Nigeria, Oct. 13 -- "Ah, that man is very detribalised."

In Nigeria, this is almost always a compliment.

It is what we say about the politician who has friends from every part of the country, the businessman whose boardroom is a miniature Nigeria, the public servant who does not appoint only people from her village, or the man who married a woman from another ethnic group. He eats everybody's food, speaks a few Nigerian languages and feels at home anywhere in the country.

He is, we say approvingly, so detribalised.

Except that detribalised does not mean any of those things.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines detribalise as "to make members of a tribe stop following their traditional customs or social structure." (I checked. No dictiona...