On Saturday night in Lagos, 23-year-old law student Chidimma Adetshina was crowned Miss Universe Nigeria after a protracted and very public debate about her eligibility. But the drama in question was actually tied to a separate beauty pageant nearly 3,000 miles away.
Adetshina had been competing to become Miss South Africa when she became the target of accusations that she wasn’t a South African citizen; a requirement for all contestants in the pageant. Normally, South African citizenship requires being born in South Africa to at least one parent who’s either a citizen or permanent resident. In interviews, Adetshina said she was born in Soweto—a Johannesburg township—to a Nigerian father and a South African mother with Mozambican roots, and grew up in Cape Town.
Adetshina was not the first contestant in the pageant to face such cyberbullying and abuse many commenters labeled xenophobic. But while pageant organizers initially came to her defence, sustained uproar on social media soon caught the attention of the country’s Department of Home Affairs. At one point, South Africa’s Minister for Sports, Art and Culture tweeted that, “We truly cannot have Nigerians compete in our Miss SA competition,” adding that Adetshina’s participation gave him “funny vibes.”
