NMA NA ALA IGBO by Ugochukwu Amajuoyi

IGBO CULTURAL PAGEANTRY

Modern Day Igbo cultural pageantry as defined by the Adandiigbo cultural pageant was one of the ways Mazi MacRobinson Anele ,a graduate of Agricultural Economics from the University of Nigeria Nsukka , his younger brother Mazi Joseph Anele ,a theater arts graduate of University of Port Harcourt their elder brother Mazi Kennedy Anele a library science /History graduate of University of Nigeria Nsukka and only sister at the time Miss Lovelyn Anele , a food science graduate of College of Education Rumuolumeni came together to fuse Ideas of starting something original, something unique for the Igbos that would show where they as a people stood in telling the world about their heritage as a proud rich ethnic nationality .
The Aneles concepted the ways and means of present day Igbo cultural pageantry , made Igbos proud , sustained the concept and the cultural pageantry concept spread like wild fire , So did the accolades from across the world .With support from other Anele siblings in South Africa ,America , England ,Ghana and Europe , the word flew that the Igbos were poised to redefine the concept of beauty in Igbo land .Support also came from so many non Igbos and businesses in alliance with the Anele business empire which transcends entertainment,hospitality and manufacturing .
‘Ada’ as a sobriquet for every title winner was chosen as the symbolic title instead of traditional ‘Miss’ as used by Eric Morley in 1951 when he introduced the conventional Miss World , a swim wear pageant . Adandiigbo dropped the swim wear segment like a bad habit.Not just because Igbo girls were an epitome of beauty curvaceous and wonderfully made but because our culture did not support it ‘Ndi Igbo are decent people’ was the remark that made the swim wear segment as practiced by orthodox pageants to be dropped by the Adandiigbo crew in shaping the way forward for Igboland ,in its desire to create an identity for ndi igbo in pageantry .
In one of his lectures to the contestants ,Dr Dozie Ikedife ,a former Ohaneze President described the Igbo girl child as a rare example of beauty , morally upright and Obedient breed . He also pointed out that the effects of the war on the image of the Igbo girl child and was happy these problems were being talked about as a form of informal education to put the Igbo girl child back on track .
Poise, , ability to speak the language were some of the attributes looked out for ,facial beauty was there but not the highest scoring attribute .In Igboland ,Agwa bu nma Nwanyi meaning the character of a woman decides her beauty .The focus of the entire project is having a broad re- orientation for our girl child to tackle the seemingly breakdown of our value system .The need for recourse to light make up and not masquerading in rainbow like and unladylike appearance Igbos are decent people and our role models must be better than imagined.
Sponsorship was the first problem , there were no funds but the creativity was there . Mazi MacRobinson belled the cat by supplying all the needed funds for the first ten years of the pageant while Mazi Joseph managed professionally the events television and preparation of the girls in etiquette and follow ups ,Kennedy was the print master with the family printing empire under his watch , Mrs Onuoha had the girls morals in check and ensured camp rules on morality were kept ,this was not without the support of many committees , facilitators event management people and business men across Igboland and outside .Igbo businessmen helped a great deal and it was who is who in Igbo business.The glory of the pageant came when the Ikemba Dim Odumegwu Ojukwu endorsed the pageant
One of the first non Igbos to assist the pageant Financially was Admiral ,Festus Porbeni , a former minister and Ijaw man who loved the concept and supported the pageant very massively stronger than any Igboman did , even as a non Igbo he was tolerant and happy to have Igbos perceiving him as a worthy states man , also a remarkable non Igbo to assist in the early years was Late Mr Charles Hopst Nigeria's John Player dance champion of 1985 ,he handled choreography from 2006 and made the girls fantastic dancers many past contestants worked on this to greater heights .
In 2005 , nobody was ready to spend a dime supporting projects they were not sure of ,even major brands were not supporting pageants .However, the bug and the noise was caught by other ethnic pageants and concepts like Sisi Oge came on stream to change people in the west and their perception of cultural pageantry in Nigeria .
In an interview with the president of the Adandiigbo organization he said ‘’We made sure we were not using big names as at the time in anything we were doing we looked for new names that had a dream the urge to succeed kind of dream and we worked with them in all aspects of their business . So many of them are stars today even bigger than the pageant itself and larger than their image back in the days when we ensured we were always by them in their acts , that Nigga raw ,Duncan Mighty, Linda Ikeji, the london based Afrobeat artist ,Bernard Best ,talkative Jeffrey Amusu , Dorathy Njemanze ,Abushe,@2can tok,ugo stevenson, Raymond Ukegbu , Klint the drunk ,The list is endless and may change the topic of this discussion if kept on ‘’.
The chairman of the pageant went on to say ‘’ There were difficulties in the early years, 12 Years down the line cultural Pageantry is accepted ,people even want to answer our name as close as possible to make an instant hit . We are humbled by the show of appreciation for the cultural heritage of our people , we are humbled by the clamor and spread of ethic pageantry since 2005 and the push for relevance by so many organizers and we encourage every Igbo man to encourage cultural pageantry ,its our pride ,Igbos are wise and productive full of commercial acumen we welcome it , today there is a better recourse to culture , our youngsters are getting informed and can afford more than one trip a year to Igboland Egbe bere Ugo bere nke si ibe ya ebela ,nku kwa ya