Chidimma- Miss Universe Pageant Controversies and Xenophobia in South Africa

Xenophobia has reared its ugly head in South Africa once again but this time, it wasn’t targeted at businesses of foreigners of African descent, it happened in the Miss Universe South Africa Pageant. The lady in the middle of the controversy is Chidimma Adetshina – the 23-year-old beautiful and stylish model born to a Mozambiquan mother and a Nigerian father in South Africa. The mother has since become a South African citizen even before her birth.

The Controversy

It was Chidimma’s second attempt at the Miss Universe competition, and she had endured a devastating experience in South Africa where she was forced to withdraw following a series of identity theft accusations.

She was relatively unknown worldwide until a few months ago. Still, in July 2024, her heritage and background became public debate when she decided to contest in the Miss Universe South African Pageant. Her decision to contest in South Africa for the second term made her a trending topic and subject to Xenophobic attacks online.

According to her, she had always wanted to be a pageant girl since she turned 17. She was born in South Africa and has always identified as South African. She had only visited Nigeria once since birth until recently. She had made South Africa her priority.

Although she was rejected in 2022 she remained optimistic and went for it again in 2024 and made it into the finals. Little did Miss Chidimma know this was going to be a turning point in her career?

Her heritage came under scrutiny suddenly and many began to wonder if she is South African enough to represent the country. A petition demanding her removal from the Miss South African Pageant was raised and went on to garner 14,000 signatures before it was taken down.

She found herself in a situation where she was genuinely in love with a country but didn’t feel the love from the people.

Rejected in South Africa, Crowned in Nigeria

Miss Chidimma’s misfortune in South Africa quickly became noticed in Nigeria and the organizers of the Pageant in Nigeria had to step in and invite her to participate in the show to represent Nigeria instead of South Africa.

Fortunately for her, she was able to get more votes than other contestants and eventually won and was crowned Miss Universe Nigeria.

Xenophobic War Re-ignited

Nigerians were quick to label the treatment of Miss Chidimma in South Africa as xenophobia drawing media tension and bringing back the memories of how an estimated 128 Nigerians have been murdered in South Africa since 2019.

The situation quickly degenerated to targeting businesses in both countries with people ordering online taxis like Bolt and Uber from each other’s countries and then canceling the orders at the last minute just to cause economic losses. There were also numerous social media ranting, name-calling, and exchange of xenophobic messages between citizens of the two countries.

How Long Will This Continue?

Beauty pageants should be seen as a platform for cultural representations with models representing homogenous communities of people irrespective of their backgrounds. This concept however has been criticized often for allowing racial and demographic discrimination.

Sometimes it boils down to one’s heritage as seen in 2015 with the crowning of Ariana Miyamoto as Miss Japan who was criticized for being biracial. Miyamoto was born in Japan to an African-American Father and a Japanese mother.

Considerable efforts have been made in the past to make beauty pageants more inclusive and diverse over the years but biases still linger. Critics are questioning the reasons why South Africa has a sports team with multi-racial individuals participating but wouldn’t allow the same in a beauty pageant.

We can only hope that things will change in the future.