but went on to become the highest-grossing Nollywood film of all time. At this point, it’s no longer a fluke. It’s a pattern.
Part of Behind The Scenes’ success lies in strategy. The film enjoyed advanced screenings on December 10 and 11, quietly building curiosity and conversation before its nationwide release on December 12. By the time it officially hit cinemas, audiences already felt like they needed to see it.
Then there’s the cast. The film brings together a lineup that feels deliberately stacked: Scarlet Gomez, Iyabo Ojo, Destiny Etiko, Tobi Bakre, Uche Montana, and several others. Familiar faces, strong fan bases, and performances that kept word-of-mouth alive long after opening weekend.
Still, beyond timing and casting, there’s something else at work here. Funke Akindele understands Nigerian audiences. Their humour, their pacing, their emotional buttons. She doesn’t guess, she calculates, experiments, listens, and refines. That understanding has slowly turned into box-office dominance.
Behind The Scenes crossing ?1.77 billion isn’t just another headline; it’s confirmation. Funke Akindele has moved from being a successful actress to becoming one of the most reliable commercial forces Nollywood has ever produced. Three-billion-naira films don’t happen by luck. They happen when storytelling, business sense, and audience trust align.
And right now, that alignment seems firmly in her hands.
-
Sports2 days ago2026 WC: Nigeria, DR Congo Awaits FIFA Verdict Today
-
Sports5 days ago
DG NIS Wants NSC Board Constituted, Seeks Increased In Funding
-
Business5 days agoCustoms Seek Support To Curb Smuggling In Ogun
-
Featured5 days agoINEC Proposes N873.78bn For 2027 Elections, N171bn For 2026 Operations
-
Sports5 days agoSWAN Rivers Set-up Five Functional Committees
-
Sports5 days ago
NSC Disburses N200m Training Grants To 26 Athletes
-
Sports5 days ago
‘NTF Will Build On Davis Cup Success For Brighter Future’
-
News5 days ago
Police Bust Kidnapping Syndicate In PH