After Investigations Home Affairs Releases Preliminary Findings on Chidimma Adetshina’s Citizenship

After Investigations Home Affairs Releases Preliminary Findings on Chidimma Adetshina’s Citizenship. Over the past weeks there has been divisions in the country with regards to Adetshina Chidimma participating in Miss South Africa 2024. This is mainly because of her Nigerian roots.

Many South Africans have argued that the model is not South African, hence, she is not elegible to participate. There are some however, who states that Chidimma is South African, since she was born here, and has the documents that qualify her. Among those are Professor Thuli Madonsela. A couple of days back, the advocate shared some acts, that shows that Chidimma, is well within her rights to participate in Miss South Africa. Madonsela stated that the contestant is a South African by birth, according to s(2)(1) of the Citizens Act. She asked fellow citizens to thus support all the contestants.

After much pressure from the public, Home Affairs has now entered the chat. In a statement released on Wednesday evening, the department said it started its investigation to clarify Chidimma’s status after receiving consent from her and her mother.

Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreibersaid, “From the information we have uncovered thus far, the Department of Home Affairs can indicate that prima facie reasons exist to believe that fraud and identity theft may have been committed by the person recorded in Home Affairs records as Chidimma Adetshina’s mother. Adetshina herself could not have participated in the alleged unlawful actions of her mother as she was an infant at the time the activities took place in 2001. An innocent South African mother, whose identity may have been stolen as part of the alleged fraud, suffered as a result because she could not register her child.”