The 3rd Face of Okija pageant set to make history by crowning queen and king ambassadors



On the 29th of December 2016, the 3rd ‘Face of Okija’ pageant which promotes humanitarian service and Igbo culture will hold in the town of Okija in Anambra State.

The Face of Okija is a beauty pageant with a difference. It is a rich cultural event aimed at rejuvenating Igbo culture which has been badly eroded by all manner of external influences. The Face of Okija supports and promotes Igbo language and culture and lays great emphasis on the qualities of the archetypal African woman which include honesty, decency, modesty, humility and service. This is the true definition of beauty. This is the beauty celebrated at the Face of Okija pageant.

This year, the contest which is open to citizens of Igbo land at large and indigenes of Okija in particular, introduces a long-awaited twist with the introduction of a male category. The Face of Okija pageant winners will be announced the Queen and the King will become ambassadors of the ObiJackson foundation for the duration of their reign.

Prior to 2016, publicity for the pageant was limited to Okija and its environs however the foundation has taken a big step this year by extending the reach of its recruitment message by adding online advertising to reach indigenes all over Nigeria and hopefully in Diaspora. On the reason for these two big decisions, the founder of the Foundation Dr. Ernest Azudialu Obiejesi had this to say;

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“In all things, males and females represented including creation and especially in service to humanity, so the Face of Okija must reflect this duality.”

The competition is open to Igbo and Okija indigenes below the age of 30 who are fluent in Igbo and hold a minimum of a polytechnic or university degree.


This year, the King and Queen will be hired by the foundation and will earn a fixed salary of 1.4million for one year, an official vehicle for the duration of reign, a scholarship grant of one million naira (N1,000,000 ) and a chance to impact the lives of the indigenes of Okija, Igboland and Nigeria positively through a mix of social welfare programs that they will be required to champion.

Ms.Chioma Uzoh who was crowned in 2014, said her biggest learning in working with the various divisions of the foundation over the last two years was

“ Learning to be more tolerant, patient, humble, and being extremely passionate about charity work, one can attest to the fact that with all these attributes improves one’s life”

To apply for The Face of Okija pageant, visit www.faceofokija.com. Applications close on the 10th of December 2016, Camp begins on the 19th and the grand finale holds on the 29th of December 2016.





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Winner of face of okija, miss chioma uzoh visit Holy Family
By orji chibueze

Venue: Okija Anambra state

Courtesy of Obijackson Foundation!!!

Face of Okija 2013 Preperations by Dr. Ernest & Maryann Azudialu

Okija? I won't forget the Okija Shrine drama

Face of okija

TonyeBarcanista:
Okija? I won't forget the Okija Shrine drama

The Town is now renewed and revived!!!.(pic)Okija

Make I rush go buy cucumber before e begin scarce.

investnow2013:
The Town is now renewed and revived!!!.

I passed through the town earlier this year

Am from Okija, its our heritage.

TonyeBarcanista:
Okija? I won't forget the Okija Shrine drama

TonyeBarcanista:
I passed through the town earlier this year

It is one of the fastest growing town in Nigeria today with 2 Universities and the third one on the way!!!.

TonyeBarcanista:
I passed through the town earlier this year

The Best Women & Children HOSPITAL called Obijackson HOSPITAL is @ Okija Anambra State

If it is tgg biggest in Nigeria,


Where does MBGN stand??

shizzy7:
If it is tgg biggest in Nigeria,


Where does MBGN stand??

It is now the biggest and we'll sponsored!!!

STILL ON THE FACE OF OKIJA

The excitement was invigorating and the longing for the D-day, exhilarating. The cocks in the town were forced to crow earlier than before. Each room of the building where the maidens were accommodated was a beehive of activities – ranging from the cerebral to the ceremonious. The young women’s eyes beam in ecstasy. They feel their breasts heave out of anxiety and they giggled to let off some tension. They are beauties with brains –the paragon of an illustrious town in Eastern Nigeria. As the day shed its haze, these young ‘queens’ appear in spectacular traditional attire; radiant, ravishing and robust. Amongst these maidens, one will become what is famously known as the ‘Face of Okija.’ And it’s the second of its kind. The ‘Face of Okija’ is a traditional pageant that combines the intrinsic with the cosmetic. The beautiful ones are here born: in Okija. The eastern town, Okija –the largest and oldest place in Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State - is where the sun is always rising. It is a city bounded in the east by Ihembosi and Ukpor; and in the west by Ogbakubara; in the north by Ozubulu and in the south by Ihiala. You can feel the pulse of the occasion right from the popular Okija junction on the Onitsha-Owerri road leading to Nkwo market –a distance of about three kilometres. The traffic gridlock signposts the throng attending the event. Venue of the annual cultural pageant is the playing field of Saint Peter’s stadium, Ubahu-Okija near the Nkwo market. Charles Onyekamuo who witnessed the event sponsored by the Obi Jackson Foundation reports that it was groovy and worth the time spent in its preparations and the objective it was meant to achieved.

