No fewer than 30 candidates have been selected to contest during the grand finale of the 2019 , “Miss Big and Fabulous” beauty pageant scheduled for May 4 in Owerri.
The organiser of the event, Fortune Nkem popularly known as Lagarido, disclosed this development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagoslll.
He said that the finalists were selected from auditions held in some parts of the federation between February 2, 2019 and March 16, 2019.
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“We selected the 30 lucky young girls with big and beautiful curves from the auditions held in Lagos, Calabar, Enugu, Abuja and Owerri between February 2 and March 16.
“We also had online auditions for those who could not make it to any of the scheduled states considering their comfort, and being first of its kind,” he told NAN.
He said that the lucky girls would be invited to camp in Owerri on April 29 for a week of intensive training and preparations for the grand finale.
He said the audition was really tough being the first of its kind in the industry.
He added that ladies with various statistics and who were underage showed up at the audition venues.
Nkem said that this was despite the specification that prospective candidates must be above 18 years old and also be of size 12 large.
He said that the choice of having the contest in Owerri was to shift focus from the congested entertainment industry in Lagos to an emerging tourism destination.
“There are so many entertainment activities in Lagos.
” We need to explore and extend the entertainment activities to other states where there are wonderful tourism sites to showcase, and Owerri has what it takes,” he said.
The organiser also told NAN that they decided to introduce the big-size pageantry to make ladies in this category have a sense of belonging just as the regular-size models.
“Beauty does not end with the slim and tall ladies, we have a lot of admirable black beauties in the large and curvy ladies, which make them stand out as Africans.
” Though, it took a lot of persuasions and convictions before we could get their responses as they felt it could be a form of mockery,” he said.
Nkem, also the organiser of Miss Beautiful Nigeria, said that it was beautiful to be a plus-size, curvy and smart girl.
” We want the world know that everyone is beautiful in his or her own different way,” he said.
He noted that human beings were created differently by God hence the need to appreciate every creation of God.
“We implore all plus-size ladies to take this opportunity and showcase their God-given talents to the world, live their dreams and be happy.
“The slim ladies have their own pageants but this one is specifically and specially for the plus-size ladies,” he told NAN.
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Nkem said, “This is the first of its kind and it promises to be the best, which will portray beauty, class, elegance and smartness of large ladies.
“We are looking at crowning a new beauty queen who will become an ambassador to plus-size ladies in the country.
“We shall build in them the boldness to speak, live and exist amongst others without any iota of discrimination,” he said.
The organiser said the final winner would also participate in the Miss Plus-Size contest coming up in Brazil and receive various gifts.
He said that some of the special features to complement the show would include: the exhibition of African cusines, band stand , exhibition of divers and cultural performance by the contestants .(NAN)
