“How I became homeless after participating in most beautiful girl pageant”– Bianca

Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, recently shared her inspiring journey at the Nigerian Women’s Day event in New York.

Speaking on the sidelines of the 69th Session of the Commission on the Status of Women at the United Nations headquarters, she reflected on her struggles before becoming a successful diplomat.

Bianca, the wife of the late Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, revealed that despite coming from a privileged background, she faced significant challenges, including a period of homelessness, as she pursued her dreams.

She emphasized the importance of education in shaping a woman’s future and warned young women about the temptations of early financial independence.

She recalled how her fascination with global beauty pageants as a young girl inspired her to enter the world of modeling and pageantry.

“I started off really as a young girl wanting to see the world. I remember sitting in the common room with other young girls… watching Top of the Box, the music videos, Miss World, Miss Universe, and always quite impressed with the exotic backdrops more than anything.

I just wanted to travel and see the world, and what was the best way of doing that, if not going into a pageant?”

Bianca recounted how she won her first pageant but had to turn down a one-year modeling contract in Tokyo because she was still a student.

“Of course, my parents didn’t know. They didn’t send me to school to go and take part in a pageant, so I had to give that up.”

However, when she participated in the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria pageant, her father was furious. “It rendered me homeless for one month because naturally, African fathers, my father was livid with rage.

But I guess after I had won other pageantries like Miss Africa, Miss Intercontinental, and so forth, he had to come to terms with it.”

She also spoke about the struggle of balancing her studies in law with her newfound financial independence.

“One of the hardest things is, when you start earning money quite early, the biggest temptation would be to leave school.

By the time I was earning my own money, I was a law student living in the hostel with about six other students with no water, nothing, and then, going back to school to finish my education as a lawyer was quite challenging.

But that was one of the best decisions I ever made in my life. I think young women need to understand the power of education,” she advised.