The Miss Universe Ghana Pageantry Hoax
Seeking industry change for women after being slandered. My advice — Do not do it. #MUG17
I would like to start this article with a life tip — Be kind, be truthful, and never destroy someone’s character with a lie.
Romans 12:17–19.
EDIT NOV’23: As of October 2023, it came to my attention from a dear friend that some almost-6-year-old articles published online in February 2018 (by paid bloggers) sabotaging, doxing, harassing me, and damaging my character/reputation falsely with the headlined words in quotes below have been wiped off the internet. I have no idea what led to the wiping and do not know what is, again, slithering my way maliciously.
“Scorned”, they said. (link to libel)
“Silly”, they said. (link to libel)
“Angry”, they said. (link to libel)
“Stupid”, they said. (link to libel) …the doxing online harassment goes on. A signed contract maliciously publicly released, and articles formulated primarily as paid fake news headlines to shut me up from speaking about my naive experience in what ended up being a rigged and exploitative pageant.
This entire write-up is the truth — the much-requested tale of my experience at Miss Universe Ghana 2017, under its new director and president Menaye Donkor.
“If you are silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.” — Zora Neale Hurston
First things first, not much is nurturing about these pageants. Partaking in one will not in any way strengthen your voice or give you a genuine platform to help the poor as touted. You can help/impact society without participating in one. As much as these pageants claim to do this, they rather prefer you mute, scripted, and almost puppet-like. It is already enough that the other gender assumes pageantry is for women with no substance or intellect but to then prefer participants not to show intelligence to perpetuate this same notion goes against what these pageants claim to promote in the media. No so-called empowering group will delete you from a chat group, or pay gossip sites to tarnish your credibility and attempt to forever silence you via emotional manipulation & contractual manipulation. No so-called empowering group will create “f’instas” and fake YouTube pages for the sole purpose of social media trolling and publication of negative comments (these Instagram and YouTube pages did nothing else and had no other content aside from targeting me). No so-called empowering group, again, will force you into servitude of the uninspiring kind.
I snapped out of the unstimulating pageant haze, on 21st September 2017, the day I was messaged post-pageant-finale-2nd-September-2017 to come to an event (the entire time prepping and driving from home to the Labadi Beach Hotel’s Omanye Hall I was made to believe I was going as a guest) and was ordered to stand outside surrounded by mosquitos in the evening’s heat the entire night, not as a guest. I immediately departed the hall’s premises in silence upon being told what I was there for. I sat in my car in tears furiously wondering how I had allowed myself to sink so low they had the guts to be dehumanizing and demeaning.
The point of this summarized (emphasis on summarized as this article does not even tell the full tale) Medium Story is to finally have a written post — as to why I have disassociated and always reply “Do not do it” — I can give to the many women who come to me via my social media accounts asking me what to do to qualify past auditions to the final top10 of Miss Universe Ghana.
My audition alone should have raised red flags and it did but I ignored them since participating specifically in Ghana was a childhood dream.
My audition alone should have raised red flags (and it did) but I ignored them since participating specifically in Ghana was a childhood dream. I was the only one to be auditioned TWICE back-to-back. My first time, I am assuming, showcased someone who was too smart so in a failed attempt to get a dumb answer from me, they made me audition again and tampered with/manhandled (yes manhandled by one of the guys in the audition room) my waist, mic, eyes, and ears before I could speak — I still gave a smart answer although I was clearly visibly shaken by what had happened surrounded by cameras and the judges, Sean Guy and Michelle Attoh, who giggled and laughed as the manhandling was going on. The day my audition aired, I was not surprised by what they showed as mine. I expected them to show my 2nd visibly shaken version for clout and immediately alerted my nuclear family with the truth (who all thought it odd I was harassed, manipulated, and tricked) but blinded by excitement, we all brushed it off.
In other countries (especially in Asia), a known pageant coverup/rig will either be an “appointed winner without a pageant” or be a rushed event occurring in a 24-hour or weekend timed period rather than a 2-month, 3-month, or even month-long ordeal done usually to waste the time of contestants and notably, reduce their self-esteem. To the public eye in Ghana, the 2-month and 3-month ordeals are “finishing schools” but behind closed doors, they are to sniff out who can be easily manipulated/made into a puppet, and the weak-minded with a few lessons (if any — Miss Universe Ghana 2017 had no etiquette/deportment classes) on how to sit, walk and use cutlery. I have now become aware some girls and women go into pageantry in Ghana for the so-called ‘Finishing School’ aspect. Ladies, before you bury yourself into this rabbit hole, please google around for deportment and etiquette schools. There are a ton on YouTube (they are free!), and read books that give specific deportment/etiquette lessons. Save yourself the drama — a life filled with drama indicates that a person is disconnected from purpose and meaningful goals. People with a purpose do not have time for drama.
