Tyla has quietly pulled her planned Lagos show from the upcoming A*POP World Tour, following an intense social media backlash and growing diplomatic strain between Nigeria and South Africa.
The announcement on Monday of her December 22 headline concert in Lagos was positioned as a major highlight of Nigeria’s year-end “Detty December” festivities. However, a check on her official website on Friday confirmed that the Lagos date has been scrubbed entirely, leaving her African leg restricted to Cape Town and Johannesburg in early 2027.
Neither Tyla nor her management team has released a formal statement regarding the cancellation.
The backlash gained rapid momentum across X, Instagram and TikTok, fuelled by ongoing frustration among Nigerians over reported xenophobic attacks against foreign nationals in South Africa, including the recent death of Nigerian citizen Chika Ibe in Cape Town, and the artist’s silence on the matter.
Online petitions demanding a total ban on Tyla’s performance until violence against foreign nationals subsides gathered thousands of signatures within days.
Social media commentator Martins Vincent Otse (VeryDarkMan) threatened physical protests through his “Ratel Movement” to prevent the concert, flatly stating, “Tyla’s show will not happen in Nigeria.”
Media personality Do2dtun called directly on the Nigeria Immigration Service to deny entry visas to Tyla and her team. Public figures like Solomon Buchi also urged followers to boycott the event entirely.
The abrupt removal of the Lagos tour stop triggered immediate, fiery counter-reactions from South African social media users, sharpening the cross-border digital divide:
“See Nigerians trying to stop Tyla from performing in Lagos… If that happens, we want each and every Nigerian gone with immediate effect. We still have more than 500,000 Nigerians in South Africa… we will make sure there is no Nigerian in our country if Tyla’s show gets cancelled.” — @Abahambekr via X
Other prominent posts echoed calls for cultural and economic separation, with user @LeslyJohn7 posting, “SA has one job now; no Nigerian artist should ever perform in SA, period!” and @Tyger1960 writing, “Tyla is good. She removed Lagos from her tour. Now it’s time for SA and Nigeria to accept they don’t like each other and cut all diplomatic ties.”
The social media feud unfolds against broader diplomatic friction involving visa policies and artist mobility. Prominent Nigerian voices, including Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan and former Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole, have urged the Nigerian government to enforce strict visa reciprocity against South African creatives.
This follows reports that Nigerian star Ayra Starr and her team were allegedly denied entry visas to South Africa in early 2024, forcing concert promoter Steyn Entertainment to cancel her scheduled performances in Johannesburg and Cape Town.
However, South African Consul-General to Nigeria, Prof. Bobby Moroe, reportedly rejected claims of deliberate visa denial, stating that immigration authorities have no record of any application or rejection under Starr’s name and inviting promoters to submit reference details for verification.