Divine Johnson is the CEO of Campus Model Worldwide, a campus model platform that also runs a beauty pageant, the Most Beautiful Campus Queen. The young CEO called at The Nigerian Observer offices in Benin City recently, where he spoke with Deborah Olorunfemi on a number of issues bordering on his mission and vision for Campus Model Worldwide. Here are excerpts:
Tell us more about Most Beautiful Campus Queen.
Most Beautiful Campus Queen is a pageant that encourages our young girls to go to school. It is a systematic way of encouraging them. We know most of the girls in this generation believe in the saying that education is a scam and some of them want to chase a career in modelling but don’t want to go to school anymore, so we brought a classical event that they would want to be involved in but the only condition of entry to this pageant is that you must be a student, so that will make them go to school. That is what Most Beautiful Campus Queen is basically all about. Every March we have our national edition where students from different universities in Nigeria come together. This year we used the Victor Uwaifo Creative Hub and for next year we are looking at University of Benin. So far, we have about 20 universities already planning to come because 20 universities have already registered, though we are looking at having 50 universities. So, at the national pageant in March 2024, we will select our winner and who will be crowned Most Beautiful Campus Queen, that is like the most beautiful of all queens in Nigerian campuses, and then she will be made to represent us in our international pageant show. The winner of the Most Beautiful Campus Queen 2023, Felicity Osemudiamhen Akuewanbhor, represented us in July this year at Miss Teen Globe International Pageant in Paraguay, though things did not quite go as we had envisaged. So, we look forward to getting the Most Beautiful Campus Queen next year and taking her to the world again to win an international crown because we need to get the crown internationally.
How long have you been doing this pageantry?
I started it when I was in 200 level in the University of Benin, about five years ago. I am a graduate now, and the project is no longer looking like a student pageantry but is becoming a life career for me because every day, every year I do it, I find more purpose in what I do, I see myself directing so many young ones who do not have a path to have a path, and it gives me more purpose to stay on. Even though I am not getting the resources, the finances I need, it is making me happy and I have learnt a lot from it.
How was this idea conceived? What inspired you?
When I was in my 200 level, I was actually a model but I wouldn’t mention the brand name. I was working under the brand and I was extorted. I wasn’t told I was too short to model but I was told to pay to be a model and I actually paid the fee but didn’t get the value for what I paid for, and I thought this was not what professionalism looks like and I told my friends. I figured that in Lagos models were being paid to model, not models paying to model. I told myself that if was going through that pain, there were many other persons who were also going through the pain. So, I reached out to this modeling agency in Lagos to promote the models in Benin too so that the models can get paid instead of the models paying to model. The reason the agencies in Benin that were extorting us were flourishing was because we didn’t have another option, and we were desperate in pushing our careers, so we created an option by bringing Campus Model Worldwide and pushing them to Lagos. We have one of our models now in Milan for the Milan Fashion Week. That’s the fashion side. I then heard people saying people were scamming them in the pageantry industry. Guess what, people are not going to stop scamming. Except there’s a good, you can never stop the wrong. So, I thought to publicize the good over the wrong. The negative side of the pageantry was having so much publicity because the positive side was not having enough publicity, so I built mine on integrity. I can vouch and put my hands on my chest that from the first year till now, you can ask any of the pageants, every of their prize was paid in full; everything we said we were going to do was done. This happened when people in the industry were busy exhorting people and not redeeming prizes. I ensured that when I came into the market, I came to make a difference. So, it was more like the negativity motivated me because I needed to produce positivity out of the whole situation.
What did you study in the university and does that have any impact?
I studied Linguistics, totally way out of my line, right? At some point I had to combine education and modeling. It was in 200 level that I figured that though they say education is the key, there was little education alone could have done for me if I didn’t back it up, which was why I went into modeling while I was still doing education. So, I told myself, if I could do this, I won’t let the next generation be deceived or think that education is not important. I know that someone that is not educated and is doing the same thing I am doing, that person will not do it the way I am doing it because education has in a way expanded me.
When you started, were you the only one driving it?
I am a lover of team work. When I started even till now, I have people. What I did was to gather like minds and told them this is it, why don’t we do it this way? Some person bought into the ideas, and I got some nos as well. Some person didn’t see the vision and I don’t blame anybody. I was the visioner, I saw clearly but I could not interpret it well for everybody to roll with it, but the few that did roll with it are still in it. Most of them are graduates now. It’s been sweat and blood but we are glad we are in it because this project pays us, gives us purpose because if I was the only one enjoying it, it would have be a lesser thing. This team I am working with do not even think about the little penny I have to pay them; it’s first about the purpose that has been driving the process of the pageantry.
This must involve a lot of resources. Any sponsorship yet?
So far, we have been able to get a number of sponsors for the project, but we aim to get more sponsors and get more support from the government and non-governmental organizations. There are human rights organizations that could be vital to this project. Our actual aim is to promote the girl-child and ensure they have access to education. So, organisations fighting against human trafficking and other such organizations could sponsor and partner with this project. We look forward to having international scholarships for winners of the pageantry. Education remains our utmost priority, but we are giving education to the young ones in a very stylish way, where they would not know that our aim is to get them educated, but they will find themselves being educated while chasing their career.
Where do you see this pageantry in, say, five years from now?
Like I said, this is the fifth year of the pageantry, and for my type of person, I make my plans every five years and so, it is project five years, 10 years. I already know what the pageantry will look like in 10 years. Five years ago, believe me, I already had plans for what this year should be like, even though this year has surpassed what I thought it would look like, and I am glad. We were supposed to launch our international movement after project five years, but it did come earlier than that. In the next five years, I see more universities buying into this project because they would note that we are not just asking students to pay anything, because even accommodation, feeding, everything will come at no cost for the student, but they will just see the need to chase career and education at the same time. So, just like the way people are buying into the Olympics and sending in delegates, in the next five years we are going to have different schools doing internal contests and selecting delegates that will come into our national pageantry.
