Black Hatred: Afrophobia and the Sad Case of Chidimma Adetshina

Earlier this week, South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs said there may have been impersonation by the person registered as Adetshina’s mother. The Miss South Africa organization, which requires all contestants to be South African citizens and in possession of a valid South African identity card or passport, sent a formal request to the department to verify Adetshina’s citizenship.

The department pledged to use all means at its disposal, including searching archives, visiting hospitals and other sites to verify the information. In a statement, it said its preliminary findings showed that the fraud and identity theft may have been committed by the person registered as Adetshina’s mother, although the applicant herself could not have been involved in the irregularities since she was still a baby at the time.

“An innocent South African mother, whose identity may have been stolen in the alleged fraud committed by Adetshina’s mother, has suffered because she was unable to register her child,” the statement said. Identity theft, where fraudsters impersonate a victim, is a common form of fraud in the country, with South African Fraud Prevention Services reporting a more than 350% increase in reported cases between April 2022 and April 2023.

It is not surprising that the political class has seized on the issue, given South Africa’s post-apartheid history of intolerance towards immigrants. The Patriotic Alliance (PA) filed a lawsuit in court, challenging the Miss South Africa organisation’s decision to admit Adetshina to the pageant. The lawsuit was only withdrawn on Friday after the contestant withdrew from the competition.

Party leader Gayton McKenzie, who took office as Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture just over a month ago, stirred up controversy by posting on social media on July 29: “We really can’t have Nigerian women competing in our Miss South Africa pageant. I want to have all the facts before I comment but this already feels funny.”

McKenzie, a former gangster who spent seven years in prison for a bank robbery, led his party to a 2 percent vote in South Africa’s recent election on the back of his campaign against undocumented immigrants. His party’s slogan, “Abahambe,” in Zulu, meaning “let them go,” has been denounced by critics as xenophobic.

Julius Malema, the leader of the Economic Freedom Fighters, also addressed the issue on a podcast, saying: “Your citizenship is determined by where you were born, so if she was born here, she’s South African. It doesn’t matter. She’s not her parents, she’s herself. So why say she’s from Nigeria or Mozambique? She was born here.”

The president of the Nigerian Citizens Association of South Africa, Frank Onyekwelu, hailed Adetshina as the embodiment of “beauty, intelligence and courage,” saying that adopting South Africa meant she would be a good ambassador for the country. A video circulating on social media showing Adetshina celebrating her success in the competition among her Nigerian relatives and friends further drew the ire of her detractors.

South Africa’s large Nigerian community is frequently the victim of hate attacks by locals who complain of being economically “marginalized” by foreigners and accuse them, without evidence, of criminal activity.

Adetshina was born at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Johannesburg and spent her early childhood in Soweto, Johannesburg. Her parents, who met in Johannesburg in the late 1990s, eventually settled in Cape Town. In an interview with The Sowetan newspaper in July, she credited her multicultural upbringing with shaping her worldview and sense of pride as a South African. Her profile on the Miss South Africa website describes the Varsity College, Cape Town student as ambitious, confident and optimistic. She is passionate about sport, particularly netball, and supports the campaign to end violence against women and children.

It was her second attempt at the Miss South Africa pageant after failing to qualify for the finals in 2023. She ignored the initial attacks on her, thinking it would all go away. “At first, I ignored them, but as I progressed through the competition, the criticism started to get louder by the day,” she said. “Until I thought, I am representing a country, but I am not feeling the love from the people I am representing. I even asked myself, ‘Is it worth it?’”

The mother of a one-year-old boy, who divorced her husband in February, described the attacks on her as “black hatred” and said she was being targeted because of her skin colour. The Miss South Africa pageant has been contested before by people with foreign parents, including the 2001 winner, Vanessa Coutroulis, who is of Portuguese-Angolan descent. This year, Sherry Wang, a South African of Chinese descent, who was competing for the third time, was subjected to violence, but none as intense as that suffered by Adetshina.

In a statement released shortly after Adetshina’s withdrawal from the competition, the Miss South Africa organization acknowledged its difficult decision to withdraw from the pageant. It also reiterated its mission to use the event to celebrate “South Africa’s rich and inclusive culture and diversity” and “contribute to the self-confidence and aspirations of all girls and women in Africa and around the world.” Unfortunately, those words will ring hollow, given the debacle involving a contestant who embodies everything the rainbow nation should stand for.