You are not likely to see a beauty queen with her mother in tow, the two of them chatting like colleagues. But that was exactly what Pereere Ayaruja, the 2010 Miss South-South, did when she visited GidiGlobe., in Lagos on a bright Tuesday afternoon. Their mission was not really clear. What clicked right away, however, was the familiarity with which they conferred throughout their stay. They spoke freely, unfazed by the incessant calls to the office while they waited to explain their mission.
At 19, Ayaruja must be her mother’s best friend. It was amazing seeing them talk glowingly about Ipetumodu, Osun State, and Ibadan, Oyo State like school girls with the journalist, who had grown up in the ancient cities of Ibadan and Ile-Ife. It was tempting, recalling with nostalgia, those peaceful and rustic days at Agodi Gate, Yemetu and Molete in Ibadan and the constant forages to pastoral Ipetu, Gbongan and Ikire, on the way to Ife. That a beauty queen in the heart of the Niger Delta can be recalling her days in the South-West, attests to the diversity and vastness of Nigeria.
Ayaruja had gone to school in the agrarian town of Ipetumodu, where she attended the Federal Government Girls’ College, while her mother had gone to the University in Ibadan. They lived in that part of the country until Pere, as she is called, gained admission to the Bayelsa State-owned Niger Delta University. Since her parents are from the state, the family had moved to their riverside home town of Agbere, Yenagoa.
“You can’t compare life in Ibadan and Yenagoa. The morals of young people are higher in Ibadan. Some of the things young people do here will be seen as an abomination over there. I wish I can tell young people here about life in that part of the country, particularly teenage girls of my age. I believe I will use the opportunity of this crown to reach young people especially. I know it’s going to be difficult to change the way our teenagers think, especially if you don’t provide an alternative. The rate at which young girls drop out of school is so high that the future may not be bright for many of these young girls. We have opportunities here, but youthful exuberance and absence of mentoring make things difficult,” she says.
Ayaruja may prove to be an unusual queen. She is blunt and down to earth, hardly searching for nice words to express a bad idea. With a simple pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and no make-up, she says, “I know about the artificial smile, but it’s not necessary; a smile comes naturally. I’m just myself. God has given me the opportunity; it’s not by my power, that I’m wearing the crown. Friends encouraged me to go into modelling and then enter the competition and my mum supported me. My parents gave me full support, particularly my mother, who gave me serious motherly advice.”
With some notebooks peeping out of a bag she was holding, the beauty queen, a final-year student of Political Science at NDU, says she’s ready for the National Youth Service in any part of the country. She is nursing the ambition of being crowned Miss Nigeria at a later day. “Oh, I have been dreaming about it. I like modelling. It serves as a medium to meet people,” says Ayaruja, explaining that she’s aware of the pressure of the bright lights and the misconceptions about models and beauty queens. “Everything depends on the personality of the individual. I have a strong Christian background. I don’t like parties; I don’t stay out late, so it depends on the person and what she is. If a lady smokes and drinks before she goes into modelling, she probably can’t stop it.” she says.
She believes that the weight of the crown that people talk about has to do with the character of the queen. “I’m a free person, I’ve chosen that path and I should be ready for the implications,” she says. The second child in a family of two kids, she enjoys a good relationship with her big brother, Emmanuel, who is studying to be a mechanical engineer at the same university. “We are best friends and we quarrel like any brother and sister; only we don’t go into the physical exchange of blows.”
The life of a queen normally rubs off on others. Ayaruja, however, has a few people around her. She says, “I have a few friends on campus, because as a student, you can’t do it alone. Sometimes I do walk alone and people ask why I do so, but it’s nothing. I remember when we were younger. My mother would beat us for staying out late in our friends’ houses. So, I know the kind of friends I move around with.”
She believes the best thing is for a beauty queen to be herself, which easily explains why Ayajura still finds it hard to forget her days in Ibadan and Ipetumodu, despite the physical gulf that has separated her from the communities she once lived in. She says, “I never forget my Ibadan and Ipetumodu days. I love amala with ewedu and gbegiri. I also eat eba with banga soup and fresh fish, but if I see amala and ewedu, ah, I’ll choose amala.”
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