Here is a young and dazzling Nigerian I stumbled into in the course of my news based adventure and immediately, her distinct personality and great achievements, more than captured my interest.
A native of Adamawa state, born in Lagos, Nigeria and has spent time in the Americas, Europe, and Asia. At 17, she was bestowed an International Rupee Scholarship from Wartburg College and subsequently honoured as a High Performance Scholar, an Elise T. Hinrics Scholar in Political Science, and as a recipient of multiple awards, including a Dell Association Peace and Justice Award.
She is one lady of a kind with an over flowing resume for a 23 year old and I am talking about the beautiful and intelligent Hyeladzirra ‘Zirra’ Banu, who is the present Miss ECOWAS Peace Ambassador for the West African Region. Astounding the audience with her intelligence, Miss Banu presented a winning speech on “The Role of Women in Peace Building.” Her excellent answers and composure during the question and answer sessions guaranteed her the coveted crown.
The intellectual pageant included a Peace Forum, in which Miss Banu also won the Peace Message Award. Zirra went into the regional competition as Miss ECOWAS Nigeria and walked the whole nine yard of the contest to a well deserved victory against 26 other contestants from all the member states of the ECOWAS community, including the Cote D’Ivoire representative, who took second place, and Miss ECOWAS Ghana, who came in third.
Zirra Banu has worked as managing editor for Face2FaceAfrica Magazine (New York), editor and presenter for hellokpop.com (South Korea, USA, Australia), radio host on 93.5 Aso FM (Nigeria), on-air producer for KWAR FM, and TV presenter on
WTV8 (USA). She is currently founder and CEO of the DorcaSapel Foundation.