Miss Ghana 2012 has ended with Miss Carranzer Naa Okailey Shooter, a 22 year-old Medical student of the University of Ghana stealing the crown from the 17 other beauty queens.
The winner and her two runner ups, Nadia Ntanhu and Jennifer Aku Annan are rejoicing over their triumphs on the night of the biggest pageant in the country. It has been a long way to the finals, so there is the need for them to be excited about picking the third positions available.
The 17 other beauties who did not win are perhaps cursing their stars and looking at what might have gone wrong to cause them the crown in addition to lots of mouth watering prizes that were on offer. One of such person is Roseline Okoro; the sister of the award winning actress, Yvonne Okoro. Strangely, the former has kept mute whiles the latter is doing the damage for her.
It could be a plan thing that, since she’s already in the public domain, she’s allowed to rave and rant. Yvonne Okoro’s recent tweet explained that, she and her sister are not happy with the outcome of the event. I can feel her pain; it is difficult for her to come to terms with the fact that, her sister had lost the crown that many tipped her to win, therefore missing on all the exciting prizes. Indeed, the prizes for this year’s pageant were very unprecedented in the history of pageantry in the country. Like most of the contestants said before the finals, they were moved by the prizes to join the contest.
But Roseline Okoro just managed to win the Miss SMS Queen (a new addition to the Miss Ghana pageant). What this means is that, if the organizers had used the voting system to get the winner, then she would have won the contest easily since according to the organizers, she beat the other contestants by far in the voting. In other pageants or what has been known to be a normal practice in pageant judging, the general public is allowed to vote for their favourite. Such votes are given a percentage of up to 50% plus in addition to that of the judges’ scores to get the ultimate winner.
Miss Ghana 2012 towed a different line this year just to make sure that, the rich or people who have money to waste do not buy the crown, thus, we can understand why Yvonne and her sister are up in arms with this needless controversies going on.
Speaking on the controversy for the first time after the event on “The One Show” on Viasat1 on Monday, Inna Patty, the CEO of Exclusive Events Ghana, the organizers of the pageant said that, the percentage of voting that was used to crown the winner was not 50% as some people are speculating in the media. Failing to mention the percentage of SMS voting that was used in determining the eventual winner, Ms. Patty stated that the contestants were judged with so many things of which voting is just one of them.
What this means is that, even though Roseline Okoro topped the voting, she didn’t obtain enough marks in other circles to win her the crown.
It is not by force for Roseline Okoro to win the Miss Ghana crown but why did the organizers decide not to use the voting at the last minute? There are many more unanswered questions lingering and we shall unravel them one by one.