Nigeria, July 19 -- I like to think that I'm a citizen of the world. Truthfully, I have not been raised to have racial or ethnic boundaries, even as I've been socialised to appreciate the beauty of my culture and the refreshing diversity observable among humankind.

If I could poach a linguistic invention, which I first encountered through Professor Wole Soyinka's fount of creativity (in which the noun "wife" is converted into a verb), I'd say that my adventurous father almost wifed an Irish woman in Lagos in the 40s but for his own father's threat of disinheritance.

"As long as I live, you shall not dilute my blood with that of white people," his father, a traditional chief, had decreed.

The lady in question eventually left Nigeria unw...