Unfortunately, Ghana is not a country that cares about the rights of its youth, and respectability politics does nothing but suppress and label anyone in their teens or twenties who tries to speak, be strong-willed, or have an objective opinion as “too-known” or disrespectful. This is typically followed by insults asking who you think you are, and goes as far as negating you by unmasking their ethnocentric beliefs ….e.g. “Who do you think you are? You think you went to school abroad, and travel so you’re better etc etc?” The quoted questions ironically came out of the mouth of the Director, Menaye Donkor — who also schooled abroad in Canada, con-currently lives abroad & travels — on National Television in an attempt to shame me after I was falsely accused by the Modeling Coach and eventual 5th runner-up (I was dismissed the day the false accusation happened and not allowed to speak. I, literally, was not allowed to counter the false accusation no matter how much I insisted with the chaperon). The TV-edited version was about 45secs to a minute, but the night of the recording at East Legon, Menaye Donkor rained insults on me for about 20 minutes non-stop while the eventual 5th runner-up laughed behind the scenes standing by the door next to the filming room …all part of her paint-her-black agenda which had been ongoing daily since I auditioned. Anything to get me to react and quit. Empowering? I beg to differ.
“Never argue or insult anyone. Simply explain or describe them accurately.” — Downtown Abbey.
Believe it or not, directors of the various pageants in Ghana are colleagues and use the same method i.e. eerily similar to the way a cult works in getting you to have a stifling fear for its narcissist leader. Principles of The Laws of Power are used in enacting revenge (read the book by Robert Greene if you have not already). If you are strong-minded, they will sense this and will do anything in their power to break you. Give them no collateral and do not allow them to take images of you unknown to you (I was asked on-camera whether I had ever had a threesome and to say the worst thing I had done in my life… It came as a shock to even be asked such a question so I told him I was a pastor’s granddaughter and thus had none…I gave them no “collateral”). Stay strong even if this may mean you might be eliminated out of spite. When you are under the influence of a group with long days and long nights masked as training, it stops you from thinking critically and logically. Persevere.
I was bullied by the production crew, had my face and eyes distorted in some episodes (if I even happened to be shown), some photos of me were edited (nose edited, mouth elongated to the sides, abdomen enlarged, pores enlarged, skin color changed, and height shortened) to make me visibly unappealing, and I was cropped out of ~60% of the televised scenes. Producers & Menaye Donkor controlled the public perception and all editing was done to fit the good and bad narrative they wanted. Sentences said and scenes shot were cut up and pasted in line with whatever fabricated storyline they wanted to televise mainly because I apparently gave them no “entertaining footage” i.e. I was not acting “extremely” giddy and fake. My exposure, mannerisms, determination, self-confidence, and transparency annoyed them. I was bullied, harassed, and insulted for all my features, skin color, accent (odd for a pageant that claimed to “welcome” Ghanaians from all over the world in its 2017 marketing), long thick hair, the fact that I drove a car, my “nice” shoes (which the Coach/Fashion Designer said were fake from China because a ‘small girl’ like me could not have afforded them - an insult to my parents and own income from work), eloquence (I was told I “sounded like a diplomat” and told repeatedly during finale rehearsals to try and “sound local” for my stage performance — poor advice I thankfully ignored), and body-shamed for not being voluptuous (this was also quite ironic since everyone else was trying to lose inches off their hips, waist, thighs, you name it… if you know me you know I have none).
My dress on finale night was ripped and almost torn off of my body seconds before my name was to be called on stage for the evening gown walk. Contracts were given at about 12midnight and you were told to bring them at 6 am. Black magic (alarmingly by both organizers and some contestants) played a part if you will believe it. Regional representation was all a lie (I was initially given — by blind picking — Central Region but had luckily gotten my region, the Volta Region, as a result of secretly swapping)… most girls swapped for their own regions while the others got stuck with regions they were taught about. The eventual 1st runner-up tried to trip me into falling flat on my face multiple times during finale practices with the modeling coach, which required us to walk in circles continuously non-stop for hours in platform heels and on tip-toe barefoot. Every time the eventual 1st runner-up would do it I would turn and ask her to not come too close to me as I walked but she kept on doing so and all the other girls pretended they did not notice. This was someone I initially thought was a friend and drove around town in my car at her request occasionally.
