Chidimma Adetshina's win reveals ugly face of xenophobia in Africa

 

Chidimma Adetshina, who was crowned Miss Nigeria, emerged as first runner-up at the 2024 Miss Universe Competition. [Getty Images]

The Miss Universe 2024 competition, which was held this past weekend in Mexico, saw Miss Denmark emerge overall winner. However, more significantly, Chidimma Adetshina, who was crowned Miss Nigeria, emerged as first runner-up, as well as being crowned Miss Universe Africa and Oceania. Chidimma’s success has been nothing short of miraculous, having gone through immense hurdles to make it to the top spot in Africa and Oceania, as well as being the first Nigerian in history to make it to the top five in the competition.

Prior to being crowned Miss Universe Nigeria, Chidimma had ranked highly in the same competition in South Africa. However, the announcement of her shortlisting raised eyebrows when South Africans noticed that her name was not only foreign but specifically Nigerian. As well, a video that surfaced after her win showing her Nigerian uncles celebrating her win raised several xenophobic antennae. Consequently, Chidimma’s citizenship was investigated, and it was discovered that her mother, originally from Mozambique, which was another infraction unto itself, had stolen another child’s identity to grant Chidimma South African citizenship. As a result, Chidimma was stripped of the title, which was granted to an Afrikaner contestant, Mia Le Roux. Much celebration ensued from South Africans upon this new crowning. The irony was completely lost on the locals.

That Chidimma went on to participate in the Nigerian version of the competition, won, and kept winning internationally, is quite the unconventional success story. However, the circumstances behind her being stripped of her position in South Africa raises multiple questions for the rainbow nation. Much diligence and ire went into demanding that she shows remorse for the crime committed by her mother when Chidimma herself was a child. Similarly, a lot of effort went into ensuring not only that Chidimma lost her place at Miss Universe South Africa, but that both she and her mother were stripped of their citizenship. For a country where the white minority owns the most land, and Black people are still relegated to certain sections of the country, perhaps the energy was being expended in the wrong direction.

Understandably, hard economic times often lead to a crabs-in-a-barrel mentality, with anger being taken out at those with whom one is fighting for sparse resources. This is the reason why, in a country like South Africa, xenophobia is so common. The Black majority has been left to fight for limited resources, and the addition of Black people from other countries, straining what is already limited, generates anger and, sometimes, even violence. Even so, the specific anger directed at Nigerians in South Africa as well as here, in Kenya, is worrying.

In fact, while South Africa’s brand of xenophobia targets Nigerians and Zimbabweans, leaving the white minority to peacefully continue dispossessing indigenous South Africans, Kenya’s xenophobia, targets Nigerians and Somalis.

Kenyans ought to learn a lesson from the case of South Africa, rather than actively work to commit the same xenophobic harm here that we see abroad. Both countries must gain a deeper understanding of where the problems really lie. It will never be the case that, in a country where resources are in the hands of an elite minority, the foreigner who comes into the country seeking a better life is one’s true enemy.

If anything, we ought to consider those who emigrate as our allies and question who borders, citizenship, and movement restrictions really serve. How can it that the colonisers maintained citizenship after independence, but migrants from neighbouring Mozambique and Zimbabwe are treated with such suspicion and denied access to the country? Similarly, for Kenya, why is it that we are so suspicious of migrants from neighbouring Somalia?

Chidimma’s struggle and ultimate success is a call to all Africans to rethink how we treat one another, and whom we grant unquestioned preferential treatment. In an ideal future Africans should be granted unfettered movement across the continent, rather than being treated with suspicion and getting rejected within their own home continent.

Ms Gitahi is an international lawyer