The crowned beauty queen of Finest Girl Nigeria 2014, Rita
Onyinye Oguebie is a philanthropist that has impacted several lives
during her reign. The Anambra State queen in this interview with
ADERIBIGBE TOLULOPE, speaks about her zeal as a female advocate and future expectations
What motivated you into Pageantry and how long have you been into modeling?
I have been into modelling since I was 16. I am from a family of six. I graduated from Birming University, Kano where I studied Library and Information Management. I am a model, an entrepreneur, a writer and a philanthropist. I started my career with runway and I have modelled for top Nigeria designers like Modela, Pixy, Teslo and others. Along the line I ventured into pageantry because it’s another aspect of modelling. My motivation into pageantry was my love for modelling, because being a beauty queen gives the platform to execute other things. I have always had passion to help humanity and do a lot of humanitarian services, so being a beauty queen helps to reach out to people and allows my voice to be heard when I speak. So far all these have been my motivating factors.
Tell us about your official and personal pet project?
As the Finest Girl Nigeria (FGN) 2014, I’m entitled to execute a project. I also designed a project which is a unique one. It’s called Constitutional Education Project (CEP) which is a project created to educate the Nigeria students on the importance of the constitution and let them know their constitutional rights and privileges. As long as you are a Nigerian student or just a student schooling in Nigeria, the constitution should be studied in schools from the post primary level. Your rights and privileges as a Nigerian should be imbibed. As per my personal project, it is called Rita Onyinye Foundation. My Foundation was established in 2011. It’s a female advocacy foundation, so basically we are into women development, empowerment and other female related issues. Our projects for 2014 was on skill acquisition by which we went to the rural areas and trained young mothers on skills and then assisted them financially so they could do well on their own. Since 2011 till date, we have done projects like Campaign against genital mutilation, awareness on breast cancer. Yes to Girl child education and many others.
The reasons why am mainly focused on female related issues is because we the female gender have a lot to contribute to inhumanity and we need to fan our gifts to flame, we don’t need to be restricted. We don’t need people that will say because we are female, we shouldn’t explore. We should be able to contribute our quarter to human development. I was brought up by disciplinarian parents. My father doesn’t believe that a female child should be empowered at all, he always reminded me that am a woman, that I will get married and that I shouldn’t do something so I don’t acquire lot of success to myself, In fact that I should learn to be dependent on a man. For instance, if I need to buy a car, I have to wait for my husband to pay for it. My father had such a mentality and I wasn’t on such page with him. I had dreams and I wanted to explore and be someone of purpose. I wanted to be rich, famous and make the world hear me when I speak. I wanted when Rita Onyinye is mentioned; people should acknowledge that she’s an active female. So I started my foundation in other to restrict girls who assume that they can just sit back because they know most of our society doesn’t accept that women can be leaders. Females are vulnerable to a lot of negativity like domestic violence, rape, battery and many other things. These are all the reasons I started female advocacy campaigns.
What is your next crown after FGN?
Well, everybody wants to grow. I am representing Nigeria in 2015 at the Miss Pan African pageantry in South Africa as the delegate and I hope to win. So am doing my best to represent my country and bring the glory back home. I intend to be Miss World one day.
Do you have mentors?
I look up to Mo Abudu, Oprah Winfrey and Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie. This woman inspires me a lot. Chiamanda’s book gives me inspiration and motivation. I see myself as a TV personality, so I intend to have my own TV talk show and crew. I am already working on something.
How do you relax?
I swim and read a lot of books. I love music a lot, am a very adventurous person, so I travel a lot too.
What wouldn’t you be caught doing in public?
Well, there are a lot of things I wouldn’t be caught doing outside but on top of my list is I wouldn’t in anyway constituting nuisance in public. I don’t like a dramatic scene that people will gather to fight. I can never be seen in such a scenario. I shy away from anything that has to do with unnecessary negative attention because I’m a peace loving person, I promote peace anyway I can. Anyway, I can settle a dispute; I do it than causing one.
What is your greatest challenge as a model and beauty queen?
