Claret Onukogu’s quest for greater heights

Claret Onukogu is not the kind of girl you’ll de-scribe with a few words. Apart from being beautiful, bold and brainy, this MBA holder in Health Administration from the South University in the United States (US) is humble, ambitious, hard-working and multicultural. These are, no doubt, some of the qualities which facilitated the phenom-enal rise and rise of the Owerri, Imo State born former beauty queen, model turned actress in the showbiz world. She started having a taste of fame as a beauty queen while in elementary school in Nigeria and on relocating to the US to complete her secondary and university education, Claret Onukogu was crowned Miss Nigeria in America 2009/2010. However, to say that Claret who is just in her 20s has so much going for her is like stating the obvious.
Apart from having a PhD in view, this first child of a family of eight is one of the fresh faces waiting to take over the Nigerian movie industry.
Aside co-hosting Music &Vibes, a mu-sical TV show, Claret has proved her act-ing prowess in Happy Family (Seasons 2 & 3), Secrets & Scandals, Clinic Matters, The Dis-clo-sure, The Code, The Se-cret Code, Two Brides and A Baby among other TV series and Nollywood blockbust-ers.
With the buzzes generated by Citizen, a new movie that has her face alongside Uti Nwachukwu (BBA all Stars Winner), Brian Ok-wara, (Ex Mr. Nigeria), Keneth Okolie (Mr World 2nd Runner Up), Melvin Odua (Mr Nigeria 2011, 1st Runner Up) amongst many others, Claret is really one of the emerging queens of Nolly-wood.
Speaking about her character in Citi-zen, she said: “I played the role of a lady who came from a wealthy home; she had everything on a platter of gold. She didn’t know what it was like to hustle and struggle.
It was challenging playing the role but worth it because it brought out the best in me.” While she not only aspires to be a face that cannot be ignored in the make believe world, Claret wants to be a voice for helpless women who face sexual harassments, prostitution, rape, genital mutila-tion, spousal abuse among other is-sues.