Former Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria (MBGN 2005) Omowunmi Akinnnifesi has decried the lack of good morals and discipline among most Nigerian children and youths, especially girls.
In an interview with Daily Sun, the fashion entrepreneur spoke on a wide range of subjects ranging from fashion, family, beauty secret, marriage plans, her weight gain, which she said is deliberate, moral decadence, among other issues.
*What led you into fashion of all businesses?
I wanted to do a business that would make people call on me regularly. I have this knack for empowering women. There are several other things I intend doing to empower women but among all these interests is my passions for making people look good.
I love to make women dress elegantly. I want something that would make the women to be able to carry themselves nicely.
The first thing they need to do to beef up their image is to enhance the way they look. So, I started with enhancing the physicality of women. I’m going into other things like enhancing women mentally and enhancing her soul as a woman in the society.
I started with what women looks like, and adapt that to her image. I know it sounds something like a cliché, but that was the reason I went into fashion.
*Do you have a fashion or grooming school since you mentioned your desire to empower women?
I intend going into international imaging and etiquette. I want to teach women not only how they should appear but how they should also behave and this is important.
When you come across some of our children these days, especially the girls, you would notice they don’t have integrity anymore.
They lack morals and manners and these are the things that make a woman. These are part of the content. The new generation of youths is not growing with our culture, so we need to retrain them on how to behave. They have to imbibe the culture of respect for elders and how to behave like a proper lady.
They also need to learn how to host visitors; do fine dinning; how to speak, sit down, talk; eat certain kinds of food. We hardly train people on some of these things in Nigeria. People don’t believe they are necessary. But it’s very important. I attended Queens’ College, Lagos and way back then; they used to teach us these things. But these days, the students are only taught Maths, English and all those important subjects but as for moral etiquette, it’s no longer there.