It’s really a challenging task to be a beauty queen because a lot of girls look up to me, they want to emulate everything that we are doing like fashion sense, carriage and some, even our mistakes. So there’s need to be very careful what is portrayed to the public. But so far I have been pulling it together.
Apart from modelling, what else do you do?
I’m an entrepreneur and a TV personality; my talk show will be premiering by 2015. When am not doing any of these, I write. Everybody should be looking out for my book by first quarter of 2015. I am a very good story teller, so I have put all my stories into writing.
What are your beauty tips?
I don’t allow my face to be oily, so I make extreme effort to make my face dry by applying powder frequently. I love lipsticks so am always wearing one, I don’t like dried lips. Also, I drink a lot of water because it helps to cleanse the system.
What’s your favourite meal?
I’m very adventurous, so I don’t have a favourite meal. I try anything good and new.
Who’s your favourite designer?
I appreciate a lot of Nigerian designers especially Recato, Modela, IBK fashion. But Recato inspires me a lot and I’m in love with her designs maybe because she designs a lot of pageant gowns.
Your 5 top Nigerian artistes?
I love Tiwa Savage, she always gets me dancing, Chidinma, Splash cause of the way she raps. I love Phyno so much maybe because I can really relate with what he’s lyrics say and Don Jazzy,whenever I go for a party, I always want to hear their songs.
What’s been your most embarrassing moment?
It’s was on an environmental Saturday morning, I gathered my crew and told them its cleanup day. No matter how big you are, cleanliness is next to Godliness, so I told them that we needed to partake. So we went to somewhere in Kubwa in Abuja, so as we were partaking of cleaning, a lot of people where just looking and making funny comments like, see Queen that’s picking things on the floor and sweeping the road. It was very embarrassing because I don’t know how they saw me, I just wanted to send the message to them that am a regular everyday person, I sweep, I clean, I do things that normal people do. So it was embarrassing that it didn’t go the way I planned.
What advice do you have for young girls aspiring to be models?
I will always tell upcoming girls to dream big because if dreams die, life is like a bird with broken wings that can’t fly, so in order to fly, dreaming big is important. As much as you are ambitious, don’t be desperate because ambition with desperation is a wrong combination.
ADERIBIGBE TOLULOPE, speaks about her zeal as a female advocate and future expectations
What motivated you into Pageantry and how long have you been into modeling?
I have been into modelling since I was 16. I am from a family of six. I graduated from Birming University, Kano where I studied Library and Information Management. I am a model, an entrepreneur, a writer and a philanthropist. I started my career with runway and I have modelled for top Nigeria designers like Modela, Pixy, Teslo and others. Along the line I ventured into pageantry because it’s another aspect of modelling. My motivation into pageantry was my love for modelling, because being a beauty queen gives the platform to execute other things. I have always had passion to help humanity and do a lot of humanitarian services, so being a beauty queen helps to reach out to people and allows my voice to be heard when I speak. So far all these have been my motivating factors.
Tell us about your official and personal pet project?
As the Finest Girl Nigeria (FGN) 2014, I’m entitled to execute a project. I also designed a project which is a unique one. It’s called Constitutional Education Project (CEP) which is a project created to educate the Nigeria students on the importance of the constitution and let them know their constitutional rights and privileges. As long as you are a Nigerian student or just a student schooling in Nigeria, the constitution should be studied in schools from the post primary level. Your rights and privileges as a Nigerian should be imbibed. As per my personal project, it is called Rita Onyinye Foundation. My Foundation was established in 2011. It’s a female advocacy foundation, so basically we are into women development, empowerment and other female related issues. Our projects for 2014 was on skill acquisition by which we went to the rural areas and trained young mothers on skills and then assisted them financially so they could do well on their own. Since 2011 till date, we have done projects like Campaign against genital mutilation, awareness on breast cancer. Yes to Girl child education and many others.
