I was told to take off my hijab if I wanted to be a successful model – Miss Nigeria 2021, Shatu Garko

Shatu Garko, the 2021 winner of Miss Nigeria Pageant has shared some of the challenges she encountered as a Hijab model in the industry.

The 44th Miss Nigeria, in an interview with The Punch, revealed that she has not been modelling for up to a year, and it was during the COVID-19 lockdown that she decided to try being model.

According to Garko, she had been told on different occasions that in order to succeed she would have to take off her Hijab.

In her words; ”I have only been a model for less than a year. After I graduated from school, I was stuck at home as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. I hated being idle, so I decided to try my hands at modelling.

My first modelling audition was ‘rocky’. They picked me at first but they later said I needed better management, and they rejected me. However, that did not really discourage me. Rather, it encouraged me to do better and push harder. My mum told me, “You can’t just start this thing and be successful immediately”. She made me understand that one has to fail before one succeeds.

In the early days (of my modelling career), I felt a bit intimated because of my hijab. I was turned down severally because brands did not want to work with a hijab model. On several occasions, I was blatantly told I had to take off my hijab if I wanted to succeed as a model.”