Former Beauty Queen Fights to Stay in Country She Calls Home as Court Delays Ruling

CAPE TOWN, July 20, 2026. Chidimma Adetshina walked out of the Cape Town Regional Court on Monday and into a crowd of protesters demanding she be deported from the country where she says she was born. The court postponed its judgment on her immigration status and her bid to stop detention pending deportation, pushing the next hearing to February 27, 2027. Until then, she remains free.

For Adetshina, a law student turned pageant contestant, the delay is a reprieve. It is not a resolution.

Additional reference context is available at https://www.bbc.com/pidgin/articles/c3ekl4y0zxlo.

Standing outside the courthouse after the hearing, her words carried both defiance and exhaustion. “I wan remind everyone say na South Africa dem born me. I don apply through di proper legal channels to determine my status and citizenship,” she said. She accused authorities of trying to make an example of her, framing the case as a test of how the country treats its own people. “We no suppose allow xenophobia and misinformation to determine how pipo go dey treated,” she added, a direct reference to the anti-migrant protesters who had gathered outside calling for her removal. As she left the building, demonstrators ran after her car.

That protest was organised by the group March and March, which has positioned itself at the forefront of campaigns against undocumented migrants in South Africa.

The roots of the case stretch back two years. Adetshina was a law student when she withdrew from the Miss South Africa competition in 2024, a decision that triggered intense scrutiny of her citizenship and immigration status. She left South Africa that year and went on to win the Miss Universe Nigeria pageant after organisers invited her to participate. Her departure and that victory only deepened the official investigation into who, legally, she is.

The South African Department of Home Affairs has moved to deport her on several grounds. Officials argue that she applied for a South African visa while in Nigeria, holding Nigerian passports for herself and her minor son, which they say indicates she is not a South African citizen. They also contend she returned to South Africa illegally, entering through the Lebombo border post from Mozambique on June 15, 2024, while presenting herself as a South African citizen.

The timeline of official action has been swift. In September 2024, Home Affairs Minister Dr Leon Schreiber wrote to Adetshina notifying her of the department’s intention to cancel her identity documents. He noted that she had obtained a Nigerian passport while still in Nigeria before applying for a South African visitor visa, which was rejected because she submitted what he described as fraudulent bank statements. She did not appeal the rejection. By December 2024, Schreiber had declared her a prohibited person under the Immigration Act, a status that bars her from obtaining any visa or permit to remain in South Africa.

Meanwhile, her legal team has mounted a direct challenge to that determination. They argue that she was born in South Africa, that her minor son was also born here, and that her immigration status should be regularised based on these facts and her application through proper legal channels.

The law, though, presents a complication. Being born in South Africa does not automatically confer citizenship. One parent must be a South African citizen or permanent resident for a child born in the country to acquire citizenship by birth. That distinction sits at the heart of the dispute.

The case also involves allegations against Adetshina’s mother, Anabela Rungo, whom authorities have accused of committing identity fraud to gain South African nationality. Those allegations contributed to the decision to strip Adetshina of her South African identity and travel documents in 2024.

In June, South African authorities arrested Adetshina on allegations that she had entered the country illegally. The Department of Home Affairs’ central law enforcement office had been investigating her whereabouts and found that she and her minor son were allegedly living in South Africa without legal status. An immigration official named Jackson filed an affidavit with the court seeking to confirm her detention for deportation purposes, arguing she had “wilfully and intentionally” remained in the country unlawfully in violation of the Immigration Act.

Her minor son, also born on South African soil, sits at the centre of that claim too. His status, like hers, remains unresolved.

The February 2027 hearing will determine whether the Home Affairs deportation decision stands or whether her application for status review succeeds. Until that date, Adetshina’s life remains suspended between two nations. The open question is whether the legal channels she says she has followed will prove enough to settle, once and for all, where she belongs.