 |
| Chidimma Adetshina after being crowned Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 at the pageant in Lagos, Nigeria, on Saturday.Credit...Benson Ibeabuchi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images |
Chidimma Adetshina, a 23-year-old South African beauty pageant contestant with Nigerian heritage, was forced to withdraw from the Miss Universe pageant in Nigeria after her participation fueled anti-immigrant sentiments. The controversy began when public scrutiny of her Nigerian heritage triggered a national debate about nationality, immigration, and ultimately xenophobia. Adetshina was crowned in Lagos, Nigeria's largest city, just weeks after she was forced to withdraw from the Miss Universe pageant in South Africa, the country of her birth.
The scrutiny became so intense that South Africa's Department of Home Affairs opened an investigation that ultimately accused her mother of committing identity fraud. The ministry said they planned to pursue criminal charges, but that Ms. Adetshina was exempt because she was an infant at the time when the activities took place in 2001. Days before the pageant, Ms. Adetshina withdrew, citing the safety of herself and her family. That was when organizers of the Miss Universe Nigeria pageant invited her to Lagos. She represented her father's homeland, Taraba state in eastern Nigeria, even though she said in a post-pageant interview that had never been there before and had only traveled to Lagos once. Still, she garnered enough public votes to qualify for the final.
Maurice Sokari, an entrepreneur from Lagos, said he voted for Ms. Adetshina because he had been drawn to her story of different African identities. Okolo Miracle Obiechina, a fashion stylist who also voted for her, said: “It was crucial for me to see Chidinma win, especially after she endured xenophobic South Africans. It baffles me that in 2024 Black people are still hating each other.”
Even in Nigeria, her multinational heritage has raised questions about whether she is the right person to represent that country at the global competition in Mexico in November. Some questioned why she was allowed to enter the competition at such a late stage. Others asked whether her victory was part of the rivalry between Africa's two largest economies — Nigeria and South Africa.
In South Africa, Ms. Adetshina's hybrid identity had opened a decades-long wound, in a country where Black South Africans sometimes regard migrants from the continent as "economic combatants," against whom they must compete for already meager resources. South Africa has a complicated relationship with the continent, particularly beyond southern Africa, said Sisonke Msimang, a South African author and essayist. Apartheid's ideology of racial segregation used the notion of an uncivilized African to oppress Black South Africans and to instill a deep-seated fear of the countries and peoples that lay to the north of South Africa. This animosity has at times led to sporadic riots and brutal mob violence. Politicians have also repeatedly used anti-immigrant rhetoric as a dog whistle. One party, the Patriotic Alliance, whose leader, Gayton McKenzie, has become the minister of sports, arts and culture in a coalition government, asked a court force organizers to disqualify Ms. Adetshina.
In many ways, she represents an increasing number of young Africans whose identities defy borders, said Ms. Msimang. She is also of a generation of South Africans born after apartheid, who have seem determined to defy the past. If South Africa allowed itself to be cosmopolitan, rather than shrank back in fear about what it means to be a melting pot, we would be able to accept all of who she is and celebrate it,” Ms. Msimang said.
