Nigeria once again proved itself to the world as the home of beauty, elegance and excellence over the past weekend when Chidimma Vanessa Adetshina, who represented our country, emerged as the first runner-up of this year's Miss Universe pageant.
The event which took place at the Arena Ciudad in Mexico City, Mexico, saw 21-year-old Miss Denmark, Viktoria Kjaer Theivlig, an entrepreneur, dancer and animal activist emerge as the winner. Adetshina was, however, crowned the winner for the Africa and Oceania Regions. It featured 130 contestants, a record which towered over the 73rd edition in 2018 which featured 94 beauties.
Nigeria first announced herself as the home of beauty when in 2001, Ibiagbanidokibubo Asenite ("Agbani") Darego, won the Miss World contest.
What made Chidimma's story special was that it once again exposed the odious matters of tribalism and xenophobia which are among factors keeping Africa backward. Chidimma was born of a Nigerian father and a Mozambican mother in South Africa about 23 years ago.
She was brought up in that country, but started experiencing unbroken streams of online bullying when it became obvious that she would win the Miss Universe contest and represent South Africa.
This rejection forced her to relocate to Nigeria, where she easily won the contest. The white lady who represented South Africa, Mia Le Roux, suddenly dropped out in Mexico due to alleged "health concerns", which sent the vibrant Nigerian online community agog with claims of "karma at work".
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We congratulate Nigerians for their collective and patriotic response in solidarity throughout the competition. South Africa is notorious for the violent, xenophobic proclivities of its Black population. Nigeria is a primary target of this ugly attitude, despite the fact that we stood in the forefront for the liberation of the Black South Africans from the Apartheid regime.
Nigeria remains a fertile ground for South African multinationals. All we get for our "big brother" and avuncular gestures from South Africans, especially its Black population, are malicious, violent and hateful xenophobia.
Unfortunately, South Africa is not the only African country that behaves like this. The recent experience of our Super Eagles in Libya once again illustrated this. Sadly enough, even we in Nigeria treat fellow Nigerians who do not share our ethnic, religious, regional or state-origin attributes with similar exclusionary reflexes.
We falsely pontificate "One Nigeria" but adopt the unconstitutional "State of Origin" doctrine to exclude fellow Nigerians from the full benefits of their citizenship. In like manner, Africans parrot "African unity" but never practise it.
In Europe and America which we mimic, inclusion is so advanced that non-White politicians like Barack Obama, Rishi Sunak, Kemi Badenoch and others, have emerged to lead simply because they were born there.
Africa can never grow if we continue like this.
