It was a night of thunderous approval at the Accra International Conference Centre when Zeinab from the Northern region was declared winner of the 2017 Ghana’s Most Beautiful (GMB 2017) reality show on TV3.
Teary Zeinab couldn’t believe the reality when it dawned on her, even though she stepped into the GMB house praying for this very day. And it happened in style, perhaps, beyond the expectation of 23-year-old Zeinab Abdul Mumin.
It has been a tough experience in this 13-week journey for the beauty queens, but entertaining, educative performances interspersed with pure creativity for their audiences.
The expedition began with 10 elegant ladies from each of the ten regions of Ghana to redefine African beauty .
But in the end, it was the gorgeous Zeinab who went home with the bragging right, dragging along the enviable and coveted Crown in an Erata Motors sponsored KIA Sportage, chauffered from Accra to the Northern region with GHS12,000 cash as she gets ready to jet straight outta of Ghana to Dubai courtesy Kenya Airways. She also gets a GHS6,000 one year wardrobe from GTP.
Zeinab shrugged off stiff competition from Nana, Baaba, and Serwaa who also put up scintillating performances on Sunday, November 19, 2017.
Helena Baaba Botchway, 26, who is the Central regional representative settled for the First Runner-up. Baaba did her best to wow the audience in successive weeks and got the judges to confess their admiration for her prowess, but missed the crown.
The third place or Second Runner-up went to Dorcas Asante Afful, 25, known on stage as Nana from the Western region with Ivy Serwaa Sefa- Boateng, 23, Eastern regional representative coming Forth at the grand finale.
The 1st, 2nd and 3rd runners-up took home GHS 8,000, GHS 6,000, GHS2,000 respectively
The Legacy Edition winner of GMB 2016, Yaaba from the Western region passed on the baton to Zeinab with simply but challenging advice, “to whom much is given, much is expected”.
Zeinab is the second person to have been crowned winner of GMB after Nasara in 2009.
Below is the statistics of which region has won what since 2007
| Region | Total Awards | No of 1st Place awards | No of 2nd Place awards | No of 3rd Place awards | No of 4th place awards |
| Volta | 8 | 1 | 5 | 1 | 1 |
| Eastern | 6 | 1 | Nil | 3 | 2 |
| Central | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Ashanti | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| Upper East | 4 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Greater Accra | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Northern | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Upper West | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Brong Ahafo | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Western | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
Zeinab started the show with emotional but an “over-acted” scene on maternal mortality, where she rallied all to put shoulders to the wheel to win the fight against maternal mortality.
Baaba gave her baby project – say no to stigma, support mental health – the best shot, but the judges felt she, like Serwaa who talked about unsafe abortion, could have gone out of her comfort zone and do something different.
In the judges’ views the two have dwelled on same related topics over the weeks and therefore expected different topics all together.
Nana won the night on the judges scorecard after her entrepreneurial display, urging graduates not to rely on white-collar jobs as she hopes to groom young girls in what she termed Shepreneurship .
The girls were also judged on the night based on answers to questions they picked from a collection of questions.
Serwaa was to tell three things she would do for women, if she were Ghana’s president. She stuttered a bit as she arduously string her sentences together. She was however emphatic that Good health, empowering women through education and political empowerment would be her vision.
In answering what role should women play in promoting inter-religious harmony in Ghana, Zeinab did not belabour herself. She simply indicated that women are peacemakers and should therefore be encouraged to inculcate the habit of religious tolerance and co-habitation in their children since charity begins at home.
For Baaba, it appeared the question fitted into a rehearsed personal experience she has been waiting to share at any given day. The most challenging thing she encountered which touched on her emotion, was her question.
Baaba flawlessly dealt with that question narrating the challenges she faced when she decided to be with mental health patients. She is often stigmatised based on her career, she said, but that encouraged her to be humane, to espouse and live the cliché of Ghanaians being hospitable.
Nana was forthright and short on her conviction that women leaders can be effective as men, citing several illustrious daughters Ghana has produced to back her point, encouraging young women to be focused when the going gets tough.
With judges carrying 60 percent of the total marks and 40 for audience, Nana undoubtedly scored the highest points on the judges’ scorecard, but the audience thought otherwise and didn’t support her with votes, which relegated her to the second runner-up position.
The night was spiced up with enthralling performances from the Ghana Dance Ensemble, Kalybos/Kobi Rana, Kuami Eugene, MZ Vee and Edem.
Former beauty queens were there to support he girls as well as several dignitaries including ministers of state, Members of Parliament, government appointees, businessmen and women, and management of the Media General Group.
By Isaac Essel | 3news.com | Ghana