Former Miss Universe Nigeria Chidinma Adetshina has broken her silence on the deportation battle that has consumed her year, telling reporters outside a Cape Town courtroom that she has been unfairly singled out as the case grinds toward a resolution that is now more than five months away.
The saga began in 2024, when Adetshina, born in Soweto to a Nigerian father and Mozambican mother, entered the Miss South Africa pageant and questions were raised over her citizenship. South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs later opened an investigation, alleging irregularities in identity documents linked to Adetshina and her mother, and eventually withdrew her South African papers. She was arrested on June 6 at the Lebombo border post on allegations of illegally entering the country, and has since made repeated court appearances as her legal team fights to keep her from being deported.
Her lawyers argue that she has deep, demonstrable ties to South Africa, having been born there and also given birth to her own son in the country, and say her immigration status should be regularised rather than resolved through deportation. The state maintains she currently has no valid legal status. On August 19, the Cape Town Regional Court adjourned the matter yet again, this time pushing a decision on both her immigration status and her bid to avoid detention all the way to February 27, 2027.
That hearing turned tense when members of anti-immigration groups Operation Dudula and March and March gathered outside the courthouse, surrounding the vehicle believed to be carrying Adetshina and hurling traffic cones at it as she was rushed away. Addressing the case publicly for the first time since, Adetshina urged South Africans to embrace the spirit of Ubuntu rather than xenophobia, insisting she has cooperated fully with every stage of the legal process and thanking her family and legal team for standing by her. Her comments drew a sharply divided reaction online, with many South African users pushing back hard against her framing of the dispute.
With the case now unresolved until early 2027, Adetshina’s immigration status, and her ability to remain with her son in the only country she has ever called home, stays in limbo for months to come.
