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In a bid to make
the youths embrace their cultural heritage, the National Museum Lagos
has celebrated this year’s International Museum Day with a Miss Museum
Beauty Pageant. The pageant, held in the museum’s premises in Onikan,
Lagos on May 14, 2010, was established to select a beautiful but also
intelligent young lady conversant with Nigeria’s cultural heritage, and
who can represent the museum internationally.

The pageant started
in 2008 as an in-house event involving staff only, won by Temilade
Ibrahim. With Lagos State setting the pace for other Museums around the
world, the Miss Museum pageant was approved and recommended by the
International Council of Museums. Fascinated by the idea as a platform
to showcase the beauty of the African woman, the international council
included it in their programmes and recommended the pageant for all
affiliated museums worldwide.

Ibrahim reigned for
two years, because the National Commission for Museum and Monument in
Abuja celebrated last year’s international Museum Day, in Lagos. That
made it impossible to hold a Miss Museum Pageant last year. The need to
hold another Miss Museum pageant became necessary in order to get a
representative for the Lagos-based Museum at the International Museum
Expo in China.

This year’s pageant
started out with a four-day camp at Jabita International Hotels in
Ikeja, where the contestants were taught about the Museum and
artefacts. They received self improvement skills like catwalks,
personality development, etiquette, and ideas they could develop for
pet projects during their reign. They also went on a tour of the
Museum, and were introduced to Nigeria’s rich cultural heritage. As
future cultural ambassadors, the contestants who were picked from the
humanities and the social sciences, represented fifteen of Nigerian
ethnic groups: Afemai, Benin, Egun, Efik, Fulani, Fulade, Hausa, Ibo,
Igala, Ijaw, Itsekiri, Ile-Oluji, Nupe, Tiv, and Yoruba.

After much scrutiny
on poise, confidence, carriage, beauty, expression and how to represent
the museum, Joy Iruobe (Miss Efik) emerged winner. With a 100,000 cash
prize amongst other gifts, she will be representing the National Museum
in China in October. The runners-up also count as winners and will
represent different arms of the museum. Miss Museum Tourism is Miss
Nupe, the pageant’s first runner-up and the second runner-up
representing Ile-Oluji is Miss Museum Education. Relishing her victory,
Iruobe said, “I was overwhelmed, excited. I was weak and nervous and I
didn’t expect it.” For her pet project, she said, “I want to create a
journal and a newsletter to inform the world about the Nigerian
traditional culture and also invite secondary school students to a
competition on how well you know your culture; and roots and the
student with the most cultural knowledge goes home with a prize.”

The Curator of the museum, Ibironke Ashaye, expressed gratitude to
everyone who contributed to the success of the pageant. “The
celebration doesn’t end here, we also want to show the world that there
is ability in disability, so we are bringing the (physically
challenged) to the museum (Monday, May 17).” The Curator, who expressed
her faith in the youth of this generation, said, “we must try as much
as possible to see that our youth are well grounded in culture, so that
when we leave, we would be at peace that we are leaving people that are
very intelligent and can move the Museum forward.”