Yusuf Ololade Faidat of Unilorin, beauty queens of Nnewi

A case of beautiful brain, beautiful faces 

“When we were growing up they used to tell us that education is the key to success, now we have that key only to find out that the Nigerian government has changed the padlock” – Anonymous

Just when we thought 2017 was going to be ushered in with the economic growth dominating the space, the yuletide served us with a topic of discourse from Nnewi, in Anambra state.

Friday being the usual day for fun in Nigeria, 30th December was not an exemption; the Ifeanyi Uba’s sponsored Nnewi Youths Fiesta was held, reportedly, all the 16 contestants for the Miss Nnewi beauty pageant were disqualified for failing to answer basic current affairs questions correctly.
A contestant excitedly told the gathering that the current president of the Federal Republic is “Dr. Muhammadu Buhari”. Most said, ‘No Idea.’ Yet these are supposed to be undergraduates!

Yusuf Ololade Faidat of Unilorin…beauty, brilliant and brainy

At the end of the day, no winner was declared as the organisers were thoroughly embarrassed. The car prize meant for the winner had to be taken away.

My interest is the about that car that would have been driven away by these ugly brains. Sad and disgraceful.

It might not sound true, but it actually happened. That is how bad our education system has gone and reading culture overtaken with the desire to be rich within the shortest time possible, irrespective of the way the money comes.

I want to take us back a little into the same year 2016, when one of the graduands at the University of Ilorin 32nd convocation ceremony, Yusuf Ololade Faidat, was the centre of attraction, having clinched 19 prizes. Faidat, who is in her early 20s beat all other students in her faculty to win the prize for the best graduating student from the Department of Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences.

She received the prize of N20, 000 awarded each session by the Senate to the student adjudged to be the best in each faculty.

These two events just reaffirmed the articles of both Pius Adesanmi and Reuben Abati who both wrote on “A Nigerian, library and lawmakers” and “Nobody comes to Abuja to read” respectively.

While Adesanmi’s argument is that Nigerian politicians, unlike their counterparts in Canada and I suppose elsewhere also, do not read, Reuben Abati lamented the death of reading culture and lack of libraries in our present day country. The students who are supposed to be acute readers are worst. Example of what Nnewi beauty queens demonstrated, “Dr. Muhammadu Buhari”. I weep for my generation. Not even the National Library can boast of good books. I will like to add that not only the politicians, even the ordinary man on the street reads. A clear prove was by the Imo state government’s claim that 70% of some people from a particular part of the country are not informed. They don’t read newspapers, watch educative programmes or listen to raid. Oh! My country Nigeria. It is not only in that part of the country, I can say it is also like that in almost all parts of the country, South, West, North and East.

On a lighter mood, one person asked, “why didn’t the judges asked the ‘beauty queens’ names of makeups, hairstyles, dresscode for different occasions, and latest tech phones, or even Zeeworld and seasonal love movies?”. Surely, as laughable as this may sound, they would have all performed fined and excellently well.

I want to say that beauty and brain both are most important. But I think beauty is not as important as the brain. Brain like internal beauty show intelligence, mental ability, good ideas, opinions, while external beauty on the other hand shows the facial beauty only, that is if the person is not wearing what they call ‘foundation’ or what I call ‘kpotokpoto’.  However, if you have a smart brain, you can make your personality very beautiful and attractive and in addition makes you bold. But when you can only boast of having good face or personality without having a good brain like our Nnewi Queens, then it’s like a day without sunshine which means nothing. So if you have smart brain beauty will come automatically and beauty is from God.

I am of the proponent that Beauty and Brain go together. The brain is the most important part of our body which governs all other parts of our body. If we have the brain then we have everything. If one is intelligent enough to groom

President Yahya Jammeh…will he change his mind?

himself/herself then beauty will come automatically. It’s our personality, confidence, attitude and dressing sense which makes us beautiful but for that, we mind beautiful mind. So, unless we will have a beautiful mind we won’t be beautiful at our appearance. Even if we talk about dressing sense, if someone is not intelligent enough to make perfect colour combinations for pants, shirts and tie and wear anything random, how will he be good at appearance?

My take is that we need to go back to our value system. We need to go back to our grassroots, we need to entertain that culture of reading and that has to do with innovation that will encourage readership Beauty alone is not impressive. Put an attitude to be attractive and brain to be sophisticated. Beauty without intelligence they say brain is a masterpiece painted on a napkin.

To Faidat, please don’t be discouraged. Keep the flag flying and surely the sky will be your starting point. Hardwork pays. The reward is bountiful and enormous. To their Nnewi queens, buy current affairs pamphlet and keep yourselves informed, soon America, Ghana and Gambia if Jammeh changes his mind again will witness transitions. Please know the names of not only the President of Nigeria, Governors, but also some world leaders. It helps.

 

 

 

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