The convener of the event, the founder of Obi Jackson Foundation, Dr. Ernest Azudialu-Obiejesi, who heads the Nigeria’s foremost indigenous oil and gas company, Nestoil Plc as the Group Managing Director, is a relentless philanthropist. An internationally reputed businessman and a man committed to his roots. A gentleman, patriotic and elegant, he combines business acumen with a classy disposition both in the corporate world and in his relationship with grass roots people. To keep in touch with the less privileged, he runs a non-governmental organisation, the Obi Jackson Foundation. Part of the foundation’s mission is to care for abandoned children and other vulnerable people in the society. The foundation is known for sponsoring multiple orphanages, building of churches among other things - like the “Face of Okija.”
On Monday, December 29, 2014, Okija was agog as people from all over the world converged to witness the second edition of the cultural pageant tagged ‘Face of Okija.’. A maiden, Chioma Mercy Uzoh emerged the new Face of Okija 2014.
Traffic snarl resulted from enthusiastic people from far and near eager to get to the stadium, venue of the annual cultural pageant. The cultural community pageant sponsored by the Obi Jackson Foundation, apart from being an event meant to showcase the maidens were drawn from about 30 villages of Okija in Ihiala council area of Anambra State. The town’s cultural values are also aimed at supporting the growth and sustenance of Igbo language which is now going into extinction.
The pageant is a deliberate and conscious effort to rebrand Okija town and portray its positive attributes to the outside world.
Here is a town, though rich in culture, human and material resources, has its image smeared a few years ago by the activities of a few unscrupulous elements whose idolatrous tendencies and the craze to get rich quick through organised deceits against unsuspecting members of the public purported to be the wish of the gods have brought into odium in the eyes of the world.
Now, if you had thought that the maiden edition of the Okija cultural beauty pageant in 2013, where Ezinne Ezezie, a 23-year-old Pharmacy student of the University of Nigeria Nsukka, became the maiden Face of Okija was a fluke, this time around, the glamour and acceptance of the pageant even made it more compelling.
The introduction of the contestants and their dance drama notwithstanding, the event, an annual event is a cultural pageant showcasing the finest of eastern beauties event from Okija, Anambra state, Nigeria.
“The Face of Okija cultural pageant celebrates the beauty, talent, diversity and richness of our culture.
“The underlying idea is to change lives by empowering young women to achieve their dreams, while retaining a keen sense of their roots.
“The pageant promotes the speaking of the Igbo language and a revisit to our traditional value system,” Azudialu said.
To select a winner, emphasis is placed on contestants who champion education, economic development and over all well-being of the town. The event also serves as a platform for people to pool together and find meaningful ways of effecting changes in the community.
The event, Azudialu, said was planned for two months and the reason for his Foundation’s involvement in it was to encourage and support the culture Igbo and sustain the Igbo language which he noted is going into extinction due to the fact that the Igbo had forgotten where they were coming from.
He blamed Igbo parents for not doing enough to encourage their children to speak Igbo language. For that reason, he said, Obi Jackson Foundation has making a conscious effort to encourage and sustain the speaking of Igbo.
“We made it such that one of the conditions for winning the first prize, which goes with a Kia Cerato salon car; a cash prize of N3 million, a scholarship to finish the winner’s education as well as being the Obi Jackson Foundation Ambassador in 2015 is that you must know how to speak Igbo flawlessly.
“The Igbo love one another and the Obi Jackson Foundation strives to sustain that love. That is why the event is organised during the Christmas festivities when the people wherever they live in the world have come back home,” he said.
This idea, according to him, was to make the Igbo and Okija indigenes particularly, to start thinking of home and to foster love in the area.

