Chidimma Adetshina and the Uncomfortable Question of Belonging

By Percy Nhara

Something deeply uncomfortable about the Chidimma Adetshina citizenship saga goes far beyond a passport, an identity document, or a court case. It is the uncomfortable question of what happens when the country a person calls home decides that the paperwork behind that belonging may not be valid.

Adetshina was born in Soweto and grew up in South Africa. In 2024, she entered the Miss South Africa competition and quickly became the centre of a national storm because of her Nigerian heritage and questions surrounding her citizenship. She eventually withdrew from the pageant after facing intense hostility and safety concerns. She then travelled to Nigeria, won Miss Universe Nigeria 2024, and went on to become first runner-up at Miss Universe, representing Nigeria. It was an extraordinary reversal: a young woman who had been questioned about whether she was sufficiently South African was embraced by another African country and came within one place of winning the world's biggest beauty title.

Now the story has returned to South Africa, this time in a courtroom. In 2026, Adetshina has been fighting attempts by South African authorities to deport her. She was arrested in June over allegations that she was living in the country without valid immigration status. The Department of Home Affairs maintains that she does not have a valid legal basis to remain in South Africa, while she is challenging the process. And this is where the bigger question begins.

If there was fraud in the acquisition or registration of citizenship, then the law must deal with it. If an adult committed fraud, that person should answer for it. No individual should be exempt from the law because the circumstances have become politically sensitive or emotionally difficult. But what exactly is the responsibility of a child for an alleged wrongdoing committed by an adult? That question has been at the heart of the controversy.

South African authorities have alleged irregularities involving the documentation of Adetshina and her mother. Her South African identity documents were subsequently cancelled, according to reports. Yet Adetshina has spent her formative years in South Africa and has described the country as home. That creates a profoundly human dilemma. Imagine growing up believing that you belong somewhere, attending school there, building friendships there and constructing your entire understanding of yourself around that country — only to discover as an adult that your legal status may depend on circumstances over which you had absolutely no control.

Can the consequences of an alleged parental wrongdoing simply be transferred to the child?

Legally, the courts must answer that question according to South African law. Morally, however, the question belongs to all of us. Because Chidimma's story has exposed something uncomfortable about Africa's relationship with identity. We speak passionately about African unity. We talk about Ubuntu. We celebrate the idea of a continent without unnecessary borders. We speak about breaking down the colonial divisions that separated people who share histories, cultures, and families.

Yet we continue to create societies in which an African person's belonging can become conditional on the nationality of their parents. Adetshina's story made this contradiction painfully visible. During the Miss South Africa controversy, some of the hostility directed at her was explicitly connected to her Nigerian father and her African identity. The controversy became so intense that she withdrew from the competition.

Nigeria then welcomed her. She won Miss Universe Nigeria. She represented Nigeria internationally. And she finished as first runner-up at Miss Universe. Her success did not erase the pain of what happened in South Africa. If anything, it made the contradiction more visible. Here was an African woman who could represent Nigeria on the world's biggest beauty stage while still carrying a deeply complicated relationship with the country where she was born.

There is an irony that Africa should not ignore. We want a united Africa, but sometimes we teach Africans to fear one another.

We speak about Pan-Africanism while questioning the legitimacy of an African person's belonging because their father comes from another African country. We condemn xenophobia when it becomes violent, but we sometimes tolerate the quieter forms of exclusion that tell people: You may live here, but you will never truly be one of us. That does not mean citizenship laws should be ignored. They should not. Countries have legitimate rights to determine who qualifies for citizenship and who has the right to reside within their borders. Documentation matters. Fraud matters. The integrity of national identity systems matters.

But justice should also be capable of recognising the human being behind the document. That is why this case deserves more than the shouting that surrounded the Miss South Africa controversy. It deserves careful legal scrutiny. It deserves accountability where wrongdoing is proven. But it also deserves humanity. Adetshina's story forces us to ask whether belonging is merely a legal status or whether it can also be something shaped by memory, upbringing, language, relationships and the places in which a person learns to understand the world.

Perhaps the most important question is not whether South Africa should enforce its citizenship laws. It should.

The deeper question is how justice responds when the person caught in the consequences of an alleged wrongdoing did not create that wrongdoing.

Let the courts decide the law.

Let whoever committed fraud answer for it.

But let us not forget the young woman standing behind the case file.

Because sometimes, behind a disputed document, there is a life.

Behind a nationality dispute, there is a childhood.

Behind an immigration case, there may be a person who has spent years believing that somewhere was home. And perhaps that is the question Chidimma Adetshina's story leaves Africa with:

If we truly believe in one Africa, why should an African have to spend her life proving that she belongs?

Chidimma Adetshina citizenship