A loud almost-physical fight erupted backstage on finale night at Labadi Beach Hotel between the Director, Menaye Donkor, and the Coach/Fashion Designer which resulted in Menaye Donkor being carried out of the backstage tent by her bouncers after she threw her Louboutins amid hateful screams to the shock of the First Choice hairdressers, Maybelline GH MUA’s and myself. I was the only contestant left in the tent during this incident (which was heard by all outside the tent also) because the Coach/Fashion Designer stressed to her Assistant to dress me last only to be eventually, as the last person, smacked on my back three times for no reason & dress ripped and destroyed in an attempt to, I think, trigger me to forfeit or make me cry before I go on stage. I didn’t cry or quit but rather walked straight to the stage in the torn dress for all to see as the finale was a live televised broadcast. Some who saw what she did came to my help realizing I was still proceeding — trying to fix my dress, makeup, and hair — seconds before I walked on stage with a torn evening gown held put with pins and safety pins. To this day, I have no recollection of those who helped pin my torn dress and fix my hair, but I would like to use this sentence to thank them.
[***This Coach/Fashion Designer, Ivana Annan “Jamestown Awula”, is the Miss Universe Ghana 2017 eventual recruited winner Ruth Quarshie’s aunt & godmother. Ivana Annan liked to always say (in her own words) “I have former pageant queens and female CEOs under my control. I made them and can make you” while standing among her eclectic hodgepodge shrine of these women’s photos in her Spintex/East Airport home-office. You will, or maybe will not, be surprised at the names that have been through her abusive tentacles.***]
One other tactic I didn’t realize had occurred till December 2017 was sadistic breadcrumbing.
In-house competitions, which were supposed to account for 50% of the top5 score were not used on the finale night. I won three (3) of five in-house competitions, the most per person — Fashion/Creativity competition, Fitness competition & Breast Cancer Awareness/Video Scripting Competiton (the video was to be posted all month of Pink October 2017 long but was never to be seen again post-shoot in August 2017) — yet the mysterious paper that floated to the stage seconds after it was announced the judges were tabulating (and were still tabulating) said otherwise, as most of the top5 mentioned had not won a single in-house competition.
It is also said that SMS voting did not count so dear Ghanaian public voters, your pesewas per vote also went to waste or rather into pockets.
One other tactic I didn’t realize had occurred till December 2017 was the sadistic breadcrumbing by Menaye Donkor… Breadcrumbing (in a non-romantic sense) is when tiny bits of intel is given to you so you stay subservient in the hopes of getting whatever it is that was promised but that (eg. of the breadcrumbs given to my 2017 group — internship, photoshoot photos — I contacted every photog used and expressed my willingness to pay but was told they were instructed to never give me my photos — , video footage, portfolio, USB drive, agency contracts, refunds for transportation, etc etc) never came and still never has and as things stand, never will.
***The sole purpose is to promote their own business interests and to make a profit off of naive girls via TV advertisements and free social media campaigns of their brand. A lose-lose for the girls and a win-win for the pageant organizers.***
All past Miss Universe Ghana Directors have had controversies of their own, to note, some as linked below:
Pageants that have had contestants speak out online and offline are “Miss Malaika Ghana”, “Miss Universe Ghana”, “Miss Commonwealth Ghana” and especially “Miss Ghana”. Aside from these four, the other pageant titles that float around (Earth, Grand, Supranational, Intercontinental, International, Commonwealth, Face Beauty, United Nations) aren’t as rooted or consistent in Ghana.
Miss Universe Ghana is a feeder for Miss Universe (now owned by JKN Global Group/Anne Jakrajutatip, formerly IMG).
Miss Ghana is a feeder for Miss World (the oldest international pageant in the world and owned by the Miss World Organization).
Miss Malaika Ghana was once a feeder to a defunct continental African pageant called Miss Malaika (once upon an old time held annually in South Africa) but has since been, of late, noticeabily a feeder to Ghana’s entertainment (radio, tv, media, modeling, influencer, etc) industry and is owned by Charter House Ghana. It is the longest running uninterrupted yearly Ghanaian pageant.
Post-pageant, traumas are rampant. Locking women up for more than that time and then completely washing your hands off of them the minute the winner is announced does this. After all, science says it only takes 21 days to get addicted to a habit. It is also a broken-ego structure with society assuming you’ve done the worst to appear on stage. Some girls, unknownst to them, as they try to go back to normal society with their self-esteem the lowest it has ever been in their lives, fall prey to men, are sex-trafficked, or join the ills of nightlife in Accra in an attempt to maintain a pageant persona or keep up with the pretentious Joneses they were introduced to or unfortunately sometimes pimped to. As a means to hide their pain, they indulge in all sorts of damaging acts. A few like myself have parents and loved ones who eased our process back to “normalcy” amid paid social media trolls.
