By Ian Ortega
Despite the various amounts of criticisms and insults that have been aimed towards Miss Leah Kalanguka who was crowned Uganda’s beauty queen on Saturday 25th, she may actually have the haters to thank for her climb to the top.
The computer engineering graduate has reached heights that no former Miss Uganda ever reached during their one year reign. News agencies world over have already taken interest in this beauty and have written story after story about her.
AFP wrote about a Former Farmer that had been crowned as Miss Uganda.
The Gulf News and many other agencies in the emirates were all awash with stories about this beauty queen and so was BBC that rushed to do an interview with the beauty queen.
This has led us to ask many questions. But the major question is; “Could Miss Uganda be the next Lupita Nyong’o?”
She embodies everything African that the World needs to give an African fame in full doze just like Lupita. The world is not really looking for an African trying to imitate whites, it’s looking for an African who communicates what it means to be an African and that’s why Kalanguka may go on to achieve the same popularity as Lupita.
With the many agricultural agencies looking for a worthy ambassador in Africa, with the many food and nutrition organizations looking for a pillar to spread their gospel, Miss Uganda may be the next big thing in the world.
Even when she heads over to the Miss World competitions, much of the focus is going to rotate around her unlike in the past where most Ugandan representatives were invisible. Her uniqueness and the hate she’s so far received is all going to work in her favour as she takes the world by storm.
Since she’s already a model, it won’t be long before one of the top modeling agencies in the world signs her up. It won’t be long before Vogue is splashing her on the front pages and it won’t be long before a Hollywood director offers her a chance on a movie that becomes a hit.
All I can say, when it comes to the new Miss Uganda, under-estimating her may actually be a very wrong move to make at this time. She may end up winning over all those who hadn’t earlier believed in her when the world puts her in the spotlight the way they did to Lupita.
The most successful models out of Africa have all been pure dark-skinned models. It’s for the same reason that most Ugandan models can’t make it to the world stage, because most of them have bleached, they try to look light-skinned forgetting there’s already enough talent in the light-skinned categories of models.
Think of why Aamito Stacie won Africa’s Next Top Model competition and realize why being dark-skinned and flaunting this is the fastest way to make a mark on the world run-way. For now, I say, keep your eyes wide open because Miss Uganda may be the next Lupita Nyong’o. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.