Deep down, he said, the think-home philosophy would help find a way to make the returnees see their town as requiring collective development.
“Okija needs a lot of development and the only way to do it is to eschew hatred and enthrone love with a view to creating that. We felt it is necessary to pool resources together and effect development,” he said.
The foundation he said, had been at the forefront of rehabilitating dilapidated structures in many schools across Anambra and other areas in the South-East; upgrading markets, building hospitals and providing security through donation of vans equipped with communication gadgets.
The foundation’s Youth Empowerment Programme, he said had trained about 300 Okija youths on different skills and empowered them with the cash to practise what they had learnt with a view to helping themselves.
The foundation’s contributions also include the completion of a 30-bed children’s hospital in Okija.
In a similar development, an acre of land had been acquired to build the Okija Specialist Hospital with the aim of treating Nigerians locally instead of flying to India for medical treatment.
Well, not that that the specialist hospital will be run pro bono; the Nestoil boss disclosed that the initiative was entirely a business venture.
At least, about 2000 Okija indigenes and 10,000 others in Ihiala Local Government had registered to be treated of differing ailments free of charge at the Obi Jackson hospital.
To Azudialu-Obiejesi, doing all these is one way he thinks his organisation and the foundation can give back to the society part of the bounties God had blessed him with.
Besides, the foundation has planned to start, from this year, a wrestling festival where all the villages in Okija would compete and the winner goes home with a brand new bus and a cash prize.
Also, the foundation is currently sponsoring the Under-17 Anambra Football Championship which finals held in Okija on January 3, 2015.

Obiejesi is not stopping at that. Plans have been made to build an international five-star hotel in Okija in the next 18 months because of the influx of people into the town during the pageant.
Azudialu-Obiejesi’s accounts of the activities of the foundation and its plans this year were followed immediately by evening gown presentation and selection of top 15 contestants from the pack of 30.
Following that was the traditional wear presentation and the narrowing of the 15 remaining contestants to five who were asked questions on certain Igbo symbols and their significance and uses in Igbo culture and tradition.
They were tested on their knowledge of the symbols as the palm fronds, cow tail (nza), kola nuts, Uli used in beautifying the body of a woman in traditional Igbo society and buildings.
Their knowledge of the uses of akara (bead) and cowries were sought. If their explanations of the uses of these symbols in traditional Igbo society were to be the sole parameter for gauging their knowledge of Igbo language and the tradition of the people, then it is to say that part of the objectives for which the Obi Jackson Foundation instituted the annual Face of Okija cultural pageant had been achieved. The reason is not far-fetched.
This is because the young girls, of an average age of 20, demonstrated a deep knowledge of the articles of Igbo culture and tradition with precision in flawless Igbo that won each of them a standing ovation from the mixed audience of Igbo at home and in the Diaspora who graced the occasion.
And, as the blind on the scene was drawn with the contestants retiring to their dressing room, the master of ceremony, Ebuka Uchendu, also a son of Okija invited Tiwa-Savage, Phyno and Whizkid to the stage to perform some of the tunes that have made them the toast of music lovers across the country.
While the guests were serenaded and thrilled, there were comic reliefs as comedians Bovi and I go dye held everyone spellbound.
At the end of the day, the panel of judges chose Chioma Mercy Uzoh as the winner of the Face of Okija 2014. She will be the Ambassador of Obi Jackson Foundation in 2015.
Besides her, Chinelo Chukwudebelu emerged the first runners-up and walked away with a cash prize of N500, 000, while, Jennifer Abajuo, the second runner-up won N300, 000.
The Face of Okija 2013, Ezinne Ejezie who crowned her successor described herself as a proud daughter of Okija.
She said that working closely with the foundation in the preceding year had made her life eventful as she worked towards improving education, by providing desks, computers and other educational materials to schools. Ejezie was also able to attract a medical team from abroad who came and examined the sick and elderly.
With the assistance of the foundation too, the distribution of food items to the less privileged in and outside Okija has been made possible.

She described all the contestants as winners and urged those who lost to regard themselves as “queens” also.
The winner did not make any post-victory speech while the organisers did not allow press interview with her to know how she intends to function as the new Face of Okija. But while on stage introducing her as the contest wore on, Uzoh had emphasised on focusing on improving education in the state and ensuring that the welfare of the less privileged were pursued through the foundation.
The state governor, Willie Obiano who had earlier declared the event open had marveled at the crowd of people that came for the cultural pageant and said it was because his administration had improved security in the state which made it possible for people to throng the Okija town without fear of losing their lives or property.
While pledging continued support for the pageant which he described as unique, the governor said his administration’s improvement in the security sector was evident in the mass return of Anambra people during the Christmas and that the fireworks he did in upper Iweka area of Onitsha during the period was a kind of a conquest of the area which he had recaptured from hoodlums who hitherto made life within the axis unbearable for people.
Security in the state he said had brought about investment revolution, adding that in the last four months of his administration investments worth over $1.64bn had been attracted. Cc:Lalasticlala