Musa Affos (Rhapsodi)

Beauty contest and pageantry in Taraba state is one of the most pronounced set of activities or event. As in a year not less than 5-7 separate beauty contest are organised and at least not less than 20 beauty crowns given.

Pageantry is the act of celebrating beauty, talent, brains, intellectual state of been and as well as empowering the lady to use her beauty, her influence as a beauty queen to as well empower other ladies & the masses too. Quite a number of times several beauty queens have use their office to launch campaigns against rape, drug trafficking , child abuse, early pregnancy and some reach out to IDP camps and orphanage houses.

The rate at which beauty contest are emerging in Taraba state has giving a reactionary feeling from the masses & as generated talks from people within and outside the state. We at Rhapsodi Affos Blog (RAB) took out time to find out the happenings and the untold stories surrounding pageantry and beauty contest in Taraba.

 Despite the scandals arising after each pageantry ranging from sex scandals, unfulfilled promises, use of queens despitefully and bribery or purchase of crowns, many still find interest in going into the business of pageantry.

Pageantry in Taraba state can be traced back to 2013 when prime planet event headed by Hon. Disebe Bala AKA Shakatawa held the first Miss Taraba and with time other crowns where added to the event which Subsequently others have picked interest in it and Crowns like Most beautiful girl in Taraba, Face of Taraba , Miss First class (Three university contests) has emerged with both first and 2nd runner up crowns.

At the local government level crowns like Miss Kurmi, Miss Kwarrafa , Miss Kuteb all emerged. The recent development is the 'little Miss Taraba' which is set to hold its maiden edition. At the academic level virtually all the tertiary institutions in Taraba has  a 'Miss ' with the exception of college of nursing for now. In Federal university Wukari Taraba state and Taraba state university virtually every department has a Miss and almost all ethnic group or association has it crown also.

Early this year when the Vice chancellor of Taraba state university organized a pageantry and the winner was given a brand new car while the runner ups where given cash sums varying from 100, 000 etc, the single act spark up reactions from within & outside the school. students of the said school took to social media to complain about the act and tagged it a misplaced priority. In same development another student lamented that the "Student Union Government (SUG) president is trekking while the face of something is given a car".

RAB team observed that the increasing pageantry was born most times either out of jealousy, quest for vengeance or bitterness (This will be discussed more in our subsequent bulletin). Mid this year they were claims that Taraba state was about to get Disqualified from pageantry which thus made the CEO of Prime planet event manager, Disebe Bala to drop 3 crowns.

The desperation of some of the ladies to have a  crown which will get them attention from the general public and especially the male folks has induced some of the organisers to take advantage of the ladies sexually or monetary. The untold stories about pageantry in Taraba has given a very wrong impression to the outer world especially the elder ones who are mostly Orthodox oriented, and once beauty contest is mentioned most people and parent feels its a called for immorality and indecent activities.

Statistics has number of beauty Queens in Jalingo alone is enough to discredit the existing genuinely queens.
Some of the beauty queens are using it as a yardstick to fight another beauty queen; on several cases there have been cold wars between beauty queens.

Some of the question left to be answered of the observations on the lips of the masses include:

Is pageantry the only form of women empowerment in Taraba?
Why is their increase interest in pageantry?

What is the way forward to reduce, Minimise or regulate the number of beauty Queens or queen makers in Taraba?

Feel free to drop your comments and observations
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