Miss Universe Nigeria 2024: How Nigerians ‘abandoned’ Chidimma Adetshina
Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 participant, Chidimma Adetshina, may not realise her dream of recompense for her recent ordeal in the Miss South Africa 2024, after Nigerians abandoned her in the contest—with the winner set to emerge tonight.
All roads lead to the Convention Centre of the Eko Hotel and Suites, Victoria Island, Lagos, as the Miss Universe Nigeria 2024 pageant, in which she is representing Taraba State, holds there amid fun fair.
Chidinma Adetshina was invited by the organizers to participate in this year’s edition after she withdrew from the Miss South Africa 2024 pageant, following social media uproar about her eligibility to participate in the pageant because of her nationality.
Chidinma Adetshina withdrew from the Miss South Africa 2024, as one of the front-runners, after South Africans adopted a scripted playbook over her eligibility and nationality of her parents—with her father said to have Nigerian root and her mum from Zimbabwe.
The development led to war between Nigerians and South Africans on social media—a battle ground where Nigerians do not suffer defeat. The fiasco in the digital space further degenerated into citizens of both countries taking the feud to a whole new level never imagined or witnessed before—all because of Chidinma Adetshina.
However, rather than rally behind Chidinma Adetshina—the subject of the whole social media furore, Nigerians were fixated on paying back South Africans with shenanigans on various platforms. The ones who voted chose Miss Kwara, Ufa Dania—who amassed 28.93 percent of the votes, as against Miss Adetshina—who in spite of the international condemnation that greeted her unwarranted treatment by South Africans, only garnered 26.92 percent of the votes, with voting ending on Friday night.
Nigerians simply failed to help her win the Miss Universe Nigeria 2024—which would have been the biggest slap in the face of the Miss South Africa 2024 organisers, invaluable victory for Chidinma Adetshina’s aspirations, those who sympathized with her, and Nigerian citizens—who unwittingly focused on the wrong side of payback to the South Africans.
