“You Are Not a Citizen”: South Africans Tear Into Chidimma Adetshina’s “Our Courts” Remark

South Africans on X have turned their anger toward specific phrases Chidimma Adetshina used in her first public statement since a Cape Town court postponed her deportation case, with her reference to “our courts” drawing the sharpest criticism.

A Cape Town regional court postponed judgment on Adetshina’s immigration status and her application to avoid detention on Wednesday, 19 August 2026. The case was rescheduled to 27 February 2027. Outside the courthouse, protesters from Operation Dudula and March and March surrounded a car believed to be carrying her and threw traffic cones at it before she was driven away.

Speaking to reporters after the hearing, Adetshina said she had been treated unfairly.

“I believe that I have been treated unfairly and targeted, and there has been an attempt to make me as an example,” she said.

She said her message came from a place of composure rather than anger, and asked South Africans to apply the principle of Ubuntu rather than what she called xenophobia and misinformation.

“South Africa is governed by the rule of law, and we should not allow xenophobia and misinformation to determine how people are going to be treated,” she said.

Adetshina, Nigeria’s Miss Universe first runner-up, addressed the reporters, saying she was grateful for the chance to have faith in the courts and reminding people she was born in South Africa.

“I would like to say that I am once again grateful that I have been able to get an opportunity to have my faith in our courts,” she said.

That line became the focus of the online backlash. X user @Zweli_Thixo, whose breakdown of her statement drew over 14,800 views, argued the phrasing itself proved the point.

“You are not a citizen,” he wrote, insisting she should have called them South African courts.

His post moved point by point through her remarks, drawing sharp distinctions between her having been born in the country and the legality of the documentation for that birth. He rejected her plea for Ubuntu as a substitute for law, writing that South Africa runs on statute, not communal philosophy, and that legal entry should come first.

Other users picked up similar threads. X user @Validator365 asked which specific legal provision granted her citizenship if both parents were foreign nationals when she was born, and called for the alleged identity fraud in her documents to be properly investigated. User @drifter1664 accused her of holding Nigerian citizenship to compete in Miss Nigeria before reasserting a South African claim once that ended, an allegation not confirmed by any official source. User @yilu_ultra alleged, without evidence, that she paid a bribe to re-enter South Africa through Mozambique.

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Adetshina’s underlying case concerns allegations that her birth documents were obtained using another person’s stolen identity, a matter South African authorities have not resolved. Her statement asked the public to let the rule of law, not xenophobia, decide the outcome.

“South Africa is governed by the rule of law, and we should not allow xenophobia and misinformation to determine how people are going to be treated,” she said.

The rescheduled hearing leaves her citizenship and residency status undetermined until February 2027.