Chidimma Adetshina, a beauty queen and recent Miss Universe Nigeria winner, is set to lose her South African identity and travel documents amid a nationality dispute involving her mother’s alleged “identity theft.”
South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs announced the decision in a parliamentary committee on Tuesday after Adetshina and her mother missed a deadline to justify their citizenship status.
Tommy Makhode, the top civil servant at the department, said Ms Adetshina’s mother would also have her documents cancelled as they had both failed to meet Monday’s deadline to provide reasons why they should be eligible to keep them.
The controversy first arose when Adetshina, whose father is Nigerian and mother Mozambican, reached the finals of the Miss South Africa pageant, igniting xenophobic criticism and prompting her withdrawal in August.
According to Home Affairs, the investigation into Adetshina’s background, initiated after she entered the Miss South Africa contest, pointed to her mother’s potential identity fraud. Following the revelations, South Africa’s special investigative police unit, the Hawks, classified the case as one of fraud, with a decision from prosecutors pending.
After the department’s revelation in August, it had said that Ms Adestshina “could not have participated in the alleged unlawful actions of her mother as she was an infant at the time”.
Despite the turbulence, Adetshina, a law student born in Soweto, expressed pride in both her South African and Nigerian heritage, saying that she still saw herself as “proudly South African” and “proudly Nigerian”. Currently in Mexico, she is preparing to represent Nigeria in the upcoming Miss Universe competition on November 16, where she will compete against global contestants, including Mia le Roux, Miss South Africa 2024.
Melissa Enoch
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