Agbani Darego represented the country of Nigeria at Miss World 2001 on 16th November 2001 at the Super Bowl of Sun City Entertainment Centre in Sun City, South Africa. She was the first indigenous African to win Miss World.
Born in 1982, Darego hails from a town called Abonnema in the Rivers State area of southern Nigeria. Her full name is Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite Darego. Because of her father’s job she travelled frequently and her mother bought Darego fashionable clothes that she paged through foreign fashion magazines. She was passionate about being a model and making a career out of it since her teenage years but her father wasn’t supportive about her goals.
In one of her interviews, she mentioned that she was unusually tall for a Nigerian all in her family are of above-average height and she was slimmer than the prevailing standard of beauty. "The way most women look in Nigeria is not the Western ideal. In my country, short, curvy women are thought beautiful, not me.” Since her father dismissed the idea of her about pursuing her dream of being a beauty queen, Agbani decided to study Computer Science and Mathematics from University of Port Harcourt. Darego longed to be a model, and auditioned for the M-Net Face of Africa modelling competition despite her conservative father's wishes, but was not chosen as a finalist.
In 2001, Darego was crowned Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria which made her eligible for the Miss World pageant later that year. That same year in the Miss Universe pageant, Darego was the first Nigerian become a top-10 finalist. Darego was the first Nigerian to win the Miss World crown, but more importantly was the first black woman from an African country to win it. Black women had won the title before, but they hailed from Caribbean lands. Darego's victory was widely welcomed in her home country, and her one-year tenure included goodwill trips and scheduled appearances on behalf of the pageant, and a national honour of MFR.
Prior to her winning the title, Darego was featured in print commercials for boutique chain ‘Collectables’. She was invited by supermodel Naomi Campbell to participate in ‘Frock ‘n’ Roll’; a charity fashion show in Barcelona after her stint in the beauty pageant. She was even made an honorary member of the Council of Chiefs in Lagos, an extraordinary honour for a woman as young as she was and one that made her the country's youngest chief.
Darego chose to become a patron of a breast-cancer awareness program and dedicated her crown to her mother. She also devoted time during her Miss World year to an anti-malaria campaign. "I had malaria as a child, but I was privileged to have hospital treatments. So many others die because they can't get drugs." She spent much of the year traveling, but used London as her base, in a home she shared with her younger sister. She walked the Great Wall of China, attended the Cannes Film Festival and England's Royal Ascot where she wore a stunning fuchsia ensemble and requisite elaborate hat and was photographed for American Vogue. She also invested some of her cash prize in a parcel of land back in Nigeria.
She also started a clothing line and completed a psychology degree at New York University in 2012. Modelling is still very much a centrepiece of Darego’s life, but these days, she mostly serves as a pageant judge and consultant. Some publications list Darego as the first sub-Saharan African to win the title as well. The diva married her long-time partner Ishaya Danjuma in a ceremony in Marrakesh.
In 2010, she launched a style and fashion reality show Stylogenic on Nigerian television, and three years later announced her denim range, AD by Agbani Darego, which includes jeans, dresses, sunglasses and bags. Agbani Darego is not only an inspiration to the young women in Nigeria but all over the world for her determination and dedication towards being on the top just like she aspired to be.