Word: nigerianism
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...long ago the most controversial thing about beauty pageants was the swimsuit segment. As the latest Miss World contest proved, those simple times are over. Hundreds died in riots last month after a Nigerian journalist suggested the Prophet Muhammad might have approved of the pageant and maybe even found a wife among the contestants. The pageant was moved from Nigeria to London, and on Saturday Miss Turkey, Azra Akin, ended the whole nightmare by walking away with the tiara and $150,000 prize. Pageant co-host Sean Kanan, an actor from the U.S. soap The Bold and the Beautiful, made...
Ogunlesi, whose father was the first Nigerian-born medical professor tenured in his home country, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and then earned law and business degrees from Harvard. He clerked for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall--who, unable to pronounce his name, dubbed him "Obeedoogee." (Most friends and colleagues today call him Bayo.) Ogunlesi joined the top-shelf New York City law firm Cravath, Swain & Moore, where he jumped at the chance to advise First Boston on a Nigerian gas project. Success in that effort landed him a better job at First Boston (which was acquired...
Ogunlesi has lived in New York for 20 years and is active in volunteer work. But he also cultivates his ties to Africa. He informally advises the Nigerian government on privatization. And last summer Manute Bol, the 7ft. 7-in. former NBA center, visited Ogunlesi in his Park Avenue office, seeking donations for a charitable foundation in Bol's homeland, Sudan. The 5-ft. 9-in. Ogunlesi walked Bol around the hallways, introducing him to junior staff. It was just another day in the Bayosphere...
...this game of make-believe that created the whole Miss World mess. The pageant’s organizers and the Nigerian government were both involved in a great fantasy that the pageant would work fine in Nigeria, ignoring a lot of facts and a lot of common sense. Nigeria’s large Muslim population would not act its part in this charade. It was not ready to accept an international beauty pageant, which one Islamic leader poetically described as a “parade of nudity.” When the riots began last week, the fantasy finally collapsed...
Only after days of rioting and the removal of the contest did the pageant organizers and the Nigerian government finally learn their lesson. While smiling and pretending everything is fine might be a good way to win a beauty contest, it is no way to deal with real people and real politics...