FROM SLUM TO STARDOM

A Nigerian dream come true

Oluchi’s story is straight out of the book. An unusual, yet fascinating story that has been told over and over again. The compelling story of a young, dark, attractive, lanky girl, lost in the seedy and sleazy world of Nigeria’s Ojuelegba in uptown Lagos, until she got a lifeline that transported her from the land of little hope to that with an audacity of hope.
Her earlier life was not without dreams, but forced to make a living anyhow, Oluchi was locked into a volatile society like Ojuelegba, a place noted for its notorious nightlife, populated and patronized by merchants of the flesh. Located in the Surulere area of the sprawling city of Lagos Nigeria, Ojuelegba was a place where drug and liquor mixed freely. Where desire met consummation and many who struggled through life found temporary refuge and release in crime and vice and in all kinds of petty trade. Ojuelegba was a pit of pain, frustration and confusion for many who dreamed big dreams. A microcosm of Thomas Hobbes world where life is mostly nasty, brutish and short.
That was Oluchi’s world too. Or, perhaps, a bit of it. A world where she hawked bread on the streets for her parents and did other menial jobs to augment the family income. But she was a gem buried in the filth around her and unseen by the people who milled around. Not for long though. Her first name “Oluchi” which means God’s Work soon came into operation and gave her a lift out of the poverty and uncertainty of Ojuelegba into that of fame and fortune.
Oluchi was destined for something different. Something bigger. And when the opportunity knocked, she answered. She entered into the M-Net Face of Africa competition in Lagos. She scaled through the preliminaries and in 1998 took part in the inaugural edition of the Face of Africa modeling competition. Africa had scarcely seen a gait like hers and was enthralled. She won the competition and a star was born. Her modeling potentials: lanky body structure, towering height, straight sexy legs, alluring eyes and a dark skin color, all combining perfectly to give her an overall coolness that easily reminded one of a beautiful purring cat. Her success launched her into a world of glamour, fashion, fame and riches. Suddenly she could dream again. Several months after she was taken out of her Ojuelegba world, she was transported into a world she only saw in her dreams.
One decade after her discovery, Oluchi now lives that dream and is holding her own in the competitive world of modeling. Perhaps a feat that signposts her arrival at the top of her career is her record three-time appearance in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issues, from 2005 to 2008. Sports Illustrated is a celebrated and widely read men’s magazine. Oluchi’s seemingly unbridled seductiveness make her absolutely irresistible. She has become an ambassador for African beauty and a model figure for thousands of girls of her generation. In her they find great inspiration and challenge to believe that nothing is impossible. Oluchi herself continues to hammer in the message that out of Africa will come many beautiful and responsible things. And with a sense of responsibility, she acknowledges these great expectations.
So Europe and America find her alluring. Africa is proud of her. But it is in Nigeria that the lesson of her story mostly resonates, the lesson that even in the face of all the challenges that living in Nigeria is, there is room to dream dreams that come true.