By The South African government has denied claims that Nigerian singer Ayra Starr and her team were denied visas to enter the country, a controversy that has now spilt over into a wider diplomatic standoff between Abuja and Pretoria, with South African star Tyla quietly pulling Lagos from her world tour schedule.
South Africa’s Consul-General to Nigeria, Professor Bobby Moroe, addressed the visa allegations in an interview, stating that immigration authorities had no record of any application or rejection tied to the singer or her entourage. He asked that anyone making the allegation forward the names and application reference numbers of those affected so the mission could investigate, noting that immigration officials “were not aware of the application or the rejection.”
The controversy gained political weight after prominent Nigerians, including former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole and Kogi Central Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan, called on the Federal Government to review visa processing for South African artists and their entourages on a reciprocal basis. Akpoti-Uduaghan argued that if it were confirmed that Starr’s team had indeed been turned away, Nigeria should respond in kind “until Nigerian citizens and artistes are accorded fair and respectful treatment.”
According to findings, the visa dispute traces back to February 2024, when Starr and her team were said to have been denied entry ahead of scheduled performances in Johannesburg and Cape Town. The concert organiser, Steyn Entertainment, attributed the cancellations to the visa refusals at the time, with the company’s Managing Director, Dale De Ruig, explaining that the situation had played out “numerous times with other artistes from West Africa” despite efforts to secure the necessary documentation, and confirming that ticket holders would be refunded in full. Attempts to reach Starr directly for comment were unsuccessful, as an email sent to an address on her official Instagram page had not been answered by press time.
Tyla Withdraws From Lagos Leg of World Tour
As the dispute over Starr’s visa status escalated, Grammy-winning South African singer Tyla removed Lagos from her world tour itinerary, a stop that would have marked her first headline concert in Nigeria and one of the anticipated highlights of the country’s festive December season.
The Lagos date, initially announced earlier in the week, drew immediate backlash from Nigerians who criticized Tyla’s silence over the wave of xenophobic violence targeting Nigerians in South Africa, including the death of Nigerian national Chika Ibe in Cape Town. Public figures and online activists mounted pressure against the show going ahead, with one social media organizer threatening to physically block the concert and a broadcaster calling on Nigerian immigration authorities to withhold visas from Tyla and her crew. An online petition demanding the concert be cancelled until the attacks in South Africa stopped drew thousands of signatures.
By the time our correspondents checked her official tour website, the December 22 Lagos date had been quietly removed, even as her stops across Europe, North America, Cape Town and Johannesburg remained unchanged. Neither Tyla nor her management issued a public statement explaining the withdrawal.
The cancellation triggered a fresh wave of hostility online, with a segment of South African social media users celebrating the outcome and, in some cases, issuing threats against the sizeable Nigerian community resident in South Africa, reportedly numbering more than 500,000. Some posts framed the backlash against Tyla’s Lagos show as justification for mass expulsion, while others called for a complete diplomatic and social split between citizens of both countries. AfrikTimes is not reproducing the more inflammatory language circulating in these posts, given their threatening and xenophobic character, but the volume and tone of the reaction revealed how quickly the celebrity dispute had folded into the broader diplomatic rift.
Former Envoy Says Tension Made Cancellation Inevitable
Reacting to the development, a former Nigerian Consul to Cameroon, Rasheed Akinkuolie, said withdrawing Lagos from Tyla’s itinerary was an unsurprising outcome given how strained relations between Nigeria and South Africa currently are. He argued that staging cultural events between the two countries at this point risked the safety of participants and maintained that South Africa ought to compensate Nigerians who lost lives, businesses, and property during the recent unrest.
Akinkuolie also criticized how South African authorities handled immigration enforcement during the crisis, arguing that it could have been carried out without allowing mobs to attack Nigerians and destroy property. He disclosed that Nigeria, alongside Ghana and Zimbabwe, was considering pursuing legal redress at the International Criminal Court to deter similar incidents in the future, and warned that Nigeria could explore measures such as seizing South African assets within its borders if compensation demands go unmet.
No Formal Word From Tyla’s Camp, Says South African Consul-General
Responding specifically to the Tyla cancellation, Moroe said his mission had not received any formal notification from the singer’s promoters, adding that officials had only seen the reports circulating on social media and could neither confirm nor deny them. He maintained that diplomatic ties between the two countries remained intact despite the online tension, pointing to a recent meeting between Nigeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and South Africa’s Minister of International Relations and Cooperation as evidence of both governments’ willingness to work through their differences.
Nigeria Renews Compensation Demand for Xenophobia Victims
Separately, the Federal Government has pressed South Africa to act on the Memorandum of Understanding establishing an Early Warning Mechanism meant to prevent future attacks on foreign nationals, while renewing its call for compensation for Nigerians who lost property during the recent xenophobic violence. A source within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Nigeria expects South Africa to move from commitments to concrete action, and that compensation for affected Nigerians remains a non-negotiable demand.
The renewed pressure follows diplomatic engagements that began after a South African delegation led by Minister Ronald Lamola arrived in Abuja on the directive of President Cyril Ramaphosa to meet President Bola Tinubu. Tinubu did not receive the delegation as planned, and the team remained in Abuja over the weekend awaiting an opportunity to hold talks. Following a phone conversation between Ramaphosa and Tinubu, the Nigerian President directed Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sola Enikanolaiye to meet with the visiting envoys in his place.
(Punch Newspapers)
