Because Miss Nigeria won last year and the winning country gets to host next.
Posted on 11/27/2002 8:21:25 PM PST by ex-Texan
Miss World will return to Nigeria
Dan McDougall
AS RELIGIOUS leaders in Nigeria called on Christians across the country to rise up against Islamic militants, the organisers of the Miss World contest stirred up new controversy last night by insisting that the winner of the competition will return to West Africa.
Last week Julia Morley, the Miss World president, was forced to move the beauty pageant from Nigeria to London after the arrival of the contestants in the African state provoked violent clashes between Christians and Muslims.
The riots, last Thursday, left 220 people dead after a Nigerian newspaper published an article suggesting the prophet Mohammed would have approved of the beauty contest if he was alive and probably married the winner.
Miss Morley said that despite the riots and the increasingly unstable political climate, the winner of the 2002 Miss World pageant would travel back to Nigeria to model ethnic African clothing at a fashion show.
She said: "Before we were forced to leave Nigeria, the Port Harcourt people had planned a wonderful event with all the girls wearing the latest ethnic African fashions. They are wonderful gowns and I would like to go back and take Miss World with me."
Speaking for the first time about the decision to relocate, Ms Morley added that the competition, which is scheduled to go ahead in London on 7 December was not to blame.
She said: "This whole thing really had nothing to do with us. Nobody can help violence if a journalist says something detrimental about Mohammed, which is insensitive.
"The journalist who wrote the article was a young girl and one can’t help feeling sorry that she wrote what she did. But it did not concern us. We cannot be responsible for somebody’s opinion."
Isioma Daniel, the Lagos-based fashion journalist who wrote the story that caused much of the violence, is understood to have fled her home country after the regional offices of her newspaper This Day were burned down by protesters.
Zamfara in northern Nigeria, where much of the violence broke out, was the first of 12 states in Nigeria to adopt Islamic law, or Shariah, after military rule gave way to elected government in 1999.
John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, a senior Nigerian archbishop, accused his government of failing to protect Christians .
He said: "Nigeria’s Christians are tired of turning the other cheek. It is a Christian duty to protect yourselves. We blame the government because we rely on the government to protect us."
More than 80 women had originally planned to travel to Nigeria to take part in the contest. But after a woman was sentenced to death by stoning under Shariah law for having a baby out of wedlock, a number of high-profile contestants pulled out, including Miss South Africa and Miss Canada.
Ms Morley added that she was confident of securing the participation of some of the women who had earlier boycotted the event.
Without some sort of protection those savages will kill her and eat her for supper.
The winner would have to be crazy to return to that toilet.
Even Allah would agree with that. (Albeit, in different terms)
Because Miss Nigeria won last year and the winning country gets to host next.
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