Abuja – Miss Winfrey Okolo, a
student of the University of Benin,
has won the 2012 Miss University
Nigeria (MUN) beauty pageant. Okolo emerged the winner by
beating 48 other contestants in
Abuja on Friday night. The beauty queen received a
star prize of a Nissan Sony car
and one million naira. In an interview after her
installation, Okolo said that the
event marked her first
participation at a beauty
contest, thanking God for
enabling her to excel at the competition. She, however, pledged to make
good use of her position to
affect the lives of Nigerian
youths. “I will try to stimulate a change
in the Nigerian university system; I
will endeavour to promote
modesty, hard work and a lot of
things that will bring out the
students’ confidence,’’ Okolo said. NAN reports that the competition
was a “no-bikini pageant’’ that
was particularly aimed at
promoting the African culture
and discouraging indecent
dressing among the youth. Mr Taylor Nazzal, the President
of MUN Organisation, said that he
was happy to touch the lives of
many young Nigerians. “We can always inspire women
out there to be better leaders of
tomorrow. They are all potential
wives and if you groom them well,
you’ve succeeded in grooming
the men and the whole world,’’ he said. Nazzal said that the new beauty
queen would be Nigeria’s student
ambassador to the United
Nations (UN), adding that she
would also be engaged to carry
out charity assignments. He also noted that Okolo would
represent Nigeria at the Miss
University Africa pageant
involving 53 countries in South
Africa and the Miss United
Nations pageant in New York next year. In her remark, the FCT Minister of
State, Mrs Olajumoke Akinjide,
said that the pageant was also
promoting the government’s
vision for the youth. The minister, who was
represented by Dr Geoffrey
Chukwuemeka, a Director in FCT
Administration (FCTA), noted that
the beauty contest also created
an avenue for the contestants to exhibit their talents because it
was not about beauty alone. Akinjide said that the pageant
also reinforced the FCTA’s goal
of promoting national unity and
peace. “It also supports our plans aimed
at discovering the potential of
our female youth, protection of
our female youth and
discouragement of indecent
dressing, prostitution and other social vices among young ladies,’’
she said. The `non-bikini’ beauty pageant
began in 2007 and its 2011
edition was won by Miss
Temitope Olowoniyan of Ahmadu
Bello University (ABU), Zaria. (NAN)
www.vanguardngr.com/2012/12/okolo-wins-miss-university-nigeria-beauty-pageant/