The Former Deputy Minister for Communications recently made a few statements advising women not to partake in pageants in Ghana. I am assuming, she too, knows what really goes on but does not want to speak on the real issue at hand due to the damning press that will come her way by these Pageant Directors and Organizers.
Boldly spoken and telling their tales via video and tell-all exclusives, a few ladies did what I wished I could post-pageant in 2017 before the press and organizers threw insults at my family and I online in February 2018, paid for and led by the Director, Menaye Donkor. This should not be a surprise to anyone as she always states subliminally in her PR tours that “No one wants to have an issue with Menaye” — an indirect threat to remind all to not speak out in truth against her public persona. Being in my Masters program at the time, I was advised by my family to focus on graduate school while they mitigate the online harassment for stating I no longer wanted to be associated with such an abusive and immoral Ghanaian organization.
I now only hope Ghanaian ladies and ladies around the world do not brush off the experiences of women who have bravely spoken in the past, as linked below, as something that could never happen to them.
The first time I heard of such news was via a former Miss Ghana winner Stephanie Karikari and as naive as I was, I took her tale to mean avoiding only one particular pageant — Miss Ghana, and not the others like Miss Universe Ghana as I speak off in this article.
Former Miss Ghana winners Stephanie, Delali, Margaret, and the brave others who have spoken their truth despite the damning paid press who speak ill of them via words of their Directors, are to be applauded for their apt and brewing desire for justice and to not have others fall prey to this, thus ruining their futures.
A full account from a 2010 winner — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SssYOCZjPlw
A full account from a 2015 winner — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ueYBiYH1h-s
Here is one full account from a 2017 winner;
Girls audition as confident versions of themselves only to be insulted, told otherwise, and suppressed so much that they sometimes fall victim to the demands of their Directors. Some only reach the next stage if they obey and do anything their Madame asks of them. Literally anything.
These tales are rampant across EVERY. SINGLE. PAGEANT. IN. GHANA.
Here’s another full account;
… And many many more;
… So here we are after I’ve gathered delayed courage in 2019 to write this, many more girls are about to start their gap year out of high school or following years post-university and most will refuse to listen to the warnings and cautions of those of us who have been insulted for the world to hear in the name of Ghanaian Pageantry. If you are a parent reading this, PLEASE PROTECT YOUR DAUGHTERS until there are full sweeps, regulations, protections, and/or management turnover across the board.
To my fellow ladies worldwide who have been through the wrath of these Pageant Directors, and Organizers, stay strong, do you, go for the advanced degree, come out of the sunken place if you are in one. The world is yours. Do not let a single experience wear you down and definitely do not catch “the pageant bug”. It will only lead to you digging a bigger press hole for yourself to reflect on in the future.
* DISCLAIMER — The 2017 Ghanaian pageant I participated in was “Miss Universe Ghana” under its new Director 2017-to-present Menaye Donkor. Miss Universe Ghana 2017 was her first year as Director of the pageant hence why much is not known about her “leadership” style. She is feared by those who work for and know her well and is notorious for having enough “connections” to have you slandered, unsuccessful, and rep murdered all in the name of a god and amidst prayer to support her false public softer persona.
Until the lion speaks, the story will always glorify the hunter. In this information age, one should never ignore anything that assassinates your character on the World Wide Web. If you don’t hunt it down, it will cost you. Thus the truth, with proof, should always be shown and said. I now seldom watch worldwide televised pageant finales that have competitors from around the world wondering what each woman has been through to get to where they are as a representative of their nation. We will never know until they choose to tell their stories (if any and if not forced to be mute) now or in the far future.
Love from afar, Cindy.
Truth is Timeless.
[***The 2017 1st runner-up, Hephzibah Hephie Armah, worked for Michelle Attoh who was judging the day of the audition and throughout till finale night. Hephzibah Hehpie Armah also worked for the pageant’s production company while participating in the pageant.***]
[***The 2017 2nd runner-up is a family member of the First Lady of Ghana (in-office 2016–2024) and was recruited. She had quit the 2017 pageant twice and was pretentiously recruited back a third time under the guise of being “needed by the Director” who is a family friend. Her family, the first family, were the only ones given access backstage to wish her “luck” prior to the start of the finale.***]
[***The 2017 4th, Margaret Agyemang Nana Ama Agyekum, and 5th, Gladys Akyere Rockson, placeholders were “dating” members/financiers/supporters of the pageant executive team. Pulling a Ghislaine Maxwell? You reckon.***]
