Nigeria, Sept. 23 -- Your Excellency, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen

Let me say it plainly before I get sentimental: I accept the Order of Timor-Leste with profound humility. To be honoured by a nation that turned occupation into independence, and grief into government, is not something an Ijebu boy will ever forget.

I first heard of Timor-Leste not in a classroom, but from a friend from Irian Jaya, while I was a broke PhD student at UCLA and doing field research in Pakistan. I want you to sit with that geography for a moment - a Nigerian in Pakistan learning about Timor-Leste from an Indonesian. If that is not proof that the world is one small, gossiping village, I do not know what is. But something about your struggle for ...