Gone are the days of Manuela Medie and Sheila Azuntaba when being a beauty queen had incredible weight.

Gone are the days when embassy club pleasure was the name to associate with the high ranking pageants to media whizz kids and charter house, it has been a real roller coaster of drama, revelations and excitement.

I used to sit by my TV set in absolute awe. It seemed like an incredible dream. Today, I can’t help but smirk when I see beauty pageants. Why? Because I have even lost count of the number of pageants in this country.

There is a beauty queen down every lane, a new pageant day in, day out. Apart from Miss Ghana and Miss Malaika, there is Miss Universe, Miss ECOWAS, Miss Earth, Miss Big and Beautiful (Miss Excel), Ghana’s Most Beautiful, Miss Tourism and about 30 more beauty pageants….all in one year and one small country!!

Many people will argue that beauty pageants celebrate women and yes, I know that. It isn’t entirely bad. It makes confident, successful women out of hardworking young ladies with a dream. But what is the prize to pay? We have all followed the numerous controversies that have surrounded beauty pageants.

In my opinion, these pageants have lost so much allure that it has become very difficult to call the ladies who participate even the best with ridiculous controversies trailing them everyday to boot.

From scandalous beauty queens to manipulative organizers, even the caliber of judges at these events has gotten so porous.

I remember when D-Black tweeted about choosing beauty over brains any day right after the 2011 Miss Malaika controversy. Judges have gotten too young and field-irrelevant.

What’s your take on recent pageants? Could anything be changed to make them as relevant as they used to be?