The recent online spat between South Africa and Nigeria, fueled by a controversial beauty pageant and long-running hostilities, has left e-hailing apps and their drivers counting significant losses. What began as a social media prank quickly escalated into a cross-border debacle, impacting drivers, passengers, and the ride-hailing companies themselves.
The roots of this peculiar episode can be traced to the withdrawal of Chidimma Adetshina, a model with Nigerian and Mozambican heritage, from the Miss South Africa beauty pageant. Adetshinas exit followed a wave of xenophobic abuse directed at her due to her Nigerian parentage.
While Adetshina accepted an invitation to participate in a similar contest in Nigeria, the incident inflamed long-standing tensions between South Africans and Nigerians, who often perceive each other as economic competitors.
Things Go SouthThe situation took a strange turn on August 21, when Uber and Bolt users in South Africa began booking fake rides in Nigeria. The intention was simple: prank drivers in the other country by sending them on wild goose chases. Once a booking was confirmed, the pranksters would send misleading location details before eventually cancelling the ride.
Screenshots of these pranks soon surfaced on social media, encouraging more users to join the fray. By the following day, Nigerians had started retaliating with their own fake bookings in South Africa. What had begun as a few isolated incidents quickly spiralled into a high-volume, cross-border trolling campaign that wreaked havoc on ride-hailing services in both countries.