The reasons why am mainly focused on female related issues is because we the female gender have a lot to contribute to inhumanity and we need to fan our gifts to flame, we don’t need to be restricted. We don’t need people that will say because we are female, we shouldn’t explore. We should be able to contribute our quarter to human development. I was brought up by disciplinarian parents. My father doesn’t believe that a female child should be empowered at all, he always reminded me that am a woman, that I will get married and that I shouldn’t do something so I don’t acquire lot of success to myself, In fact that I should learn to be dependent on a man. For instance, if I need to buy a car, I have to wait for my husband to pay for it. My father had such a mentality and I wasn’t on such page with him. I had dreams and I wanted to explore and be someone of purpose. I wanted to be rich, famous and make the world hear me when I speak. I wanted when Rita Onyinye is mentioned; people should acknowledge that she’s an active female. So I started my foundation in other to restrict girls who assume that they can just sit back because they know most of our society doesn’t accept that women can be leaders. Females are vulnerable to a lot of negativity like domestic violence, rape, battery and many other things. These are all the reasons I started female advocacy campaigns.
What is your next crown after FGN?
Well, everybody wants to grow. I am representing Nigeria in 2015 at the Miss Pan African pageantry in South Africa as the delegate and I hope to win. So am doing my best to represent my country and bring the glory back home. I intend to be Miss World one day.
Do you have mentors?
I look up to Mo Abudu, Oprah Winfrey and Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie. This woman inspires me a lot. Chiamanda’s book gives me inspiration and motivation. I see myself as a TV personality, so I intend to have my own TV talk show and crew. I am already working on something.
How do you relax?
I swim and read a lot of books. I love music a lot, am a very adventurous person, so I travel a lot too.
What wouldn’t you be caught doing in public?
Well, there are a lot of things I wouldn’t be caught doing outside but on top of my list is I wouldn’t in anyway constituting nuisance in public. I don’t like a dramatic scene that people will gather to fight. I can never be seen in such a scenario. I shy away from anything that has to do with unnecessary negative attention because I’m a peace loving person, I promote peace anyway I can. Anyway, I can settle a dispute; I do it than causing one.
What is your greatest challenge as a model and beauty queen?
It’s really a challenging task to be a beauty queen because a lot of girls look up to me, they want to emulate everything that we are doing like fashion sense, carriage and some, even our mistakes. So there’s need to be very careful what is portrayed to the public. But so far I have been pulling it together.
Apart from modelling, what else do you do?
I’m an entrepreneur and a TV personality; my talk show will be premiering by 2015. When am not doing any of these, I write. Everybody should be looking out for my book by first quarter of 2015. I am a very good story teller, so I have put all my stories into writing.
What are your beauty tips?
I don’t allow my face to be oily, so I make extreme effort to make my face dry by applying powder frequently. I love lipsticks so am always wearing one, I don’t like dried lips. Also, I drink a lot of water because it helps to cleanse the system.
What’s your favourite meal?
I’m very adventurous, so I don’t have a favourite meal. I try anything good and new.
Who’s your favourite designer?
I appreciate a lot of Nigerian designers especially Recato, Modela, IBK fashion. But Recato inspires me a lot and I’m in love with her designs maybe because she designs a lot of pageant gowns.
Your 5 top Nigerian artistes?
I love Tiwa Savage, she always gets me dancing, Chidinma, Splash cause of the way she raps. I love Phyno so much maybe because I can really relate with what he’s lyrics say and Don Jazzy,whenever I go for a party, I always want to hear their songs.
What’s been your most embarrassing moment?
It’s was on an environmental Saturday morning, I gathered my crew and told them its cleanup day. No matter how big you are, cleanliness is next to Godliness, so I told them that we needed to partake. So we went to somewhere in Kubwa in Abuja, so as we were partaking of cleaning, a lot of people where just looking and making funny comments like, see Queen that’s picking things on the floor and sweeping the road. It was very embarrassing because I don’t know how they saw me, I just wanted to send the message to them that am a regular everyday person, I sweep, I clean, I do things that normal people do. So it was embarrassing that it didn’t go the way I planned.
What advice do you have for young girls aspiring to be models?
I will always tell upcoming girls to dream big because if dreams die, life is like a bird with broken wings that can’t fly, so in order to fly, dreaming big is important. As much as you are ambitious, don’t be desperate because ambition with desperation is a wrong combination.
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