Where in the universe is ‘Miss Universe Ghana’?

The recent uproar in Ghana about the selection or choice of the winner of a major beauty pageant gives me a cause to question, where in the Universe is “Miss Universe Ghana” Pageant? Ghana is known, or better said was known, to produce beauty queens with such good taste, poise and elegance and Miss Universe Ghana pageant was known to be reputable and classy pageant that produced such queens as Pearl Amoah, Akuba Cudjoe, Maame Esi Acquah, Stephanie Walkins-Fia to name but a few.

The Miss Universe pageant had a reputation of selecting intelligent young Ghanaian women especially from the tertiary institutions thus setting it apart from their competitors and that brought a level of professionalism and quality to the pageant industry in Ghana which has been dearly missed.

A careful observation revealed that while the absence of Miss Universe Ghana pageant on the entertainment calendar in Ghana since 2003, someway somehow the pageant licence holders have been sending contestants to represent Ghana at the international events on the quiet and to say the least, these ladies have been impressive on their representation at the international pageants such as Menaye Donkor nee Mrs. Muntari(2004), Angela Asare (2006 Miss Congeniality at the MISS UNIVERSE®) Jennifer Koranteng (2009)  and recently Awurama Simpson (2010).

Quite mind boggling that beauty pageants in Ghana still thrive and succeed with corporate partnerships whereas other events struggle to find their feet.

The government of Ghana however is oblivious to the potential beauty pageants have in promoting tourism.

Governments in countries like Turks & Caicos and many others actually own the licence to these beauty pageants as  effective avenues to promote national tourism and Ghana has no idea such pageants bring a lot of tourism capital locally and internationally.

Maybe the marketing of the pageants do not emphasize these core advantages to the government hence the apathy.

When Akuba Cudjoe qualified to the semi-finals at the 1999 Miss Universe® pageant the first of such an achievement for a Ghanaian beauty queen at any international pageant, the whole country felt really proud about her achievement and put Ghana on a different pedestal.

The question still remains, what happened to Miss Universe® Ghana?

The reason why the question is being asked is because the standard of beauty pageants has been considerably compromised to an unacceptable level and sadly, the calibre of contestants and the queens produced is not representative of the beautiful and intelligent young women Ghana has.

Please help us locate the organizers of Miss Universe Ghana and let them bring back the swag in beauty pageants in Ghana.