David Ochayi
(Tyla. Image credit: Daily Post)
Grammy-winning South African songstress Tyla Laura Seethal, popularly known as Tyla, has quietly removed Lagos from her APOP World Tour schedule following vocal demands from Nigerian social media users to cancel her concert over rising xenophobic incidents against Nigerians in her home country.
An examination of the artist’s official tour listing on Friday showed the December 22 Lagos performance had mysteriously vanished from the itinerary.
While European, American and other African tour dates remained intact in the revised schedule, Nigeria was conspicuously absent from the destinations.
This change comes barely weeks after Tyla proudly announced Lagos as her sole Nigerian stop on the tour, framing it as the prelude to the grand finale shows in Cape Town (January 4) and Johannesburg (January 9).
The initial announcement sparked fierce online debates among Nigerians, with one camp demanding total cancellation of her Nigerian show especially with ongoing reported cases of South African mobs targeting Nigerian immigrants.
However, another faction defended the musician, maintaining that entertainers shouldn’t bear the brunt of political tensions between nations or be punished for crimes committed by rogue elements in their societies.
The heated exchange escalated when activist Omoyele Sowore, African Action Congress’s 2027 presidential hopeful, weighed in, challenging the logic behind scapegoating a music artist for systemic xenophobic violence.
In a fiery social media thread, Sowore pushed back against the boycott calls, urging protesters to instead confront the real architects of their frustration, while insisting that Tyla’s musical prowess should be celebrated rather than censured for unrelated social ills.
The controversy took a darker turn when controversial digital activist Martins Otse (a.k.a VeryDarkMan) pledged to unleash his “Ratel Movement” to physically prevent the concert, vowing: “No South African artist will enjoy Nigerian hospitality while our brothers burn in Johannesburg townships.”
His video manifesto, which went viral across platforms, directly addressed South Africans while justifying his stance with harrowing accounts of recent xenophobic murders including the killing of Chika Ibe in Cape Town – all under hashtags denouncing Afrophobic violence.
This rising outcry coincides with disturbing new reports from South Africa’s Western Cape, where Nigerian community leaders claim at least three more compatriots fell victim to xenophobic assaults this month alone.
