What has been touted as Ghana’s premiere beauty pageant has over the years found its glory sullied by one controversy after another, with the last five years being the most nightmarish period.
Founded in 1957, the once attractive Miss Ghana Beauty pageant has seen its glorious days gradually fade into an abyss.
In 2010, Stephanie Karikari was crowned the pageant’s winner amidst a barrage of controversies; many doubted the integrity of the selection process, dragging the reputation of the competition into disrepute.
Miss Ghana 2004, Inna Mariam Patty, CEO of Exclusive Events GH, took charge of the pageant promising to restore the event to its lost glory.
After weeks of preparations, Carranzer Naa Okailey Shooter, a 22 year-old medical student of the University of Ghana, beat 17 other hopefuls, to be crowned Miss Ghana 2012 at the Accra International Conference Centre last Saturday.
It was thought that for the first time in many years the pageant would be spared the controversies, accusations and counter-accusations which characterised the competition for some time now but a tweet by actress Yvonne Okroro, whose sister Roseline Okoro competed in the pageant, slammed the organizers, accusing them with great subtlety, of rigging competition for the eventual winner.
Although Roseline Okoro made the top five, out of eighteen contestants, she went home with SMS Queen award.
Yvonne Okroro tweeted a day after the finale that: “Thanx 2 evry1 who supported my sis eva grateful,I had a dream of a better Ghana free from sexual bias n Vote riggin..Mayb 1day..kisses”.
Whether she was tweeting out of sour grapes or based on evidence is hard to tell but she got a quick response to the tweet.
Inna Mariam Patty speaking in an interview Hitz Entertainment News said Yvonne Okoro’s allegations are unfounded adding that it “shows that she is completely ignorant and does not know the definition of cheating. Ghanaians picked up the phone and voted and who voted? Rosaline Okoro [won the popular vote], do you call that rigging?”
The contestants, she noted, “have worked so hard to be where they are so if certain people do not clinch the title they should not be bitter about it and go about making false allegations. I believe in facts, so if you are saying ABC said it, put out their names and let’s investigate properly … to put an end to the typical attitude of tarnishing people’s reputation.”
According to her, she drafted the final question and “if we had cooked them to be winners, they would have given the perfect answers … none of them answered that question the way it was supposed to be.”
“All these ladies were given equal platform, we as organizers are not out here to create a queen, we give people equal opportunity to be queens and if you naturally [are good] and you shine, it will be yours. People who are bitter out there should put an end to it because it will not help them,” Inna Mariam Patty stressed.
Roseline Okoro’s performance, she added, on the night was not the best, “those who deserve to be in the top three [got there] and everybody is happy about it. It is a shame that people are out there trying to tarnish the reputation of our new queen and believe you me, we will not let her go scot free.”
All efforts to reach Yvonne Okoro’s camp for a reaction have proved futile.
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