Nigerian organisers are struggling to stage the Miss World beauty pageant despite having managed to avert a mass boycott of the event.
Pageant sources say organisers were battling to raise cash for everything from hotel rooms to air charters, including two jumbo jets that will fly equipment into a country with some of the world's poorest infrastructure.
"The stage to be used for the final in Abuja alone weighs 96 tonnes and must be flown in from London," a pageant official said.
Because Nigerian promoters were unable to pay all €7.8 million for hosting rights, they had to shoulder the 148 million naira (€115,000) hotel costs at Abuja's NICON Hilton, a Nigerian official said.
"If they had paid the hosting fees, the Miss World Organisation would have taken care of all hotel bills," added the official, who asked to be unnamed.
A planeload of contestants arrived in Abuja last night, to the relief of Nigerian officials who had feared a humiliating boycott over the plight of Nigerian women sentenced by Islamic sharia courts to be executed by stoning for adultery.
"There is no boycott," declared Mr Ben Murray-Bruce, head of state-run Nigerian Television Authority, a co-sponsor.
"This is the moment the whole world has been waiting for," he told cheering contestants, among them representatives of at least five countries that had said they would stay away - Belgium, Canada, France, Kenya and Norway.
After the airport reception, the contestants were whisked to their hotel where they have been kept away from the press.
Lack of experience in handling international media for such a massive event meant journalists had no official list of countries represented.
But it was the initial boycott threat and concern that the event would be disrupted by Nigerian Islamic fundamentalists who have labelled the beauty contest "a parade of nudity" that worried the Nigerian government the most.
Senior officials said a significant boycott could have jeopardised Nigeria's hosting next year of the All Africa Games and the summit of the 54-nation Commonwealth group.
Ministers repeated assurances the government would not allow any Nigerian convicted of adultery under Islamic sharia law to be stoned to death.
The cabinet minister in charge of the Nigeria's Federal Capital Territory went to extra lengths to assure Muslims that the contestants would not wear revealing clothing in Abuja.
Two men and two women, including a 31-year-old mother, have been sentenced to death by stoning. The mother's sentence in particular prompted worldwide outrage.
The contestants were scheduled to be flown later today or tomorrow to the predominantly Christian southeast of the country for all the pre-pageant video shoots.
Organisers said a total of 92 contestants will eventually take part.